01x03 - Mammón

[bunniefuu]

STAGE 0

A VIXEN STANDS TRIAL

Helen of Sparta,

Helen of Troy,

Argive Helen,

Achaean Helen,

the divine amongst women,

the daughter of Zeus,

the woman with snow-white arms,

the woman with golden locks,

the most beautiful woman in the world,

the beautiful Helen.

That's me.

What?

Are any of you immune
to the ravages of time?

Has any immortal soul come to see me,

any deity safe from the ruin of beauty?

Dad,

are you in the audience?

Call out, almighty Zeus,
so I can recognise you.

If anyone has a swan sitting next
to them don't shoo it away, it's my dad.

No, he isn't here,

he's at home.

The gods became bored
of this world long ago

and they retreated to their mansions
to stuff themselves with ambrosia.

So much the better...

the less the gods
play around in the world

all the better for the world.

Although today

I'm the one who's here to play around.

If, amid the ruins of time,
you cannot make out

Helen's divine beauty,

maybe you will
with the other names I'm known by:

Helen the vixen,

and not precisely as a crafty animal,

Helen the sl*t,

the coquette,

the prost*tute,

the harlot,

the brazen woman, the seductress,

the woman possessed
by the frenzy of Aphrodite,

the female playboy,
which rhymes with Troy.

The ruin of Ilium
and the House of Atreus.

She who caused the breakout
of the most famous w*r in history...

I could be considered
a mass destruction weapon.

And of course,
a whole city had to be destroyed

and its inhabitants wiped out
in order to find me.

A noble and humanitarian pastime

that hasn't been lost
over the centuries.

Tonight, I shall voluntarily
subject myself to your judgment

despite having been condemned
beforehand.

But tonight

the words that will shape the events
will be my words.

Words, words, words...

The word.

The word is a powerful sovereign,

which, with a tiny and invisible body,

carries out absolutely divine works.

Right?

It can eliminate fear,

suppress sadness,

instil joy,

raise compassion,

send through its hearers

a shudder fraught with fear,

tearful compassion

and an almost pain-like longing,

in such a way that through words
the soul experiences

its own passion

due to adversity or happiness

in matters or people
beyond one's concern.

This evening,
I shall be the one to choose the words.

This evening
I shall speak from this place

to which I have been condemned.

This eternal limbo

in which your memory
renders me immortal.

That fertile and imaginative space

in which I am also immortal

given that I am the daughter
of almighty Zeus.

His only daughter with a mortal woman.

Condemned by him
to eternal deterioration

to make me pay for insolently nearing
divine beauty.

An eternity of ugliness

to suffer for my sins,

father?

How do you pay for yours,

almighty god?

Who gives you penances
to make amends for your mistakes,

your arbitrariness, your injustice

and the terrible acts
that your name has inspired?

I turn against you,

almighty god
and I demand justice.

Helen's trial shall begin.

The great vixen stands trial.

You will be the people's jury.

If, after hearing my story,
you find me innocent,

I demand to be forgotten.

I just want...

to disappear into the air.

I want...

to fade away

like the mist over the river at sunrise.

You're so terrified of oblivion,

the most vain of all the stars!

Because you know
that nothing can be done,

not even by you, cloud gatherer,

to escape from the pit of oblivion

into which humans throw
whatever is of no interest to them.

I shall give them reasons,

should they not have enough already,

to turn their backs on you
and forget your name.

And if they forget the word to call god,

god will cease to exist.

But hey, no drama...

This...
keeps me out of pain's reach.

Together with wine,

I mix a potion which my Egyptian friend
Polydamna showed me.

Whoever drinks it will not shed a tear
for a whole day.

Your children or your parents
can be slayed before your eyes

and you'll watch them bleeding to death
as if watching the rain.

It's fabulous!

If I were to see Ulysses again,
whose mercy was as short as his legs,

or the crazy Neoptolemus,
Achilles' offspring,

throwing Hector and Andromache's young
son from the highest tower in Troy,

I'd watch as if nothing had happened.

The tender bones of a child

that had barely learned to walk,

smashed against the hard ground.

Insensitive.

I drink at all hours.

This is the true ambrosia
of the powerful.

I adore this lethargic insensitivity.

The sign of your time.

Though it is no longer sufficient.

I want to rest.

I want silence.

I want to cease being.

My birth is a mystery.

It is said that Zeus fell in love
with Leda, queen of Sparta.

To escape from the obsessive
watchful eye of Hera,

his legitimate wife,

Zeus, the great quick-change artist,
transformed into a swan to possess her.

As a result of the bird-like coupling,

poor Leda laid two eggs...

like the ba*ls the almighty god
didn't have to face his wife.

Take it easy, son of Cronus,
this is only the beginning!

My brothers Castor and Pollux
hatched from the first egg.

I hatched from the second.

I was born out of an egg...

a blue one to be precise.

Isn't that incredible?

It isn't any more unlikely than almighty
god coming down to a virgin

in the form of a dove, after being
announced by a winged cherub,

and making her pregnant
without her losing her virginity.

Different name but the same god,

the same fixation
about other men's wives

and the same avian perversion.

Objection overruled!

Imagine Tyndareus' face,

the powerful king of Sparta,

when he saw poor Leda, his beautiful
wife, arriving at the palace

with an egg under each arm

and her thighs covered in feathers.

How they must have mocked him!

He must have swallowed so much pride
on hearing the voices of his subjects

shouting with laughter
during public acts,

"Show us your chicks!

Put a short lead on your goose,
the swan drives her crazy!"

It can be so harmful,
that tendency of human masses

to behave like one single idiot.

I hope I have a less compact mass today.

When we broke open the shell

and Tyndareus saw
my brothers' faces and mine,

his sorrow was eased.

Apparently we were the most beautiful
children any person had ever seen.

Me, in particular.

Blessed with Aphrodite's gift of beauty.

If beauty, as Sappho said,

is what a person loves,

I was never beautiful

because I was never loved.

I was desired,

lusted after,

kidnapped,

forced,

r*ped,

shaken by Eros

like the wind that buffets
the oak trees on the mountains

and thus, broken

and subjected to his will.

And I fell in love

and I followed the man
whom I thought loved me

and he was beautiful to my eyes.

And if truth is beauty
and beauty is truth...

everything was a lie and ugliness.

Well, no...

Not everything.

There was a time in which Paris...

Paris...

Poor mortals,

incapable of remembering the past,

focusing on the present
or predicting the future!

There is an inscription
in the temple in Delphi that reads:

"the most precise
is the most beautiful."

But, what is precise

in this world that came from a belch
from the throat of the yawning Chaos?

I was kept away from the masses
to feed the legend.

Tyndareus, my putative father,

immediately realised that in the future
he could trade with my beauty

and do good business with my marriage.

I was scarcely allowed to leave
the palace and when I did,

I was covered by a veil,

thus, the people of Sparta
began to think

that perhaps I had inherited
a swan's beak from my father,

or I was covered in feathers

or I had a pair of wings
instead of arms.

"There goes Zeus' chick!"

I'd hear as I walked by.

I was only unveiled
for distinguished visitors.

And that was how the legend
about my beauty began to take shape.

At one of those receptions,

when I was barely nine years old,

I was presented before Theseus.

The great hero of Attica had come
with his friend Pirithous

drawn by his curiosity about my beauty.

Both had sworn in secret
to marry daughters of Zeus

and they had come to Sparta
to examine the merchandise.

That very night, Theseus kidnapped me.

Legend has it,

one ought to seriously check
who writes history,

that my brothers rescued me at once,

without Theseus having the opportunity
to take my virginity.

It took them almost a year to find me.

A year in which Theseus,
who had already turned fifty,

turned me into his sex toy.

The great hero of Attica, the star
of hundreds of legends and poems,

screwed a nine-year-old girl

with the added morbid belief that with
his rod he would reach Mount Olympus.

When he got bored of me
he went off with the brainless Pirithous

to the realms of Hades
to look for Persephone.

These heroes,

always in search of big thrills.

My brothers found me

five months pregnant.

Tyndareus, who was still prepared to make
the most of the fruits of being cuckolded,

thought that it would be best
to pass the child-to-be-born off

as the daughter
of my sister Clytemnestra.

My sister Clytemnestra

was forced to marry Agamemnon

after he had m*rder*d Tantalus,
her first husband,

and their son,
whom my sister was still breastfeeding.

My sister went down in history
as her husband's b*tch murderess

whilst the dickhead Agamemnon went down
in history as the conqueror of Troy.

I repeat,

who writes history?

Iphigenia

was the name they gave
to the baby girl I gave birth to.

I can't remember her face.

But I know that sometime after

Agamemnon had no qualms whatsoever
about sacrificing her to the gods

when they ordered him to do so
in exchange for sending favourable winds

to the Greek expedition
which was leaving to conquer Troy.

Let's pause for a drink...

I don't know if I'll have
enough potion to make it to the end.

At the age of fourteen, my putative
father thought I was ready to get married

and the farce of the suitors began.

Men came from all over to meet
the most beautiful woman in the world.

All of whom were convinced
they were my best option.

Even Ulysses tried his luck.

Such an unpleasant man.

Well, of course his return home
from Troy would be an odyssey.

With such short legs,
taking a step must have been a miracle.

But he was as sly as a fox.

Always paying attention
to what was going on to take advantage.

He had the idea

of making all my suitors swear
that they would respect my choice

and that they would defend
that marriage with their lives

should anyone try to intervene in it.

In exchange

he received Tyndareus' support
to marry my cousin Penelope.

Penelope

the quintessence of faithfulness.

The woman who waited 20 years
for her husband's return...

I'll tell you some gossip I've heard,
eternity leaves me a lot of free time.

Not only did she wait for him,

she pounded the duck with the 129
suitors that had moved into the palace.

And from that seminal concoction,
the god Pan was born,

that deity that screws
anything that breathes.

But Ulysses always got away with things
and he figured out a way

to avoid going down in history
as the short-legged stag that he was.

You see, who writes history!

All my suitors accepted
the clause that he'd come up with.

After all, it was in their interest.
Thus, if they were chosen,

they wouldn't have
to be on the defensive with the rest.

They would accept my choice.

Really, can anyone in their right mind
believe that I made that decision?

A woman in those days?

Heiress to the throne of Sparta
following my brothers' disappearance?

No.

The decision was made
long before that circus started.

Agamemnon,

the proud leader of Mycenae,
took charge of everything.

He wanted to control Sparta

by placing his younger brother,
Menelaus, on the throne.

And that was my choice.

After the wedding, Tyndareus abdicated
in favour of my husband.

Overnight, I saw myself
married to a perfect stranger

who was twice my age
and queen of Sparta.

Menelaus...

It's even a stupid name.

If Agamemnon was a bull,
his brother was a leading ox.

If the king of Mycenae
was a smooth-tongued braggart

convinced he was the prime example
of a superior race,

the new king of Sparta
was quiet and reserved

and he had
a terrible inferiority complex.

But both were dangerous.

Opposites always attract.

The thrill of being married
to the most beautiful woman in the world

didn't last long for my new husband.

After my experience with Theseus

I was convinced that sex was something
that men were crazy about

and that women had to suffer.

Menelaus didn't improve that concept.

He was even able to make it worse.

I was...

I was...

a lovely fourteen-year-old girl

who was mounted by a leading ox

to remind her,
at rod point, who owned her.

He possessed me with greed,

reminding me
with each of his painful thrusts

who owned me.

Until his desire waned

and he looked at me once more
with the spiteful blackness of a magpie

that has failed to steal
a sparkling gem.

Once again, I gave birth to a baby girl,

Hermione.

No,

I wasn't a good mother.

Will you condemn me for that too,
father?

You,

you didn't hesitate
to sacrifice your own children

if doing so increased your glory,

you screwed them when your desire
was stronger than your reason,

you demand others to sacrifice their own
in return for your attention.

Turn against me almighty god,

strike me down with your lightning.

You know I am no longer afraid
of your eternal punishment.

The end is near

and nothing can prevent me from
becoming dust on the path once more.

But dust in love.

Never, you hear?

You will never be loved
like I loved Paris!

I spent nine years together
with Menelaus.

He soon strayed from me.

He preferred the sl*ves' company.
Which I was enormously grateful about.

Although he visited me from time to time

desperately trying for a baby boy
that never came.

What did come

was my Trojan prince.

Paris.

I'd heard
that the Trojans were very handsome.

Tall, blonde, wearing
those cloaks with gold embroidery.

Showing off their Trojan wealth.

Paris was...

He was the most handsome man
I had ever seen.

When he looked at me

my head was filled with music.

You are

The most beautiful woman in the world

And I want to give you a brief kiss

To live in the dawn of eternity

You are

The most beautiful woman in the world

Happiness until my final breath

The love I'm experiencing today

Is the only truth

My legs went from under me,

my head was spinning

and although my brain desperately
ordered me to stop looking at him

my eyes were fixed on his

and I followed him
as if I were his shadow.

I melted.

Like a swollen river

pushed towards the sea
by the very force of its waters.

Paris was my sea

and all I could do was rush towards it
to be swallowed up by it.

Aphrodite!

Of course you made yourself up,
you vixen,

to explain
such an avalanche of emotions!

I hadn't been educated
in the use of your arts.

I didn't even know they existed.

To the point
that everything else ceased to exist.

Neither Sparta, Menelaus,
nor my parents existed,

not even my daughter.

Only Paris.
Paris, Paris, Paris...

I would have turned into a swan too,

golden rain,

a bull or a dove

just to be beside him.

But I didn't need to because I was his

and he was mine.

And he possessed me and I possessed him.

And when he said come, I followed him.

What a journey.

The close-woven veil beneath which
I had lived, blinded and gagged,

was suddenly lifted to show me life.

I discovered
the pleasure of looking, asking,

breathing, loving, screwing...

How could I have imagined

that with the same weapon with which
Theseus and Menelaus had destroyed me,

Paris would bring me back to life.

I was free!

But freedom...

like happiness

are just fleeting sensations,

destined to collide with life

or with death.

Paris wasn't highly regarded
in his native city.

Shortly before giving birth,
Hecuba dreamed

that she gave birth
to a firebrand that destroyed Troy.

It was enough to decide
that the newborn must die.

The queen mother took pity
at the last minute

and she secretly entrusted him
to some shepherds

who brought him up as their own
in the mountains surrounding Troy.

After some years, that lost boy

came to form part of the royal family
once more, by sheer chance...

or perhaps
it had been destiny's decision.

A shepherd, raised by shepherds,

suddenly finds out
he is an Oriental prince

and a whole life of privileges
had been snatched away from him.

Paris did all he could
to be like the others,

he longed to be like Hector,
his elder brother,

a proud prince of proud Troy.

But it isn't easy

to form part of a group
that looks at you like an outsider

about whom it was prophesised

that he would be the cause
of the fall of the city.

The royal family
did all it could to receive him

but the goaty smell of the new prince
was too strong.

After months of travelling,

the happiest days of my life,

at last we reached Troy.

Paris entered the royal lounge
proudly holding my hand.

Hecuba and Priam were there, arrogant
monarchs of the impregnable Troy

and all their children:

nineteen legitimate

and double the number of b*stards.
No comment.

They looked at me warily.

Though neither could hide the joy
of the idea of returning to the Greeks

the insult they suffered when Hesione,
Priam's sister, was kidnapped by them.

The prodigal son returned home
leading Helen by the hand,

the most beautiful woman in the world,
queen of Sparta,

who had succumbed
to the charms of a Trojan prince.

I didn't see one single friendly face
in the Trojan court.

Except for Priam,

who always accepted me with a smile.

Perhaps moved by the guilty complex
that stirred within him

on seeing the son he abandoned,

or perhaps because he dreamt of giving me
a b*stard child to add to his collection.

And Hector.

Hector.

My dearest brother-in-law.

Not a single word of contempt

in the twenty years that went by
from my arrival to the fall of Troy.

But to the rest, I was the foreigner.

The wretched traitress
who had abandoned her country,

her husband and her daughter.

What they applauded in Paris,

they censored in me.

What was courage in him,
was weakness in me.

His exploits, my betrayal.

His love, my vice.

His honour, my dishonour.

His self-respect, my shamelessness.

His glory, my disgrace.

But not a word of reproach,

at the beginning at least.

Only their faces repudiated me
whilst their tongues made me theirs.

Possessing Helen lifted their pride
above the high walls of Troy

and they shouted to the Greeks,

"Yes, we have your treasure
and now she belongs to us!"

Thus Priam made it known
to the Greek delegation

that came to Troy to take me back.

No one there loved me, really,

except Paris,

but no one wanted to hand me back.

And in Greece,

who loved me there?

Menelaus?

He knew that nothing could rid him
of the shame of having been cuckolded,

which weighted his brow.

All he sought was revenge.

And for Agamemnon,
who was bored to tears by peace,

I was the perfect excuse
to embark on his long-cherished dream:

the conquest of Troy and its riches
and the expansion of his kingdom.

Agamemnon pressured Menelaus

to enforce the commitment
of my suitors and their allies.

Some of them swung the lead.

Ulysses, the great phoney,
pretended he was mad.

They had to fetch Achilles from a harem
where he was hiding disguised as a woman.

We'll never know for sure if he was
more bothered about going to w*r

or having to take off his skirt.

Finally, they all found themselves
obliged to join the great expedition.

More than one thousands ships
set sail for Troy

with the absurd excuse of getting back
the adulteress queen of Sparta

whom they had erected
as a symbol of their honour.

Who could believe
that such deployment was really for me?

The siege of a city.

The mobilisation of thousands of men

who were forced to abandon
their families and responsibilities.

Was I really the reason
to destroy the ally cities of Troy?

To burn Lesbos, Phocaea,
Colophon, Izmir, Klazomenai,

Cyme, Egialea, Tinos, Adramyttium,
and many more whilst Troy was strangled?

To m*rder its people
who had never even heard of me?

To spread death and destruction
during those ten endless years

on both sides?

I only made one decision,

possibly the only decision
I made in my life.

The decision to love a man
above all other things.

The events that followed
were decisions made by powerful men

obsessed with posterity and wealth.

I know,
I abandoned my parents and my daughter

and a husband whom I never loved
and who never loved me.

They forced their people
to sacrifice themselves

in search of glory and gold,

silver, cinnabar,

oil, wood, Chinese jade

and other valuable merchandise
that travelled along the Hellespont.

They called it honour and it was greed.

They sought reasons
where there was nothing but pride.

And when they had the chance
to put an end to it, they didn't.

What joy in the streets of Troy
when w*r broke out!

How proud people felt at the thought
of bringing down the enemy!

They adored me
as if I were their goddess!

In tears, they swore
they would never let me leave,

that they would defend me
with their lives!

They ordered Cassandra to be locked up
if she voiced her dark prophecies.

Even the great howling b*tch
named me daughter.

Because I was Helen of Troy,
the most beautiful woman in the world

and I was theirs!

But I only belonged to Paris.

Only to him.

It would have been all the same to me
being in Troy or in the realms of Hades

as long as I were at his side.

Paris enjoyed the popularity that came

with being the protagonist
of the great offence towards the Greeks.

At last he was recognised as part of
the magnificent Trojan royal family.

But dreams of glory wane

when death and destruction appear.

The siege became unbearable.

The number of casualties multiplied
on both sides.

The Goddess of Discord,

who may seem small at first,

but soon touches the skies with her head
as she walks on Earth,

made her way through the crowd

and hurled the fatal combat among them

increasing the warriors' eagerness,

thirst for blood

and insatiable fury.

The first voices were heard
on the advisability

of handing over
Helen the wh*re to the Greeks

and sealing a fair peace agreement.

Paris refused flatly.

It wouldn't have been possible anyway.

We had come to the point of no return.

The Greeks shouted,

We will not accept
Paris' riches or Helen

since it is clear,

even to the most simple,

that ruin lurks over the Trojans."

Achilles k*lled Troilus,

Paris' most beloved brother,

about whom it was prophesised
that Troy wouldn't fall

if he reached the age of twenty.

Troilus.

He was only a boy.

And I began to sense

that Paris was drifting away from me.

He didn't want to see me,

because his desire grew deeper

when he saw the woman for whose sake
his family was being wiped out.

Everyone forgot how proud they had felt

when he appeared holding the hand

of Helen of Sparta
and he turned her into Helen of Troy.

Now they only saw the shepherd

who didn't use the sword
as well as his brother Hector,

the great horse-breaker.

They only saw the prince
whose lust had caused the w*r

in which he could only use a bow
to defend himself.

At a distance,

without honourable enemy contact.

It is so much more honourable
when you slaughter the enemy so close

that you can smell his last breath

than to sh**t him with arrows
from so far away

that you can't even hear
his screams of agony!

Strange...

Strange the reasons
in which honour becomes entangled

to make the adversary's death
more or less noble.

Paris wasn't prepared for w*r.

He avoided combat.

They called him a coward.

Hector burst into our quarters one night
and in a fit of rage he shouted,

"Paris, you despicable,
seductive womaniser!

I wish you hadn't been amongst
the newborn or you had died celibate.

The long-haired Achaeans are laughing
for having considered you a fine champion

given your gallant figure

yet your chest has no room
for strength or courage.

Olympus raised you like a great plague

for the magnanimous Priam
and his children!

Only when I see you descending to Hades

will my heart be freed
of such vexatious regrets."

Paris, his honour wounded,

challenged Menelaus to a single combat.

The winner would keep
the beautiful Helen and her riches.

My poor darling!

How he ran across the b*ttlefield

chased by Menelaus
and his fury at having been cuckolded.

What else could he do, a shepherd,

against a prince
trained to fight with a sword?

All he could do was flee.

And he fled.

He fled from the b*ttlefield,

from his family

and from me too.

And if he no longer defended me

what was the point in me fighting?

I begged.

I begged Paris to love me once again.

I begged Hector
to stop cursing his cowardice.

I begged Priam
to hand me over to the Greeks

to put an end to that w*r.

Going back to Menelaus meant my death

but I...

I was already dead without Paris.

I begged.

I begged Aphrodite
to bring me back my lover.

I begged Zeus to take me to his side.

I begged

and begged,

father!

But the Litai,
like I, are your daughters,

and though they may be cross-eyed,
lame and wrinkled,

they take care to follow
the Godess of Delusion.

You brought this one up to be strong,
light-footed,

which is why she goes ahead,

and traversing this land,
she offends men.

Whoever respects your daughters
receives great benefit,

but who...

who would take notice
of your daughters

when you are the first
to fail to listen to them.

The Godess of Delusion
became powerful

and she ruled in the hearts of all men.

And the bitter w*r

opened its enormous mouth.

And the day came

when Paris was brought to me

fatally wounded from the b*ttlefield.

He had gone back to fight,
incited by shame

and above all, by the terrible death

that Achilles had brought
to his elder brother.

There was no love in his dying eyes
when he looked at me.

Only panic.

An almost childlike uncertainty

at the inconceivable idea
of his own extinction.

He clung to my arms

with the last of his strength
so that Hades wouldn't take him.

I covered in kisses his last breath,

which was also mine.

His funeral wasn't like Hector's.

No one hid their anger

towards the couple whom they blamed
for having started that w*r.

How I envied Oenone,

the nymph who had loved Paris
before I had,

when, running like a madwoman
she threw herself onto the same pyre

on which the love of my life
was burning!

Why didn't I do the same?

I don't know,

perhaps I had become fond
of the Egyptian drug

because I recall looking on
as if it had nothing to do with me.

It would have been so much easier
to have died at Paris' side

than to contemplate what followed!

The king of Troy ordered me
to marry another of his sons, Deiphobus,

who had always looked at me
with revolting lust.

The monarch thought that I ought to
remain the symbol of Trojan resistance.

You all remember
the end of that w*r, right?

The famous horse
full of death and destruction.

Troy was swept aside
ten years after the start of its siege.

Poseidon and Apollo
decided to destroy the wall

with the force of the rivers that run
from the Idaean mountains to the sea

altering its course
onto the wall for nine days.

And you never stopped raining,

so that it would swiftly submerge
into the sea.

You gave in
to your wife's destructive impulses.

You told Hera, the cow-eyed woman,

who longed for the fall of Troy,

"Do as you please,

we wouldn't want this dispute
to start a quarrel between us.

But remember this well, my dear:

the day I have the burning desire

to destroy a city
in which friends of yours live,

don't unleash my anger,
let me do whatever I want

given that I hand over
Troy to you spontaneously,

though against my soul's will."

Your soul.

What soul do you have, father,

in whose form lies so much violence
and so much misfortune?

This is how you,
the powerful ones, decide things.

You invent wars and their reasons

without the slightest concern
that others will suffer the consequences.

Menelaus

came out of that deadly horse
annihilating, along with his colleagues,

whatever crossed his path.

Following a decisive blow with his sword

Deiphobus' head rolled to my feet.

I crouched down to look at it.

His face

had the same wrinkled look on it

as it did when he culminated
his sexual assaults which I endured

during the short time we were married.

But as I looked at it

all I could think about

was how similar I was to that head

which had been brutally torn

from the heart
that set the pace of its temples.

Menelaus walked towards me.

Many years had passed since I left him,

but bitterness and the desire
for revenge blazed in his eyes.

He lifted his sword above his head.
Motionless, I awaited the relieving blow.

The king of Sparta wheezed,
his face frozen.

No, it wasn't the sight
of one of my breasts that paralysed him,

as legend has it.
No...

He needed everyone to see
that I belonged to him once more,

and dead, the example was worthless.

He didn't say a word.

He grabbed me by the hair
and dragged me through the whole city.

Behind me, I left streets on fire,
pillaging, corpses, raping,

as if a divine strength
was dragging me through hell

to show me its desolation.

They gathered together all the women
whom they hadn't m*rder*d.

They were going to share us out
as part of the spoils of w*r.

The queen of Troy
and all her daughters were there

with hundreds of unfortunate women,

their faces d*sfigured
on watching their sons and husbands fall

under the swords of the Achaeans.

Misfortune searches tirelessly
for a culprit

on which to hurl their laments.

I was their culprit.

They threw themselves at me
like k*ller she-wolves.

And they would have slaughtered me
if Menelaus hadn't appeared.

Hecuba spoke,

"Don't look at her,"

she said to Menelaus.

"k*ll her without looking at her!

If your desire is reduced to ashes

she will reinflame it.

She will seize hold of you once again!

Do you want to know the truth,
king Menelaus?

My son was handsome.

As soon as she set eyes on him,
burning with desire,

her own flesh became that of Cypris.

When human beings fall madly in love,

they aren't aware of their madness
and they call it Aphrodite.

She saw gold sparkling in Paris' gowns.

And she went mad,

her body moist with longing
and her soul calculatingly obsessed.

Be brave, Menelaus!

There will be no victory for the Greeks
until you have ex*cuted her.

It's your duty.

For the rest of women,
your act will have the power of law:

the adulteress must die!

k*ll her!

k*ll her!"

What did I do
that Hecuba wouldn't have done before?

Didn't she save Paris from death

despite knowing
that he would bring ruin to Troy?

Why did she do it,

if not for love?

I loved Paris.

That was my mistake.

Is it a mistake, to love?

I don't know why I wanted
to say all this tonight.

You still don't understand.

Centuries and centuries
annihilating one another.

Make w*r, stupid mortals,

follow your capricious
and vengeful mortal and immortal gods.

Destroy the fields and the cities.

Violate the temples,

the tombs and t*rture the defeated.

Thus, you will all die.

Perhaps that's the way
for me to be forgotten:

your extinction.

I don't care about your judgement.

I don't care about yours, father.

I'll grow old eternally like Tithonus
alongside the Goddess of the Dawn.

Perhaps you may also take pity on me
and turn me into a cricket.

To sing eternally
the joy of having loved Paris.

My only sin.

My glory.

My eternity.

And don't forget:

eternity is in love
with the production of time.

A VIXEN STANDS TRIAL