Friday, April 06, 2007

There isn't another,

In the movie, Contact, Jodie Foster gasped upon seeing the celestial light show in front, "Some celestial event. No - no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful ... I had no idea."

No Second Troy

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being as she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
And so the story goes, how Paris stole Helen from the King of Sparta which led to the invasion of Troy. Here Yeats is trying to paint a picture of the contemporary woman. Her beauty, no longer compared to nature (flowers is a favourite, and often putting the latter to shame, whatever that meant), is now "a tightened bow". A weapon of war. A domain of man that she now shares the beauty of. A mind that is often assumed as kind and accomodating is now noble like a fire. At once useful and warm but will overwhelm and harm when uncontrolled.

But who could blame her? She is as much a result of who she is today because of what she was meant to be. Her will to attain what she is capable of and what she dreams of. So even if she is starting to appear like an equal to man, it is not a fault of anybody. And if she is starting to cause misery, that is only to be expected.

Similarly, modern interactions between men and women can be best described by W. B. Yeats poem.

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