No Second Troy

Was browsing through little fish's blog randomly when I struck gold with this blog post. little fish writes that here W.B. Yeats was describing the contemporary woman in No Second Troy. It was a poem I hadn't come across, but bias aside from little fish's comment, when I read the poem, it struck a chord of unsettling recognition. It was like looking in the mirror and recognizing that this was everything I could be described with.

No Second Troy by W.B. Yeats
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?

It was almost as if, at that point, my image in the mirror had caught fire and I recognized, in a single blow, that it was exactly who I was, with a mind that nobleness made simple as a fire. The destructive energy of desire and ambition suddenly culminated in that recognition, coalescing like fire, in a single, sudden, all encompassing thought. My ambition no longer burnt for desire. For there was no desire for anything except to burn, the fire consuming itself, burning until it can go on no longer, until it had consumed and destroyed everything in its path and only ambition itself remained - without purpose, without meaning, with only the energy of its need to exist.

I've long told myself that I did all I did without craving wealth, or fame, or power, or money. I did what I did merely because. It is now the fact of the fire of because that eats me as I realises what it is that I've become. A victim of momentum, moving forward even though all understanding of why "forward" was the right direction has been lost.

Why should I be surprised that I have only filled the days of loved ones with misery, and had taught to ignorant men most violent ways?

little fish was right - perhaps this is the description of a contemporary woman, and thence my only excuse - that I am merely a product of my time and my age. Helen was Helen, she acted as it was in her nature to do so, and perhaps woman as woman cannot be any different from my namesake. One does not ask, "Wherefore am I?" so why should I?

Society has put power in the hands of the contemporary woman, power like a tightened bow. She has not yet learnt to grasp or wield the weapon that is in her hand, not yet learnt the ways of bearing the yoke that man has borne for centuries. We can but pretend and pray, that there is no second Troy for us to burn.