Understanding The Iliad

The Trojan War was ten years long

Before they’d end it in a rout

In order to avenge great wrong

A song of Homer was about:

Of men contending for the prize

Of honor in the battle fought,

And to appear great in men’s eyes

In retribution that they sought.

And of those women also who

Began for beauty their contest—

The reason for men’s daring do

Would be at women’s own behest;

’Cause hadn’t it begun with three

Contending over the most fair,

They’d unclothed, in their vanity,

Before a mortal standing bare,

To make him stand in judgment as

The ladies in their beauty vied

For him who judgment had to pass

To satisfy each in her pride?

For Power, Wisdom or for Love,

Each set before the judge a prize

’Cause that was what he’d set above

The rest: a bribe to blind his eyes.

The third would be who Paris chose

As Aphrodite’s offer stood

Above the others which arose

To cause the trouble that it would;

For Helen, promised to the man

By Aphrodite—in her pride—

Was why the Trojan War began,

And many died on either side.