The collective bitterness of Greece is aimed at Helen of Troy, whose legendary beauty is treated less as a gift than as a cause of suffering. She appears eerily still and pale: a white face, white hands, and an olive-like luster that makes her seem cold rather than warm. Greece reviles her even more when she smiles and grows wan, because that pallor stirs memories of past enchantments and past harms. By the end, the mood turns funereal and unrelenting. Though Helen is “God’s daughter, born of love,” Greece can regard her without feeling—and could love her only if she were dead, white ash among cypress trees. The poem creates an austere, haunted atmosphere, where admiration curdles into resentment and a wish for her erasure.
Helen — Summary
All Greece hates the still eyes in the white face, the lustre as of olives where she stands, and the white hands. All Greece reviles the wan face when she smiles, hating it deeper still when it grows wan and white, remembering past enchantments and past ills. Greece sees unmoved, God’s daughter, born of love, the beauty of cool feet and slenderest knees, could love indeed the maid, only if she were laid, white ash amid funereal cypresses.