poem: `Helen` by H.D.

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 (lines 6-11

Perhaps she is smiling as a form of mockery or even rebellion . The reader must interpret this for herself , but the reaction from Greece is apparent – it is part of their hatred of her . The reader must decipher of which reaction it speaks . The Greek people obviously remember these ills ‘ and enchantments ‘ with hatred , but the stanza seems to suggest that they [banner_entry_middle]

are the reason that Helen smiles

Therefore , Helen ‘s mysterious smile could be the result of her memory of Paris . Whichever interpretation is chosen , the Greek response is only negative . It is unmoved ‘ outwardly by the smile . Helen , too appears unmoved by their hate

The third and final stanza reflects on love which is set up as a contradiction to the hatred that Greece feels . The speaker acknowledges that Helen is

God ‘s daughter , born of love (line 13

It seems almost sacrilegious to hate the daughter of their highest God However , the final lines of the poem show Greece ‘s angry disregard for this idea . They

could love indeed the maid

only if she were laid

white ash amid funeral cypresses (lines 16-18

These words seem to tease the reader with the idea that they could love and in doing so forgive , Helen . The spin comes after that they could only love her dead . In this last stanza , white no longer refers to beauty , but to death . To them , Helen will be beautiful in death only Ironically , because of the very things that makes Greece hate her so Helen has now become immortalized in the lines of poetry and mythology so many centuries later . Unknowingly , their hatred has further established… [banner_entry_footer]