WEBVTT
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Episode 5 – The Duel
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[Opening music]
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Up onto the white sand the Greeks dragged their high, proud ships.
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They arranged them in rows,
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one behind the other.
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Beside each ship they built a hut of wood and reeds and mounded earth.
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Around the ships they built a tall, wooden wall –
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a stockade, a palisade.
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A great pair of gates was built.
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A deep trench was dug,
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a trench that stretched from river to river.
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This was a camp as big as a city.
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Each region of Greece had its own district of the camp,
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its own shops and stables and streets and secret alleys, exercise areas, burial places.
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In the centre of the camp,
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an empty place,
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a meeting place where debates were held,
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where altars to the mighty gods and goddesses were reared.
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In front of the camp, the fields, the farms, the vineyards, the cattle grazing, all unknowing.
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Four hours’ walk it was between the Greek camp and the ramparts of Ilium.
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[Opening music]
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And from those ramparts,
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from the high city walls, from the turrets and the towers,
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the people of Troy watched the Greeks.
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They watched the building of the camp.
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They watched the smoke of fires curling up into the sky.
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They watched the digging of the great trench from the River Scamander to the River Xanthus.
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They watched the lifting of the palisade.
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And they watched the Greeks themselves,
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like flies around the cowsheds in the spring,
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when the pails are creamy-white with milk,
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busy about their business.
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And then, one morning as the dawn took her golden throne,
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they saw the gates of the palisade swinging open.
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And, through the gates,
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they saw tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of warriors,
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rank upon rank, file upon file,
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foot soldiers, charioteers,
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pouring out of the camp and taking their places across the plain,
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stretching from one river to the other;
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each man with a bronze helmet on his head,
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a bronze shield on his arm,
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a bronze breastplate glinting in the sunlight;
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each man staring at the city walls of Troy with hatred in his heart.
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And they watched the Greek kings,
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moving among the ranks and the files,
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like stallions moving among the mares and the foals of a great herd of horses.
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And the Trojans wasted no time.
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The bronze Scaean gates of the city were thrown open.
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The Trojan army poured out of the city.
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They took their places across the plain,
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one army facing the other army.
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And the two armies would have fallen upon one another there and then if Paris had not stepped into the space between the two armies.
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Godlike Paris stepped into no man’s land.
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Over his shoulders, a leopard-skin cloak.
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Across his back a bow of polished wood.
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In each hand he held a bronze-tipped spear.
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He threw back his head and he bellowed,
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“I challenge any Greek warrior to fight me now,
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man to man, hand to hand,
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down to the last drop of blood!”
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And there in the Greek army was Menelaus,
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red-haired Menelaus, king of Sparta.
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And when he saw Paris,
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when he saw the man he hated above all others,
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when he heard the voice of the man who had stolen his wife,
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he began to tremble with fury.
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He leapt down from his chariot,
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bristling with weapons.
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He pushed through the ranks and the files until he was standing in front of Paris.
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And when Paris saw it was Menelaus who had accepted his challenge,
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he backed away from him,
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as though he had seen a venomous snake in his path and his soldiers closed around him.
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And then Paris felt a weight on his shoulder and he turned and he looked.
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And there was his older brother, Hector.
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And Hector said, “Paris,
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how the Greeks must laugh to see us fighting a war for the sake of some pretty prince!
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What use is a pretty face?
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What use are broad shoulders and shapely legs if a man has not courage?”
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And Paris said, “Hector,
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do not mock me for my beauty.
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I did not choose it.
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It was a gift of the mighty gods.
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I know that you are strong and stalwart,
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as the brazen axe with which a shipbuilder fells timber,
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but I will show you now that I do not lack courage.
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Go and tell Menelaus that I will fight him,
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man to man, hand to hand,
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down to the last drop of blood.
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And whoever wins the fight will take Helen and all the treasures of Sparta.”
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And Hector nodded.
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And he went forwards into the space between the two armies.
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He threw down his spear and his helmet and his shield,
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and he raised both arms
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and he said, “My brother, Paris, will fight Menelaus,
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and whoever wins the fight will take Helen and all the treasures of Sparta,
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and you Greeks can return to your ships.
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You can sail home to your farms, your families, your wives, your hearths.
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And this ground between my feet need know nothing but the blade of the plough and the hooves of shambling cattle.”
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And there was a great cheer from the soldiers of both armies and a clattering as shields were thrown onto the ground and men squatted on their hunkers,
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leaning on their spears,
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staring into the space between the two armies,
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where Menelaus and Paris had stepped forwards.
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First of all they made sacrifices.
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Menelaus sacrificed a horse, a great stallion,
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to owl-eyed Athene,
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the goddess of war and wisdom and to Hera,
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the ox-eyed queen of heaven.
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And Paris sacrificed a bull, a huge hillocky bull,
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to Aphrodite,
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the goddess of love and to golden Apollo,
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the founder of the city of Troy,
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golden Apollo who loved Troy.
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And then the two men turned and they faced one another.
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Those who were there wondered how Helen could have loved two such different men.
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On the one side, swaggering, beautiful in his prime,
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Paris.
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On the other side,
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Menelaus.
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The years of sleepless nights had not been kind to him.
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His face was coarse, stunted.
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It was as though his features were half finished.
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It was as though his face were the side of a mountain that had been withered,
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weathered by the wind and the rain.
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It was as though the gaze of Helen gave a kind of beauty to the one she loved
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and, when she chose to look away,
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age ravaged the one she’d left behind.
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But bitter hurt brings strength.
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Menelaus had waited for this moment.
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He had played it out in his mind time and again,
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and he was not about to waste it.
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Paris threw his spear first.
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Menelaus dodged it easily and, with a whispered prayer,
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he threw his own.
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And his aim was true.
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Paris was lifted off his feet.
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He flew backwards.
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He fell with a crash and a cloud of dust.
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The spear had broken through his shield,
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through his breastplate and grazed the skin of his chest.
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Before Paris could stand,
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Menelaus was over him,
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lunging at him with his sword.
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Paris had to wriggle in the dust to dodge every thrust.
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Then Menelaus stopped.
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He lifted the sword above his head.
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He brought it down for the deathblow,
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but a strange thing happened.
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The blade shattered like a brittle icicle against Paris’ armour.
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Menelaus gasped.
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He threw down the handle of the sword.
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He pushed his fingers under the chinstrap of Paris’ helmet,
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and he turned and ran,
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dragging the flailing Paris towards the Greek army.
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A thousand arms stretched out towards their king.
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Joyfully, he reached out towards them but then he fell.
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He tripped over nothing.
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A fog fell over the field of battle.
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He could see nothing, no one.
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He lifted up the helmet.
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The chinstrap had snapped!
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The helmet was empty.
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Paris had vanished!
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Aphrodite, seeing her precious Paris in mortal danger had shattered the sword,
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snapped the chinstrap,
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brought down the fog.
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And now she was lifting Paris tenderly in her arms.
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She lifted him high and high above the Trojan plain.
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She carried him over the city walls.
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She carried him into his palace.
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She laid him down tenderly on his bed.
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And then the goddess of love changed her shape so that to all the world she looked like an old woman.
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And she went scuttling through the streets of Troy,
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until she found Helen.
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And Helen was leaning over the walls.
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She was looking into the fog.
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She was rubbing her eyes, she was looking again.
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She was trying to work out what had happened to Paris.
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And suddenly she felt a tugging at her skirt,
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and she turned and she looked and there was an old woman she’d never seen before.
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And the old woman said, “Helen,
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your lover is in his bedchamber.
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He’s lying on his bed.
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He’s waiting for you.
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He calls your name over and over.
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Go to him, now!”
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And the old woman had vanished and there was a smell left hanging on the air.
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And Helen, she breathed it in,
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a smell of musk and honey.
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And she was filled with spirit and awe,
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in the knowledge that she’d been in the presence of one of the mighty goddesses.
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And she hurried through the streets to Paris’ palace.
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She ran up the stairs.
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She pushed open the door of his bedchamber.
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And there he was, lying on his bed,
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still dressed in his armour,
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still smeared with the dust of the battlefield.
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And Helen ran across and she said,
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“Paris, Paris, never have I been filled with such longing for you,
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not since we first lay down together on the soft grass on the island of Cranae.”
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And she kissed his eyes and she kissed his cheek and she kissed his mouth.
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And they lay down together,
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locked in one another’s arms.
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Out on the battlefield the fog had lifted.
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The Trojan prince, Hector, stepped forward.
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He showed the Greeks his open hands.
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He said,
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“I swear to you,
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I swear to you Greeks by the broad skies,
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I swear to you Greeks by the dark waters of the river Styx,
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I have searched my armies and my brother has vanished!
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Surely some god or goddess intervened,
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brought down that fog,
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plucked my brother from the field of battle?
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Before the duel it was agreed that the victor would take Helen and all the treasures of Sparta.
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Every one of us here knows you, Menelaus,
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defeated my brother.
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Therefore you Greeks are the victors.
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Therefore all the treasures that were taken from you will be returned to you.
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Helen will be restored to you and you will soon sail home to see your hearths, your fields, your farms, your families again.”
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And there was a great cheer from the Greek ranks.
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But up above,
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owl-eyed Athene, the goddess of war and wisdom,
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was watching and listening.
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The war was about to end.
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Troy was still standing and Paris was still alive.
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This was very disappointing!
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She’s never at a loss for a plan.
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In the time it would take you or me to blink,
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she flashed down from the sky.
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Soundless, invisible, she moved among the Trojan armies until she found a stupid, shallow man,
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whose mind she could bend to her will.
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She whispered in his ear,
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“Pandarus, look.
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Menelaus has dropped his shield.
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He has no weapons now.
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With a single arrow you could win this war for Troy.
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You’d be the hero of the city.
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Look at that neck,
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the baggy folds of flesh.
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Kill Menelaus!”
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Without a second thought,
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without a second breath,
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Pandarus put an arrow to his bow.
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He loosed the arrow.
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If we could see the way the gods and goddesses can see,
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we would have seen Athene reach down and touch the tail of the arrow as it flew through the air so that it struck not Menelaus’ neck –
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it struck his breastplate.
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It struck and stuck and knocked him to the ground.
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He was winded but he was unharmed.
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His men looked.
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They saw the arrow protruding out of his breastplate and they were sure that he was dead.
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These treacherous Trojans had broken the truce.
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They surged forwards into the Trojan ranks and,
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at their forefront,
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severing heads with every stroke of his sword,
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the swiftrunner Achilles.
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The Trojans, stunned by the suddenness of the attack,
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they turned and they fled.
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They dropped their weapons;
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they ran through the bronze Scaean gates.
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The Greeks tried to follow but the Trojan bowmen,
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on top of the walls,
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they loosed their arrows and drove the Greeks back.
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The Greeks were jubilant.
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They drank around fires until late into the night.
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Next morning they set off to sack this city.
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But, as soon as they came within bowshot of the walls,
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the Trojan archers loosed their arrows.
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A black rain came.
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It was that way from then on.
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If the Greek and Trojan armies met in open battle,
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thanks to Achilles and his black-armoured Myrmidons,
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the Greeks were unstoppable.
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But, as soon as the Trojans retreated close to the walls of their city,
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the Greeks could do no more.
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Those walls were impregnable.
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Hector, prince of Troy,
00:16:10.590 --> 00:16:13.980
decreed the Trojans would not set forth from their city.
00:16:13.980 --> 00:16:17.340
Instead they would wait, within the walls,
00:16:17.340 --> 00:16:21.890
as long as it took until the Greeks gave up and went home.
00:16:21.890 --> 00:16:28.540
There were plenty of secret ways off Mount Ida through which their allies could bring food.
00:16:28.540 --> 00:16:35.880
And so the siege of Troy began.
00:16:35.880 --> 00:17:23.040
[Closing music]