The Rape of Helen

There is a decorous backstory on an adjacent canvas.

A blonde Paris sits before three elaborately coiffed standing goddesses.

The four all look calm.  There is no hint here of what this moment

Might be prelude to, to what the other, later canvas, might show.

And here it is, foregrounded, without any hint of evasion.

Paris in red tights and gold-colored cape and boots

Has lifted the more drably colored Helen off of her feet.

Her bosom tight against his chest, she gasps, red shoes kicking air.

In the background, a tidy ship with a golden sail and fittings

Waits to carry them from this place of monstrous action

From the exuberance and passion that it alone has witnessed

To other shores and another story, turbulent in a different way.

The viewer is left to ponder whether or how to assign blame:

To the gods, to the humans, or to an enduring need for color in life.