GUINEVERE: THE WAGES OF BEAUTY

 

By William Blake Richmond - NwFx7tib70X5aQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21878516


Beauty. Aurora. Snow White. Cinderella. More than just Disney Princesses, their stories originated hundreds of years ago. From an era even before the Dark Age Guinevere, whose time seems so shrouded in mist. A time when Mycenaean warriors launched a thousand ships to retrieve the wayward Helen. An earlier era that saw Eros defy his mother, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty, for the love of the mortal Psyche. And a still more ancient age, lost to time, when Adam forsook Eden for the wiles of the first known beauty, Eve. But was it truly beauty which so led men astray from ancient times to this? Or was it something more...?

History has long been obsessed with beautiful women, but was it really beauty these ancient men sought? Helen of Troy appears to have been much more than just a pretty face: she was a wealthy heiress from a prominent family that may have included a god: Zeus, in the form of a swan, impregnated Helen's mother, Leda, and Helen may have possessed influence in her own right…as a high priestess.  So, Wealth plus Divine Influence plus Power equals Desirable. Translation: Beautiful.

Queen Guinevere was heiress to a strategically placed property in Borders, Scotland. On any island, property is power. And, with the removal of the Roman legions, fifth-century Britain experienced a huge power vacuum. Local landowners fought over the seat of the High King. Guinevere's father, King Leodagan, was such a landowner. King Arthur, later her husband, was another. A third contender was Prince Meleagant, who later abducted the queen. Had he retained possession of Guinevere, Meleagant might have become king instead of Arthur. Then, it would have been his name we remember to this day, and not Arthur’s.

So, Beautiful equals Wealthy equals Heiress? ‘Nough said, right? Maybe not. Britain is an island. There’s not enough land to go around. And land, not cash, was king in the fifth century. Or, anyway, it could make you one. So, to quote Harrison Ford in Six Days, Seven Nights, “It’s an island, babe. If you don’t bring it, we don’t have it.”

The Beauties were the ones who “brought it”.

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