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Jewelry
- The
Briseis Collection
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| Briseis N104
 click on the photo to enlarge it
Love is Blue
44 cm / 17 3/8 inch inches of medium true
blue glass beads (flat discs and seed beads) with a one inch oblong bead in the center
Designer sterling silver
clasp - one of a kind necklace
$49.95
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| Briseis N204
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Blue Joy
41.5 cm / 16 3/8 inch inches of medium true
blue glass beads (round beads and seed beads) with a one inch oblong bead in the center
Designer sterling silver
clasp - one of a kind necklace
$47.95
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BIO Briseis was the queen
of Lyrnessus, a small city state near Troy. Her husband,
King Mynes, was killed by the Greeks (maybe by Achilles) during
the Trojan War, and she was taken prisoner by Achilles, whom
Homer's The
Iliad calls, "the best of the Greeks"
and "doer of deeds and speaker of words."
Another version suggests Briseis was
living in Troy as an engaged woman and given to Agamemnon by the
king of Troy because her father thought it was a good idea.
Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks and king of
Mycenae, demanded
that Achilles give Briseis to him. Although Achilles was
the Greeks' greatest hero, he gave her up. But
heroes don't always play fair so Achilles went on strike in
protest. Without Achilles, the Greek army began suffering
defeats, and Briseis happily went back to Achilles, whom she
called her "master, husband, brother." [Ovid]
When Achilles died after being shot in the
heel by Helen of Troy's lover, Paris, Briseis was the chief mourner.
Achilles, who had dressed like a girl to
avoid the war, was survived by a wife and son, Neoptolemus.
Of all the characters in the Trojan War, I've
always preferred Cassandra (Kassandra), Trojan princess and
sister to the hero, Hector, and Paris. She was given
the gift of prophecy by Apollo, who hoped to become her lover,
but when Cassanda turned him down, Apollo said she could keep
his gift, however no one would ever believe her.
Years before, Queen Hecuba of Troy, had a dream
her son Paris would destroy Troy.
The queen convinced King Priam to have a servant leave baby
Paris out for wild animals to kill. Of course the servant
had a soft heart so Paris was raised as a shepherd.
Years
later, three goddesses got the gorgeous young man to judge among
them. Aphrodite bribed
him with the promise of the world's most beautiful woman and won. Paris returned to
Troy despite Cassandra's warnings about him - their parents
welcomed their long lost son back to the
family - and sent on
a voyage to various Greek city-states where he met Helen, the
unhappy wife of Menelaus, the king of Sparta, who became Helen of Troy. They eloped. The
Greeks, eager for an excuse to get their hands on the wealth of
Troy, followed. The Trojans were doomed.
Dead Achilles had his revenge on Cassandra's
family. His son, Neoptolemus, killed her father, King
Priam of Troy. Later, Neoptolemus dreamt his own father
had appeared to him in a dream and demanded Cassandra's sister,
Polyxena, as tribute. Naturally, Neoptolemus sacrificed
Polyxena on Achilles tomb.
Cassandra ended up as a slave to jolly old King
Agamemnon, who, you may remember, had sacrificed his daughter to the gods at the
start of the war. Agamemnon's wife, Helen's sister, loved
her daughter and had been seriously annoyed with her husband for
10 years. When he finally got home from war, she killed
him and Cassandra, too, for good measure. Or not. In a few
versions, Cassandra survives.
Helen lived happily ever after with
Menelaus. But there
are no more mentions of Briseis so we can only assume she ended
her days in slavery and despair.
There is way more to this story, of course.
We have Brad Pitt and company to thank for our renewed interest. Nancy
PS The DVD of Troy (see below) is entertaining despite the many liberties the moviemakers took with
the legend.
For example, Helen was the
heir to Sparta because her older sister was already Agamemnon's
queen and her brothers had gotten themselves killed.
Menelaus got his throne when he married Helen and they had at
least one child, a daughter, Hermione.
More info:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://mkatz.web.wesleyan.edu/cciv110x/Iliad/cciv110.briseis%5Fb.html
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Briseis.html
http://www.dia.org/collections/euroart/twilight-medici/53.356.html
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_trojanwarwomen.htm
BOOKS |
FILMS |
Heinrich Schliemann excavated
Troy. He discovered the "Treasure of Priam"
[aka the "Treasure of Helen"] in 1873 and
photographed his wife wearing it. The gold disappeared
from Berlin during World War II. In 1993, it turned up
in Moscow's Pushkin Museum. Turkey, Greece and Germany
all claim it.
Click on the link for a
photo:
http://dmc.utep.edu/westch/images/amiob37.html
http://www.sikyon.com/Mykinai/Art/art_eg01.html
There is lots of controversy about his
work, but Schliemann remains a founding father in the field
of archaeology.
The simplest way to learn a little more
about Troy is to find a good children's book with lots of
pictures and drawings. My favorite to date is In
Search of Troy by Giovanni Caselli.
Inside the Walls of Troy,
by Clemence McLaren, is an easy-read, fictionalized account
of the lives of Helen and Cassandra for teens.
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DVD
2004, Oliver Bloom, Eric Bana
2003, Sienna Guillory
Not bad - NK
1997, Armand Assante
Great cast. A
little clunky, but ok - NK
VIDEO
1956, Rosanna Podesta
I haven't seen this one - NK |
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Margaret George serves up Helen's story in Helen of Troy. It's a good read.
Amanda Elyot's The Memoirs of Helen of
Troy is a very good version of Helen's story. Briseis
gets a mention, but Helen shines.
Nancy
When you tire of fiction, check out Michael
Wood's In Search of the Trojan War. Nancy
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There are lots of books set in - more or
less - contemporary Greece. Here are a few you should consider. They're
listed by time frame from earliest to most recent along with the
movies they inspired. Nancy
Fortunes of War: I fell totally under Olivia Manning's spell when
I saw Fortunes of War and read her series, The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy,
from which the video was taken.
Emma
Thompson and her then hubby, Kenneth Branagh, were superb as the
displaced English couple living in Athens and then Egypt as World War
II closed in. Don't expect a military history - this is
the story of a relationship.
(series)
video - 1988, Kenneth Branagh, Emma
Thompson
The Moonspinners, by Mary Stewart,
made me yearn for a visit to Crete. It's a great romantic adventure
that became a Disney film (The Moon-Spinners) when Hayley Mills still got the acting roles.
DVD - 1964, Hayley Mills, Peter
McEnery
Fit for Fate, by Eugene Aubrey
Stratton, began well and then introduced a heroine I took an instant
dislike to. Regardless, Stratton has pulled together a
political intrigue / historical-cultural lesson in good order.
I definitely didn't see the end coming.
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