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| Pieter Nason Portrait of a Woman as Minerva 1663 oil on canvas National Museum, Warsaw |
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| Irving Penn Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I, New York 2007 inkjet print Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Anonymous French Artist Empress Eugénie ca. 1863 collotype Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Anonymous Flemish Artist Reliquary Bust of a Bishop ca. 1520 carved and painted oakwood Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Anonymous French Artist Portrait of Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier, as Athena (called la Grande Mademoiselle) ca. 1660 oil on canvas Musée Carnavalet, Paris |
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| El Greco St Louis (King Louis IX of France) 1592 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Roman Empire Head of Hercules 1st century AD marble (excavated at Herculaneum) Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Marcus Selmer Bride from Birkeland 1855 hand-colored daguerreotype Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Franz von Stuck Amazon in Battle 1897 oil on canvas Lenbachhaus, Munich |
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| Jacopo Tintoretto Portrait of Doge Pasquale Cicogna ca. 1585-90 etching Hamburger Kunsthalle |
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| Anonymous French Artist Louise-Marguerite de Lorraine, princesse de Conti ca. 1600-1610 oil on panel Musée Condé, Chantilly |
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| Andrea Appiani the Elder Empress Joséphine as Queen of Italy 1807 oil on canvas Château de Malmaison |
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| Gaston Bussière Helen of Troy ca. 1895 oil on canvas Musée des Ursulines de Mâcon |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Head of Alexander the Great 300 BC marble, with ancient vandalism (excavated in Athens) National Archaeological Museum, Athens |
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| Julius Klinger Exhibition of Office Supplies, Frankfurt (head of Mercury) 1913 lithograph (poster) Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Anonymous German Artist Virgin and Child ca. 1480 painted walnut relief Bode Museum, Berlin |
Chorus:
Who was it that gave name
so utterly appropriate –
perhaps a being we cannot see,
using language with accuracy
through his foreknowledge of what was fated? –
to the spear-bride for whom two contended,
Helen? For in keeping with that name
she brought hell to ships, to men, to cities
when from her curtains of delicate fabric
she sailed, wafted by the breeze
of giant Zephyrus,
as did many men, hunters carrying shields,
following the invisible track of their oar-blades,
after they had landed
on the leafy banks of the Simois –
it was caused by bloody Strife.
And for Ilium there was a wedding morning
true to its name, mourning indeed,
brought to pass by Wrath, exacting
delayed requital for the dishonouring
of the host's table and of Zeus,
god of hearth-sharing, against those who loudly
celebrated the bridal song.
At that time she encouraged
the bridegroom's kin to sing it splendidly,
but now the city of Priam in its old age
is learning the song anew
as a bitter lament: surely it groans deeply, calling
Paris 'the man who made the evil marriage',
having made the life of its citizens
a life of total devastation, full of tears,
having endured grievous bloodshed.
– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)