Trojan War

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Trojan War continued

to be a Greek deserter and reported to the Trojans that the horse was an offering to Athene, which, if brought within the city walls, would render Troy impregnable. Cassandra warned that the horse was a trick, but was not believed. Laocoôn, a Trojan priest, also warned the Trojans not to let the horse into the city but was ignored. The horse was in fact full of Greek warriors, and once it had been brought into Troy and night had fallen, these warriors came out and took the city. Troy was sacked and razed by fire. Priam and his remaining sons were killed.

Throughout this book there are references to the Trojan War and to many of the figures mentioned in the above account.

• See ACHILLES at Anger, Disguise, and Weakness

ACHILLES AND PATROCLUS at Friendship

ACAMEMNON at Anger

AJAX at Suffering

APPLE OF DISCORD at Conflict

ATREUS at Curse

EPEIUS at Craftsmen

HECUBA at Grief and Sorrow

HELEN at Beauty: Female Beauty

JUDGEMENT OF PARIS at Judgement and Decision

LAOCOÔN at Prophecy, Struggle, and Suffering

NESTOR at Wisdom

PHILOCTETES at Suffering

TROJAN HORSE at Cunning.

Ugliness

In a number of the quotations below, there is an explicit contrast made between ugliness and beauty: CHARON and a Greek god, BORIS KARLOFF and Marilyn Monroe, VULCAN and Apollo, and, of course, BEAUTY AND THE

BEAST.

Antiphates' wife Antiphates was the chief of the Laestrygonians, a tribe of flesh-eating giants encountered by Odysseus and his companions on their journey back to Ithaca. According to Homer's account, his wife was repulsivelooking.

Mandras' mother was one of those perplexing creatures as ugly as the mythical wife

3 9 4 UGLINESS

of Antiphates, of whom the poet wrote that she was 'a monstrous woman whose illaspect struck men with horror'.

LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 1994

Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast is the title of a fairy tale in which a beautiful young woman, Beauty, is forced to live with the Beast, an ugly monster, in order to save her father's life. She comes to pity and love the Beast and finally consents to marry him. Beauty's love frees the beast from a magic spell and he is transformed into a handsome prince. Any couple of unequal physical attractiveness can be described as Beauty and the Beast.

When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast.

H. RIDER HAGGARD She, 1887

They were looking at each other, not touching, looking long and quiet at each other. The girl entirely wrapped in furs, so it was hard to tell where her own glossy hair began and ended, and the poor beast, with his rough and yellow hide—Beauty and her Beast, in this guise, but Beauty was so close to her Beast now, wrapped in beast's clothing, as sharp and wary as a beast, surviving as one.

DORIS LESSING The Memoirs of a Survivor, 1974

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516) was a Flemish painter whose allegorical works are filled with grotesque monsters and horribly ugly people. Bosch's caricature-like faces are typically deformed, bloated, cadaverous, or disease-ridden.

Hardcastle fixed me with her reptilian eyes. If Hieronymus Bosch had turned his talents to gargoyles, Hilary Hardcastle would have been one of his most treasured creations.

DEXTER DIAS False Witness, 1995

Charon In Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman who ferried the souls of the dead across the rivers Styx and Acheron to Hades. He was described as an old but vigorous man, with a hideous countenance, long white beard, and piercing eyes. His clothes were tattered and filthy. • See special entry o HADES on p. 172.

Then when he was a little older the undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and Leo the Greek Cod!

H. RIDER HAGGARD She, 1887

Dickensian Many of the novelist Charles Dickens's characters, such as Wackford Squeers and Daniel Quilp, are physically grotesque, and hence the term 'Dickensian' can be used to suggest a person's repulsive appearance.

I can't help describing him as if he were some sort of Dickensian freak.

ROBERTSON DAviEs The Manticore, 1972

Duessa In Spenser's allegory The Faerie Queene (1590; 1596), Duessa, representing Falsehood, assumes the appearance of a beautiful girl, Fidessa, but is later revealed to be in reality a hideous hag.

Elephant Man John Merrick (1863-90), born with severe facial deformities caused by a rare disease, was exhibited in Victorian times as a fairground freak, the Elephant Man, until he was rescued by a doctor.

If either party . . . does not wish to continue the relationship, they must clearly and

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considerately state this in a manner that reassures the other party that they are not the Elephant Man/Woman without being patronising.

BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY in The Independent, 1997

frog prince In The Frog Prince, a fairy story by the Brothers Grimm, the frog who helps out the princess is eventually restored to his true human form, that of a handsome prince who has been placed under an enchantment. Various children's fairy stories concern the character of an ugly frog who is really a handsome prince who has been put under such a spell. In some versions the spell can only be broken if a beautiful girl or princess kisses the frog.

He would park on the road above the pier and give me a shilling and slope off, leaving me to what he called my own devices. I see myself, the frog prince, enthroned on the high back seat of the Morris Oxford, consuming a cornet of ice cream, licking the diminishing knob of goo round and round with scientific application, and staring back that the passing promenaders, who blanched at the sight of my baleful eye and flickering, creamy tongue.

JOHN BANVILLE The Book of Evidence, 1989

Gorgon In Greek mythology, the Gorgons were three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa (the only mortal one), who had snakes for hair and the power to turn anyone who looked at them to stone. A gorgon is a frightening or repulsive woman.

She was an unnatural-looking being—so young, fresh, blooming, yet so Gorgon-like. Suspicion, sullen ill-temper were on her forehead, vicious propensities in her eye, envy and panther-like deceit about her mouth.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË The Professor, 1857

She was wearing something very like a man's evening suit, made in dark velvet, and looked remarkably elegant. I was beginning not to notice her Gorgon face. ROBERTSON DAviEs The Manticore, 1972

Hunchback of Notre Dame • See QUASIMODO.

Boris Karloff Boris Karloff (1887-1969), born William Henry Pratt, was a British-born American actor. His gaunt looks made him particularly well suited to roles in horror films, and his most memorable performance was as the monster in Frankenstein (1931).

The people protecting you have morticians who could make Boris Karloff look like

Marilyn Monroe.

TOM SHARPE Grantchester Grind, 1995

Macbeth's witches In Shakespeare's Macbeth (1623), the three weird sisters, or witches, encountered by Macbeth and Banquo on the blasted heath are described as

'So wither'd, and so wild in their attire, That look not like th'inhabitants o' th'earth'

and later as 'you secret, black, and midnight hags'.

She stood there, by that beech trunk—a hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË Jane Eyre, 1847

Medusa • See GORGON