Beauty’s meaning

Written By: Katelyn Abbott

Author’s Summary: Princess Cassandra of Troy contemplates the apparent meaning of beauty.

What is the apparent meaning of beauty?

Beauty means something different to different kinds of people. It can mean that people are attractive and be pleasing to look at to other people. It could also mean that beauty is a person being pleasant on the inside which transfers to the outside of a person.

Can beauty mean the color of hair a woman has? The color of eyes a woman has? The considerably high-bridged nose? The dainty mouth? The even white teeth? The full lips? The graceful swan-like neck? The huge buxom of large perfect breasts with pink nipples and the swelling curves of the bosom? The honeyed thighs? The slenderness of waist? The smoothness and the softness of the texture of a woman’s skin? The tapered legs and the thin ankles and soles of feet?

Does a diet of fine food to eat and good wine to drink that a woman might have at every meal mean beauty? Does bathing daily to continue to stay clean mean beauty? Does combing one’s hair with a bone comb and dressing one’s hair with elaborate hair pieces help mean beauty? Does dressing in rich robes made of silk in all the shades of Iris’s rainbow from delicate rose to deep indigo and every hue in between that feels as smooth and soft against one’s skin like a lover’s kiss mean beauty? Does employing cosmetics on one’s face by smudging one’s eyes with kohl and staining one’s lips with color mean beauty? Does fastening on extravagantly wrought jewelry made of amber, gold, and precious stones on one’s body mean beauty? Does smelling of exotic perfumes such as ambergris, hyacinth, and musk on one’s self mean beauty?

Is brilliance and capableness in a woman that means beauty? Most men desire to have a woman as a wife with intelligence in them. They end up relying on their wives to control the stewardship of their royal treasuries, decide solutions for disputes among their subjects, and hear petitions with the efficiency of a military commander and faithfully run their royal households and see to their servants while they are away from their kingdoms on raiding parties.

It is charm in a woman that means beauty? Charm can be in a woman who is alluring. It does cause men to be bewitched by a woman’s charm. Some women can make men do anything that they desire for them to do. There are other women who delight in using their charm to delight other people around them and entice them to have fun.

Is it deep courage and endless determination in a woman that means beauty? Some women such as the Amazons, who have shown their girls how to ride a horse and teach them how to use weapons, are courageous and determined warriors on the battlefield. They can fight as well as men do on the battlefield during times of war. They die like men do and end up having their corpses customarily stripped bare of their armor after their deaths. The Amazons fight for their glory and their honor just as men do.

It is in the favor that women have in necessary skills they are gifted in that means beauty? Some women are gifted in making clay into shapes and painting it and drawing. There are other women good at dancing and music while other women are skilled at healing and gathering different kinds of herbs. Other women are talented at spinning and weaving.

Or does beauty mean a woman who was able to be given a divine gift from the gods themselves? Divine gifts can be desirable for a man or a woman to possess and ordinary men and women envy those who possess one, but these divine gifts could be sad and torturous for the recipient to receive. Arachne ended up being a great mortal weaver, but she foolishly boasted that her skill as a weaver was greater than of Athena the goddess of wisdom and got into a weaving contest with her to see whose skill was greater. Athena had seen Arachne’s work as flawless, but she was outraged at her offensive choice of subjects that displayed the failings and transgressions of the deities and proceeded to strike at Arachne’s tapestry with her shuttle to destroy it and turned her into a spider as punishment for daring to challenge a goddess with her staff. Selene the moon goddess fell in love with the shepherd Endyimon and she had Zeus grant him immortality, but Zeus granted it to him by putting him into an eternal sleep so he might never grow old or die. Dionysus the god of wine granted King Midas the gift to turn anything he wanted into gold as a reward for entertaining his foster father and old school master Silenus for ten days and nights with politeness, but he turned his daughter into gold when he touched her. Eos had fallen in love with the Trojan Prince Tithonus and had Zeus grant him immorality, but she also forgot to ask for youth so he lived forever as an old man. I am also one who suffers the consequences of a divine gift granted to me by the sun god Apollo.

I am Princess Cassandra the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. I have brown hair the color of chestnuts and brown eyes the color of chocolate. I came to receive my divine gift of foresight from Apollo just as my twin brother Helenus did. Apollo desired me for my beauty, my intelligence, my charm, my desirability, my elegance, and my friendly and gentle nature and he ended up falling in love with me, but I foolishly rejected him and scorned his love for me as I was not able to return his love. He got furious and he had cursed me to be able to see the future and be correct in my predictions, but that no one would ever believe me again for all eternity.

I have been able to see both bad things and good things to come in the future, but the bad things I foresee have no beauty in them. I foresee blood, crying, death, endless hunger and thirst, fire, grief, and illness. I see rape, slavery, theft of riches and splendid treasures, and widespread slaughter coming to Troy. There is no beauty in these visions for I only see the ugliness of the suffering and torment for the Trojans to come.

I know what beauty means to me. I see beauty in the blue skies, the clouds, the different kinds of animals, the endless amounts of different fruits on trees and vegetables in the fields, the flowers, the grass, the huge golden sun, and the trees. The most dazzlingly beautiful sight is the shining sea. The true meaning of beauty to me is the beauty I find in the mystery of my dedication to the gods as a priestess of Apollo and nature.

What is the true meaning of beauty to other people?