Fugitive Desire

The Trojan War purports to have engaged the animosity of the warring nations for a full decade. Homer's Iliad covers roughly fifty days of that interminable war, albeit a period toward the end. The story of Penthesilea, the Amazon Queen who entered the foray on the side of the Trojans, is an episode which claims the temporal unity of a single twenty-four-hour day -a marginal notation, really, in the trajectory of a major epic. Nevertheless, from its peripheral and enigmatic position, the incident involving the Amazons continued to attract more than cursory interest, undergoing numerous transformations in the process of retelling, accumulating significance with each subsequent version.1 Most variations of the legend agree in their claim that Penthesilea led the Amazons against the Greeks, seeking a military victory, and intending to challenge Achilles (the Homeric hero) personally in the field. In many versions the Amazon queen is welcomed by the destitute Priam as the harbinger of hope for his besieged city of Troy. Amazons were reputed to be splendid warriors on horseback--swift, lethal, resourceful. And Penthesilea led her followers by dint of exemplary courage

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