No Second Troy is a poem by William Butler Yeats, and it is one of his most celebrated works. The poem is a typical lyric, and it expresses the feelings of a poet who is in a state of misery and pain. Overall, the poem centers on a single issue of his disappointment, pain, and agony. 'Her' in the poem indicates that the poet is addressing the woman he loves in his past days. Most of the sentences in the poem are questions, which speak of his thoughts that he must not blame his love for all the pain he is suffering from. The poem is mainly both the personal beauty and political passion of the poet in his own story. He describes that the individual beauty of a specific lady has the power to destroy the inner soul of a person as well as a nation from a critically mythological perspective.
The opening lines of the poem begin with a personal plan and a rhetorical question, 'Why should I blame her that she filled my days/ With misery?” (Yeats 1910, 1-2), and the answer is implied in the question itself. The poet is in a state of misery and pain since his lover rejects him many times. In his poem, 'her' is referred to a lady who has not responded to Yeats’s love. On numerous occasions, she is rejecting him, and a number of his poems are directed point at her. The lines from the beginning of the poem indicate the pain and misery from which he is going through because of the involvement of this lady in his life. The poem reveals the combustible presence of the lady in Yeats’s life, and the first lines of the poem are his conflicted emotions with the lady he loves. The poet is unhappy that she has not responded to his love, but at the same time, he argues that he will not blame her for the pain and misery in her life. He has been able to squeeze his passion beautifully in these lines, and in the following sentences, he discusses political passion that relates to the lady.
The political passion of the poet reveals in the third line of the poem, “Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways' (3). The poet criticizes the lady for teaching the common men several violent ways to behave. Speaking of the pain that the lady has caused her, he takes the discussion to the damage he thinks she has caused destructive things to those innocent men. From personal concerns with the lady herself, he starts commenting on the political problems that she has taught the revolutionary methods to get freedom for a specific thing such as a country. Yeats disdains the petty violence of those who would “hurl the little streets upon the great,” (4) that is, prompt the innocent people to expand violence against the lady’s rules, which is useless. Initially, after blaming the lady for hurting him personally from his love, he is unable to understand the political attitude from her point of view.
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The author is sarcastic towards the lady’s act of teaching violence to the innocent people who live in 'little streets' against those who live on 'great streets.' There is a distinction between those two streets which the author compares with a different choice of words. In Yeats's opinion, those people need a self-identity and courage before stepping into a war of independence, “Had they but courage equal to desire?”(5). This line also illustrates a lady is a person who is accused of the turmoil of people. The author’s intended meaning shows a combination of personal and political passion when he discusses the lady as a destructive figure. He describes the lady as social destruction and states that she can't be peaceful as she has caused and spread violence to others. By comparing the lady with her personality, he is trying to make a point that her soul is not in harmony with her social environment. Hence, she is the source of destruction whose personality and beauty are not typical during the past society.
The heroic beauty of the lady is said to be tightened bow and her mind a fire of nobleness using a simile “That nobleness made simple as a fire/ With beauty like a tightened bow' (7-8). Yeats has a strong sense of sarcasm toward her beauty. The tightened bow as a metaphor represents a tension in her heroic beauty, which is the cause of the destruction of others. Her leadership skills, her fierce beauty, stern commitment, and unparalleled bravery remind the author of a strong and powerful woman. Her heroic masks contrast with a modern sensibility. But at the same time, the poet doesn't blame her beauty as her fault; he describes the negative aspects of the lady’s beauty in both personal and political terms.
In the end, Helen's image strikes in the poet’s mind, and it answers all the questions in the poem “Was there another Troy for her to burn?”(12). In ancient Greek mythology, the poem points to Helen, the most beautiful woman of Greece who is responsible for the destruction and violence of Troy, and the lady in Yeats’s poem is also accountable for some responsibilities. Helen’s beauty describes as powerful over men in any circumstances. However, a woman’s beauty carries the destructiveness of future consequences that men never know. Helen is the reason why the Trojan War started with a conflict between her complicated triangles of love. By her beauty, many people from Greece and Troy died in many battles in the Trojan War with miseries and sad feelings.
In a nutshell, the poem is a call toward peace, and it elaborates on the poet's personal and political passion. He is full of pain and woe, but because he loves the lady, he is unwilling to blame her for her destruction. By making a comparison of this lady and Helen of Troy, the poet hints at how an alluring beauty of a lady can be a cause of the destruction of an inner soul, primarily referring to a man’s heart.
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