Quaestiones Convivales
Plutarch
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. III. Goodwin, William W., editor; Creech, Thomas, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.
WHAT question will you put them, said Protogenes? I will tell you, continued I, and let them carefully attend. Paris makes his challenge in these express words:
And Hector afterwards publicly proclaiming this challenge in these express words:Let me and valiant Menelaus fight For Helen, and for all the goods she brought; And he that shall o’ercome, let him enjoy The goods and woman; let them be his own.
Menelaus accepted the challenge, and the conditions were sworn to, Agamemnon dictating thus:He bids the Trojans and the valiant Greeks To fix their arms upon the fruitful ground; Let Menelaus and stout Paris fight For all the goods; and he that beats have all.
Now since Menelaus only overcame but did not kill Paris, each party hath somewhat to say for itself, and against the other. The one may demand restitution, because Paris was overcome; the other deny it, because he was not killed. Now how to determine this case and clear the seeming repugnances doth not belong to philosophers or grammarians, but to rhetoricians, that are well skilled both in grammar and philosophy.If Paris valiant Menelaus kills, Let him have Helen, and the goods possess; If youthful Menelaus Paris kills, The woman and the goods shall all be his. [*](See Il. III. 68, 88, 255, and 281.)
Then Sospis said: The challenger’s word is decisive; for the challenger proposed the conditions, and when they were accepted, the other party had no power to make additions. Now the condition proposed in this challenge was not killing, but overcoming; and there was reason that it should be so, for Helen ought to be the wife of the bravest. Now the bravest is he that overcomes; for it often happens that an excellent soldier might be killed by a coward, as is evident in what happened afterward, when Achilles was shot by Paris. For I do not believe that you will affirm, that Achilles was not so brave a man as Paris because he was killed by him, and that it should be called
the victory, and not rather the unjust good fortune, of him that shot him. But Hector was overcome before he was killed by Achilles, because he would not stand, but trembled and fled at his approach. For he that refuseth the combat or flies cannot palliate his defeat, and plainly grants that his adversary is the better man. And therefore Iris tells Helen beforehand,And Jupiter afterwards adjudges the victory to Menelaus in these words:In single combat they shall fight for you, And you shall be the glorious victor’s wife. [*](Il. III. 137.)
The conquest leans to Menelaus’s side.[*](Il. IV. 13.)For it would be ridiculous to call Menelaus a conqueror when he shot Podes, a man at a great distance, before he thought of or could provide against his danger, and yet not allow him the reward of victory over him whom he made fly and sneak into the embraces of his wife, and whom he spoiled of his arms whilst he was yet alive, and who had himself given the challenge, by the terms of which Menelaus now appeared to be the conqueror.