Hermes, take this apple; go to Phrygia, to Priam’s son, the herdsman—he is grazing his flock in the foothills of Ida, on Gargaron—and say to him: “Paris, as you are handsome yourself, and also well schooled in all that concerns love, Zeus bids you be judge for the goddesses, to decide which of them is the most beautiful. As the prize for the contest, let the victor take the apple.” (To the Gopprsses) You yourselves must now go and appear before your judge. I refuse to be umpire because I love you all alike and if it were possible, should be glad to see you all victorious. Moreover, it is sure that if I gave the guerdon of beauty to one, I should inevitably get into the bad graces of the majority. For those reasons I 4am not a proper judge for you, but the young Phrygian to whom you are going is of royal blood and near of kin to our Ganymede; besides, he is ingenuous and unsophisticated, and one cannot consider him unworthy of a spectacle such as this.
For my part, Zeus, even if you should appoint
Momus himself to be our judge, I would go and face
the inspection confidently, for what could he carp at
inme? The others, too, ought to be satisfied with
the man.
Is that your view too, daughter ? What do you say? You turn away and blush? Of course, it is the way of a maid like you to be bashful in such matters, but you nod assent anyhow. Go, then, and do not get angry at your judge, those of you who are defeated, and do not inflict any harm on the lad. It is not possible for all of you to be equally beautiful.
Let us make straight for Phrygia; I will lead the way, and you follow me without delaying. Be of good courage; I know Paris. He is young and handsome and in every way susceptible to love ; just the sort to decide such questions. He would not judge amiss, not he.
What you say is all to the good and in my favour, that our judge is just. Is he unmarried, or does some woman live with him?
Not quite unmarried, Aphrodite.
What do you mean by that?
Apparently someone is living with him, a woman
from Mount Ida, well enough, but countrified and
terribly unsophisticated ; however, he does not seem .
to think much of her. The reference is to Oenone.
I say, you are betraying your trust in talking to her privately all this while.
It was nothing alarming, Athena, or against you and Hera; she asked me whether Paris is unmarried. ATHENA Why was she inquisitive about that?
I don’t know; she says, however, that she asked because it came into her head casually, and not because she had anything definite in view.
Well, what about it? Is he unmarried ?
Apparently not.
Tell me, does he covet success in war and is he fond of glory, or nothing but a herdsman ?.
I can’t say for certain, but it is fair to suppose that, being young, he yearns to acquire all that too, and would like to be first in war.
You see, I am not making any complaint or
reproaching you with talking confidentially to her ;
that is the way of fault-finders, not of Aphrodite !
But in the course of our conversation we have already left the stars far behind as we pressed on, and we are almost over Phrygia. Indeed I can see Ida and the whole of Gargaron plainly, and unless I am mistaken, even Paris himself, your judge.
Where is he? I do not see him.
Look in this direction, Hera, to the left; not near the mountain-top, but on the side, where the cavern is, near which you see the herd.
But I do not see the herd.
What? Don’t you see tiny cattle over here in the direction of my finger, coming out from among the rocks, and someone running down from the cliff, holding a crook and trying to prevent the herd from scattering out ahead of him?
I see now—if that is really he.
Yes, itis he. As we are near now, let us alight
upon the earth and walk, if it is your pleasure, so
that we may not alarm him by flying suddenly down
from above.
These jokes do not vex me greatly, Hera.
No matter: I will lead you, for I myself spent some time on Ida when Zeus was in love with his Phrygian lad, and I often came here when he sent me down to watch the boy. Indeed, when he was in the eagle, I flew beside him and helped him to lift the pretty fellow, and if my memory serves me, it — was from this rock just here that Zeus caught him up. You see, he chanced to be piping to his flock then, and Zeus, flying down behind him, grasped him very delicately in his talons, held in his beak the pointed cap which was on the boy’s head, and bore him on high, terrified and staring at him with his head turned backwards. So then I took the syrinx, for he had let it fall in his fright—but here is your umpire close by, so let us speak to him.
Good day, herdsman.
Good day to you also, young man. But who are
you, to have come here to see me, and who are these
women whom you have with you? They are not of a
sort to roam the mountains, being so beautiful.
Come, let me see what it says; “The fairest may have me.”—How could I, Lord Hermes, a mere mortal and a countryman, be judge of an extraordinary spectacle, too sublime for a herdsman? To decide such matters better befits dainty, city-bred folk. As for me, I could perhaps pass judgement as an expert between two she-goats, as to which is the more beautiful, or between two heifers;
but these
goddesses are all equally beautiful and I do not know
~ how a man could withdraw his eyes from one and
transfer them to another. They are not inclined to
come away readily, but wherever one directs them
first, they take firm hold and commend what is before
them; and if they pass over to something else, they
see that this too is beautiful and linger upon it,
mastered by what is near. In short, their beauty
encompasses and completely enthralls me, and I am
distressed that I cannot see with my whole body
as Argus did. I think I should pass a becoming
judgement if I should give the apple to them all.—
Another thing: one of them is Zeus’ sister and wife,
I do not know; but it is impossible to escape carrying out what Zeus has commanded.
Do me this one favour, Hermes: persuade them not to be angry with me, the two that are defeated, but to think that only my sight is at fault.
They say they will do so, and now it is high time for you to get your judging done.
I shall try; what else can one do? But first I want to know whether it will satisfy the requirements to look them over just as they are, or must I have them undress for a thorough examination ?
That is your affair, as you are the judge. Give your orders as you will.
As I will? I want to see them naked.
Undress, goddesses. Make your inspection, Paris. I have turned my back.
Very well, Paris. I shall undress first, so that you
may discover that I am not just “white-armed”
Aphrodite, vexed at Hera for twitting her about Anchises, makes fun of her by implying that she has no other beauties than those habitually commended in her by Homer. See Iliad 14, 214 ff.
They are right about the girdle, so lay it aside.
Then why do not you take off your helmet, Athena,
and show your head bare, instead of tossing your
plumes at the judge and frightening him? Are you
afraid that you may be criticized for the green glare
of your eyes if it is seen without trappings that inspire
terror ? The word with which Homer describes the eyes of Athena had an uncomplimentary sense in Lucian’s time. “Don’t let it trouble you that her eyes are very green (πανύ γλαυκούς), or that they squint and look at each other!” says a girl to her lover about a rival (Dial. Mer. 2,1). And Hephaestus finds Athena very beautiful, but must except her eyes: “To be sure, she has green eyes, but the helmet makes even that a mark of beauty” (Dial. Deor, 13 (vulg. 8)). So caesius in Latin ; cf. Lucretius 4, 1161.
There is the girdle for you.
O Zeus, god of miracles! What a spectacle! What beauty! What rapture! How fair the maiden is! How royal and majestic and truly worthy of Zeus is the matron’s splendour! How sweet and delicious is the other’s gaze, and how seductively she smiled! But I have more than enough of bliss already ; and if you please, I should like to examine each of you separately, for at present I am all at sea and do not know what to look at; my eyes are ravished in every direction.
Let us do that.
Then you two go away, and you, Hera, stay here.
Very well, and when you have examined me thoroughly, you must further consider whether the rewards of a vote in my favour are also beautiful in your eyes. If you judge me to be beautiful, Paris, you shall be lord of all Asia.
My decisions are not to be influenced by rewards.
But go; I shall do whatever seems best. Come, Athena.
I am at your side, and if you judge me beautiful,
Paris, you shall never leave the-field of battle
I have no use, Athena, for war and battle. As you see, peace reigns at present over Phrygia and Lydia, and my father’s realm is free from wars. But have no fear ; you shall not be treated unfairly, even if my judgement is not to be influenced by gifts. Dress yourself now, and put on your helmet, for I have seen enough. It is time for Aphrodite to appear.
Here I am close by; examine me thoroughly, part
by part, slighting none, but lingering upon each.
And if you will be so good, my handsome lad, let me
tell you this. I have long seen that you are young
and more handsome than perhaps anyone else whom
Phrygia nurtures. While I congratulate you upon
your beauty, I find’ fault with you because, instead
of abandoning these crags and cliffs and living in
town, you are letting your beauty go to waste in
the solitude. What joy can you get of the mountains? What good can your beauty do the kine?
Moreover, you ought to have married by this time—
not a country girl, however, a peasant, like the
women about Ida, but someone from Greece, either
from Argos or Corinth or a Spartan like Helen, who
is young and beautiful and not a bit inferior to me,
and above all, susceptible to love. If she but saw
you, I know very well that, abandoning everything
and surrendering without conditions, she would
follow you and make her home with you. No doubt
you yourself have heard something of her.
In the first place, she is the daughter of that lovely Leda to whom Zeus flew down in the form of a swan.
What is her appearance ?
She is white, as is natural in the daughter of a swan, and delicate, since she was nurtured in an eggshell, much given to exercise and athletics, and so very much sought for that a war actually broke out over her because Theseus carried her off while she was still a young girl. Moreover, when she came to maturity, all the noblest of the Achaeans assembled to woo her, and Menelaus, of the line of Pelops, was given the preferenee. If you like, I will arrange the marriage for you.
What do you mean? With a married woman?
You are young and countrified, but I know how such things are to be managed.
How? I too want to know.
You will go abroad on the pretext of seeing
Greece, and when you come to Sparta, Helen will
see you. From that time on it will be my look-out
that she falls in love with you and follows you.
Be easy on that score; I have two beautiful pages, Desire and Love; these I shall give you to be your guides on the journey. Love will enter wholly into her heart and compel the woman to love you, while Desire will encompass you and make you what he is himself, desirable and charming. I myself shall be there too, and I shall ask the Graces to go with me; and in this way, by united effort, we shall prevail upon her.
How this affair will turn out is uncertain, Aphrodite; but, anyhow, I am in love with Helen already ; somehow or other I think I see her; I am sailing direct to Greece, visiting Sparta, coming back again with the woman—and it irks me not to be doing all this now!
Do not fall in love, Paris, until you have requited me, your match-maker and maid of honour, with the decision. It would be only fitting that when I am there with you, I too should be triumphant, and that we should celebrate at the same time your marriage and my victory. It is in your power to buy everything—her love, her beauty, and her hand—at the price of this apple.
I am afraid you may dismiss me from your mind
after the decision.
Not at all; but promise once again.
I do promise that I will give you Helen to wife, and that she shall follow you and come to your © people in Troy ; and I myself will be there and help in arranging it all.
And shall you bring Love and Desire and the Graces ?
Have no fear; I shall take with me Longing and Wedlock as well.
Then on these conditions I award you the apple: take it on these conditions.