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InGreek mythology, theApple of Discord (Ancient Greek:μῆλον τῆς Ἔριδος) was agolden apple thrown byEris, the goddess of strife, at the wedding ofPeleus andThetis. She was not invited to the wedding and threw it out of anger to ruin the gathering (after showing up uninvited). It sparked a vanity-fueled dispute amongHera,Athena, andAphrodite that led to theJudgement of Paris and ultimately theTrojan War.[1]
In common parlance, the "apple of discord" is the core, kernel, or crux of an argument, or a small matter that could lead to a bigger dispute.[2]
In theEixample district ofBarcelona, there is a block nicknamed in SpanishLa manzana de la discordia (Catalan:Illa de la Discòrdia).[3] The reason for this usage is that the wordmanzana means both "apple" and "city block" in Spanish. It was so named ("block of discord") because it features four different interpretations ofModernisme architecture:Antoni Gaudí'sCasa Batlló,Lluís Domènech i Montaner'sCasa Lleó Morera,Josep Puig i Cadafalch'sCasa Amatller, andEnric Sagnier'sCasa Mulleras.
In some later sources, Eris inscribed on the apple "for the fairest"[4] or "to the most beautiful" before tossing it. The most popular version of the inscription in Greek isτῇ καλλίστῃ (transliterated:tē(i) kallistē(i), "for/to the most beautiful").[5]Καλλίστῃ is thedativesingular of thefemininesuperlative ofκαλός, "beautiful". InLatin sources, the word isformosissima.[6]
In an attempt to rationalize the myth,Ptolemaeus Chennus wrote that instead of an apple, the three goddesses fought over which would get a man namedMelus ("apple") as her priest, with Paris deciding in favour of Aphrodite.[7]
