 | This articlemay containoriginal research. Pleaseimprove it byverifying the claims made and addinginline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.(May 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Trojan War |
|---|
 |
Trojans and allies |
TheJudgement of Paris is a story fromGreek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to theTrojan War, and in later versions to the foundation ofRome.[1]
Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding ofPeleus andThetis. In revenge, she brought agolden apple, inscribed, "To the fairest one", which she threw into the wedding. Three guests,Hera,Athena andAphrodite, after some disputation, agreed to haveParis of Troy choose the fairest one. Paris chose Aphrodite, she havingbribed him with the most beautiful mortal woman in the world,Helen of Sparta, wife ofMenelaus. Consequently, Paris carried Helen off toTroy, and the Greeks invaded Troy for Helen's return. Eris'sApple of Discord (or her not being invited to the wedding in the first place) was thus the instrumentalcasus belli of the Trojan War.
_-_London_BM_1889-0410-1_-_02.jpg)
As with many mythological tales, details vary depending on the source. The brief allusion to the Judgement in theIliad (24.25–30) shows that the episode initiating all the subsequent action was already familiar to its audience; a fuller version was told in theCypria, alost work of theEpic Cycle, of which only fragments (and a reliable summary[2]) remain. The later writersOvid (Heroides 16.71ff, 149–152 and 5.35f),Lucian (Dialogues of the Gods 20),Pseudo-Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, E.3.2) andHyginus (Fabulae 92), retell the story with skeptical, ironic or popularizing agendas. It appeared wordlessly on the ivory and gold votive chest of the 7th-century BC tyrantCypselus atOlympia, which was described byPausanias as showing:
... Hermes bringing toAlexander [i.e. Paris] the son ofPriam the goddesses of whose beauty he is to judge, the inscription on them being: 'Here is Hermes, who is showing to Alexander, that he may arbitrate concerning their beauty,Hera,Athena andAphrodite.[3]
The subject was favoured by ancient Greek vase painters as early as the sixth century BC,[4] and remained popular in Greek and Roman art, before enjoying a significant revival as an opportunity to show three female nudes, in theRenaissance.
It is recounted[5] thatZeus held a banquet in celebration of themarriage ofPeleus andThetis (parents ofAchilles). However,Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited, for it was believed she would have made the party unpleasant for everyone. Angered by this snub, Eris arrived at the celebration with agolden apple from theGarden of the Hesperides, which she threw into the proceedings as a prize of beauty.[6] According to some later versions, upon the apple was the inscriptionκαλλίστῃ (kallistēi, "To/for the fairest one").[7]
Three goddesses claimed the apple:Hera,Athena andAphrodite. They asked Zeus to judge which of them was fairest, and eventually he, reluctant to favour any claim himself, declared thatParis, a Trojan mortal, would judge their cases, for he had recently shown his exemplary fairness in a contest in whichAres in bull form had bested Paris's own prize bull, and the shepherd-prince had unhesitatingly awarded the prize to the god.[8]
WithHermes as their guide, the three candidates bathed in the spring of Ida, then met Paris onMount Ida. While Paris inspected them, each attempted with her powers to bribe him; Hera offered to make him king ofEuropeandAsia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite, who had theCharites and theHorai to enhance her charms with flowers and song (according to a fragment of theCypria quoted byAthenagoras of Athens), offered the world's most beautiful woman (Euripides,Andromache, l.284,Helena l. 676). This wasHelen ofSparta, wife of the Greek kingMenelaus. Paris accepted Aphrodite's bribe and awarded the apple to her, receiving Helen as well as the enmity of the Greeks and especially of Hera. The Greeks' expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris inTroy is the mythological basis of theTrojan War. According to some stories,Helen of Troy was kidnapped by Paris and a group of Trojans; in others, she simply followed Paris willingly because she felt affection for him, too.
.jpg)
According to a tradition suggested by Alfred J. Van Windekens,[9] "cow-eyed" Hera was indeed the most beautiful, before Aphrodite showed up. However, Hera was the goddess of the marital order and of cuckolded wives, amongst other things. She was often portrayed as the shrewish, jealous wife of Zeus, who himself often escaped from her controlling ways by cheating on her with other women, mortal and immortal. She had fidelity and chastity in mind and was careful to be modest when Paris was inspecting her. Aphrodite was the goddess ofsexuality, and was effortlessly more sexual and charming than any goddess. Thus, she was able to sway Paris into judging her as the fairest. Athena's beauty is rarely commented on in the myths, perhaps because Greeks held her up as an asexual being, able to "overcome" her "womanly weaknesses" to become both wise and talented in war (both considered male domains by the Greeks). Her rage at losing makes her join the Greeks in the battle against Paris's Trojans, a key event in the turning point of the war.
The subject became popular in art from the lateMiddle Ages onwards. All three goddesses were usually shown nude, though in ancient art only Aphrodite is ever unclothed, and not always.[10] The opportunity for three female nudes was a large part of the attraction of the subject, commonly being used to allow a full appreciation of the female body by painting the goddesses from three different angles (often front, back, and side view). It appeared inilluminated manuscripts and was popular in decorative art, including 15th-century Italian inkstands and other works inmaiolica, andcassoni.[11] As a subject for easel paintings, it was more common in Northern Europe, althoughMarcantonio Raimondi'sengraving of c. 1515, probably based on a drawing byRaphael, and using a composition derived from a Romansarcophagus, was a highly influential treatment, which made Paris'sPhrygian cap an attribute in most later versions.[12]
The subject was painted many (supposedly 23) times byLucas Cranach the Elder, and was especially attractive toNorthern Mannerist painters.Rubens paintedseveral compositions of the subject at different points in his career.Watteau andAngelica Kauffman were among the artists who painted the subject in the 18th century. The Judgement of Paris was painted frequently byacademic artists of the 19th century, and less often by their more progressive contemporaries such asRenoir andCézanne. Later artists who have painted the subject includeAndré Lhote,Enrique Simonet (El Juicio de Paris 1904), andSalvador Dalí.
Ivo Saliger (1939), Adolf Ziegler (1939), and Joseph Thorak (1941) also used the classic myth to propagate German renewal during the Nazi period.[13]
The story is the basis of an opera,The Judgement of Paris, with alibretto byWilliam Congreve, that was set to music by four composers in London, 1700–1701.Thomas Arne composed a highly successful score to the same libretto in 1742. The operaLe Cinesi (The Chinese Women) byChristoph Willibald Gluck (1754) concludes with a ballet,The Judgement of Paris, sung as a vocal quartet.Francesco Cilea's 1902 operaAdriana Lecouvreur also includes aJudgement of Paris ballet sequence.
The story is the basis of an earlier opera,Il pomo d'oro, in a prologue and five acts by the Italian composerAntonio Cesti, with a libretto by Francesco Sbarra (1611–1668).
_(62).jpg)
Kallistēi is the word of the ancient Greek language inscribed onEris'sApple of Discord. In Greek, the word isκαλλίστῃ (thedativesingular of thefemininesuperlative of καλος,beautiful). Its meaning can be rendered "to the fairest one".Calliste (Καλλίστη; Mod. Gk.Kallisti) is also an ancient name for the isle ofThera.
The wordKallisti (Modern Greek) written on a golden apple, has become a principal symbol ofDiscordianism, a post-modernist religion. In non-philological texts (such as Discordian ones) the word is usually spelled asκαλλιστι. Most versions ofPrincipia Discordia actually spell it as καλλιχτι, but this is definitely incorrect; in the afterword of the 1979Loompanics edition ofPrincipia,Gregory Hill says that was because on the IBM typewriter he used, not allGreek letters coincided withLatin ones, and he didn't know enough of the letters to spot the mistake. Zeus's failure to invite Eris is referred to asThe Original Snub in Discordian mythology.[14]
.jpg)
Chronological listing of classical literature sources for The Judgement of Paris, including the Apple of Discord:
| International | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
