the Judgement of Paris

 

Three goddesses were fighting over possession of a golden apple, we are told, and they finally agreed to conduct a bit of a beauty pageant between the three of them and have Paris Alexandrus, a Trojan, decide the winner. So they found him lazing around in the fields and all took off their clothes for him to see them. Then Athena told him that if he chose her she would give him military power. Hera told him that if he chose her she would give him kingship over nations. Then Aphrodite, the goddess of love, told him that if he chose her she would give him Helen, the wife of Menelaus the Spartan, who, by the way, was the most beautiful woman in the world. Being a typical stupid guy, Paris of course went for the most beautiful woman in the world. He got her, but it resulted in the whole mess of the famous Trojan War.

I read Greek Mythology when I was a kid, but I returned to it as an adult and have found entirely new interests in it. Having an interest in that sort of literature, I feel that several people miss out on huge elements of it because so many never appreciate the fuller stories and their implications. The same may be said of people's knowledge of the Bible: when we're kids we learn the stories that are appropriate for kids, then we lose interest, and then we never really realize that there's anything in it other than Adam and Eve, or David and Goliath, or Noah's Ark, or any of the other things that might be construed into nice little short stories to entertain a child. Likewise, when I was a kid reading Greek Mythology, I had no tolerance for stories of the Trojan War, I wanted monsters, and heroes beating things up, and Odysseus poking out the one eye of the Cyclops. But reading the source material as an adult, I see that these things were always the little details, that the real force of the stories was very much about human drama, like those represented in the Tragedians. In particular, I became very interested in the stories of the Trojan War, which I never had the patience to follow when I read the myths as a child.

So who we've got here is Hera in the crown and with the peacock-feather staff, since Hera was associated with the peacock. On the other side is Athena in military gear since Athena was typically depicted in military gear. Aphrodite, or Venus, in the middle, has the golden apple on her head, and she holds a swan egg out of which reaches Helen's hand, wearing a wedding ring. Helen's mother was Leda, who mated with Zeus in the form of a swan, and therefore Helen and her brothers were born from eggs.

 

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