The Judgement of the Goddesses (11-15)

PARIS 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.

APHRODITE Let us do that.

PARIS Then you two go away, and you, Hera, stay here.

HERA 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.

PARIS My decisions are not to be influenced by rewards.

But go; I shall do whatever seems best. Come, Athena.

ATHENA I am at your side, and if you judge me beautiful, Paris, you shall never leave the-field of battle

PARIS 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.

APHRODITE 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.

APHRODITE In the first place, she is the daughter of that lovely Leda to whom Zeus flew down in the form of a swan.

PARIS What is her appearance?

APHRODITE 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.

PARIS What do you mean? With a married woman?

APHRODITE You are young and countrified, but I know how such things are to be managed.

PARIS How? I too want to know.

APHRODITE 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.

APHRODITE 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.

PARIS 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!