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After Heracles, Peleus and Telamon killed King Laomedon and destroyed the old town of Troy, his youngest son Priam became king. He called together the Trojans from near and far, and at his direction they built a new city, larger, stronger, with great gates and walls and towers.
He ruled there in peace and the land grew rich. His Queen, Hecuba, bore him many handsome sons, the eldest of whom was called Hector. But just before the second son, Paris, was born, Queen Hecuba dreamt a terrible dream.
She dreamt that the child was born, but instead of an ordinary baby it turned out to be a Fury (such as those daughters of Hades whom the grim Lord of Death sends out to work vengeance on the wicked), a Fury with a hundred hands and every hand holding a lighted torch. In her dream the Fury rushed through Troy setting all on fire and pushing down the newly built towers.
When she awoke, Hecuba told Priam of her dream, and he sent for all the wise men of Troy to see if any of them could say what it meant. They told him that, if he lived, Paris would bring about the ruin of his country and the destruction of Troy itself; and they advised Priam to kill the child quickly.
Priam was very sad at this, yet when the baby boy was born he gave him to a faithful servant and bade him carry the child far away on to the lonely slopes of Mount Ida, and leave him there to be eaten by wild beasts. The servant did as he was told, leaving the child near the den of a fierce bear. Five days later, when hunting on Ida, the man revisited the place and to his amazement found the baby Paris alive and well in the bear's very lair, lying among the cubs.
‘The child must be fated to live,’ thought the servant, ‘if even the wild beasts feed and tend it,’ and he picked up Paris and took him to his own cottage. Here he brought up the boy as his son, teaching him to hunt, and to tend the flocks and herds on the mountain slopes.
Paris grew up strong and brave, and from the beginning he was one of the handsomest boys to be seen, so fine indeed that the nymph Oenone fell in love with him, and they were married and lived in a beautiful cave on Mount Ida; and there a son was born to them called Corythus.
Paris took great interest in the herd of cattle which was his charge, and when he was still quite a boy he drove away a band of robbers who tried to steal them. He was particularly proud of the herd bull, a beautiful milk-white animal stronger and finer than any other bull on Ida. He was so confident in the superior merits of his bull that he offered to crown with gold any finer than his own.
One day, as a jest, the Immortal Ares turned himself into a bull and got Hermes to drive him up Ida to compete with Paris's animal. The stranger was even more beautiful and stronger than the champion, and Paris without hesitation awarded it the promised crown.
It was on account of this scrupulous fairness that Zeus, who refused to judge them himself, sent the three lovely Immortals, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, to have their contest for the ownership of the golden apple of Discord decided by Paris.
Hermes, the Immortal Guide, led the way to Mount Ida, and there found Paris, young, strong and handsome in his goatskin cloak, seated on the hillside playing sweet tunes on his pipe, with his herdsman's crook laid beside him.
Looking up, Paris beheld the Immortal drawing near to him, and knew him by the winged sandals and the herald's wand. Then he would have leapt up and hidden in the woods, but Hermes called to him:
‘Do not fear, herdsman Paris – you who are greater than you yet know. I come to you from Zeus, who knows of your fairness in judgement, and I bring with me three Immortal Queens. You must choose which of them is the fairest – for such is the will of Zeus.’
Then Paris answered: ‘Lord Hermes, I am but a mortal, how can I judge of Immortal loveliness? And if judge I do, how can I escape the vengeance of those who are not chosen?’
‘They will abide by your decision,’ answered Hermes, ‘and it is a mortal choice that Zeus requires. As for what will come of it, that Zeus alone knows, for all this happens by his will.’
Then the three Immortals drew near, and Paris stood for a little, dazzled by their shining loveliness.
Presently Hera came to him, tall and stately, a Queen of Queens with a shimmering diadem on her beautiful forehead and her large eyes shining with majesty:
‘Choose me,’ she said in her rich voice, ‘and I will make you lord of all Asia. You shall have power greater than any king: if you will it, Greece shall be yours also…’
Paris looked upon her, and the beauty he saw was the beauty of power, of sway and dominion; he saw all his dreams of such ambition given shape and form in this lovely Immortal Queen.
He gasped and hid his eyes; and when he looked again Athena stood before him in quiet dignity. From her eyes shone wisdom and thought, and the helmet shimmered on her head, in token of deeds done and not merely planned.
‘I will give you wisdom,’ she said, ‘you shall be the wisest of men, and the kings of the earth shall come to you for counsel. With this wisdom you may conquer in war and rule if so you choose.’
Then Paris forgot his dreams of kingship and majesty: instead he saw knowledge and skill in all arts and in all learning – and they took the form of the wise-eyed, dignified Immortal whose cool hand rested for a moment on his shoulder.
Paris bowed his head, and when he raised it again he saw Aphrodite, lovelier than a dream of beauty, standing before him. Her garments were spun by the Graces and dyed in the flowers of Spring - in crocus and hyacinth, in flourishing violet and the rose's lovely bloom, so sweet and delicious, and in those heavenly buds the flowers of the narcissus and lily. Her face and form were beautiful beyond imagining, and her voice was soft and thrilling:
‘Take me,’ she murmured, ‘and forget harsh wars and cares of state. Take my beauty and leave the sceptre and the torch of wisdom. I know nothing of battles or of learning: what has Aphrodite to do with the sword or the pen? In place of wisdom, in place of sovereignty, I will give you the most beautiful woman upon earth to be your bride. Helen of Sparta is her name, and she shall be called the World's Desire and beauty's very self.’
Paris did not hesitate, but gave the Golden Apple to Aphrodite, and she laughed sweetly and triumphantly.
‘Now, Paris,’ she said, ‘I will be ever at your side and I will lead you to the golden Helen!’
But Hera and Athena turned away with anger in their eyes, and from that moment began their hatred of Troy and of all the Trojans.
Paris slept on the flowery slope of Mount Ida, and when he awoke he could not tell whether he had given judgement in a dream or in reality. But now he could no longer be happy with Oenone, nor as a herdsman in the woods and on the mountain slopes. For, waking and asleep, he saw the fair form of Aphrodite and heard her voice; and sometimes the form and the voice changed and took the shape and tones of a mortal woman, more lovely than any dream, who was destined to be his bride. He waited to see what Aphrodite would do to fulfil her promise, and it was not long before things began to happen.
King Priam, believing his son Paris to be dead, held funeral games each year in memory of him, and this year he sent his servants up on to Ida for a bull to be the chief prize.
They chose the magnificent white bull which was Paris's pride, and drove it away, in spite of all he could say to persuade them to leave it. So, half in anger and half in curiosity, Paris followed them down to Troy, and found a great crowd gathered to watch the chariot race.
When this was ended, Priam declared that the boxing match would be open to all comers – and Paris at once entered for it. He boxed so well that he won the laurel crown; and, competing in the foot-race, won that also. The other sons of Priam
were furious that a strange herdsman should win, and they challenged him themselves; but he outran them all, and having won three events was declared victor of the day and winner of the prize bull.
Then Hector and his brother Deiphobus were so angry that they drew their swords to slay Paris. But the old servant flung himseif at Priam's feet crying:
‘My lord king, this is Paris, the son whom you bade me cast out to die on the mountainside!’
Then Paris was welcomed eagerly by the King and Queen, and by his brothers as well, and was soon reinstated as a prince of Troy.
But his sister Cassandra, who was a prophetess, cried aloud that if Paris were allowed to live, Troy was doomed. Priam, however, merely smiled at her, and answered playfully:
‘Better that Troy should fall than that I should lose this wonderful new son of mine!’
Now Cassandra suffered this fate: that she should speak the truth and not be believed. For she had offended Apollo and, since he could not take from her the gift of prophecy which he had bestowed, he took this means of rendering the gift useless.
After a while, Aphrodite instructed Paris to build ships and sail to Greece, and she sent her son Aeneas with him. For Zeus had been angered with Aphrodite when she boasted that she had made all the Immortals fall in love with mortals, except the Three Heavenly Maidens, Hestia, Athena and Artemis, and he had made Aphrodite herself wed a human. She chose Anchises, a prince of Troy, the grandson of King Ilus and cousin of Priam, who was at the time a herdsman on Mount Ida. There Aeneas was born, and Aphrodite warned Anchises that he would be punished if ever he boasted of his Immortal bride: but boast he did, one day when he had feasted over-merrily, and on the instant a flash of fire struck him to the ground. Yet, for the sake of Aeneas, and also for his own virtues, Aphrodite spared his life: but he went lame from that day.
When the ships were built, Paris sailed joyously forth over the dancing waves, though Cassandra prophesied of ills to come, and Oenone wept, lonely and deserted, in her mountain cave.