The sea-nymph Thetis (whom Zeus himself had once desired for his wife)
was given in marriage to a mortal, Peleus, and there was a great
wedding-feast in heaven. Thither all the immortals were bidden, save
one, Eris, the goddess of Discord, ever an unwelcome guest. But she
came unbidden. While the wedding-guests sat at feast, she broke in upon
their mirth, flung among them a golden apple, and departed with looks
that boded ill. Some one picked up the strange missile and read its
inscription: _For the Fairest_; and at once discussion arose among the
goddesses. They were all eager to claim the prize, but only three
persisted.
Venus, the very goddess of beauty, said that it was hers by right; but
Juno could not endure to own herself less fair than another, and even
Athena coveted the palm of beauty as well as of wisdom, and would not
give it up! Discord had indeed come to the wedding-feast. Not one of
the gods dared to decide so dangerous a question,--not Zeus himself,
--and the three rivals were forced to choose a judge among mortals.
Now there lived on Mount Ida, near the city of Troy, a certain young
shepherd by the name of Paris. He was as comely as Ganymede
himself,--that Trojan youth whom Zeus, in the shape of an eagle, seized
and bore away to Olympus, to be a cup-bearer to the gods. Paris, too,
was a Trojan of royal birth, but like Oedipus he had been left on the
mountain in his infancy, because the Oracle had foretold that he would
be the death of his kindred and the ruin of his country.
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