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Myth

Youth

Whereas it carries it, his/her Hécube mother dreams that it puts at the world an ignited torch which puts fire at the city. A soothsayer also predicts that it will cause the ruin of Troy. Because of predicts, Priam charges a servant with killing the child. Pâris is exposed on the mount Ida de Troade, but a Ours E comes to nourish it and the servant, struck by predicts, comes to take it again to raise it in hiding-place. According to other traditions, they are shepherds who find it abandoned on the mount Ida de Troade. They adopt it and give him the name of Pâris. Later, because of his skill to protect the herds, one calls it Alexandre (in Greek Αλέξανδρος / Aléxandros , “guard of the men”).

Become young man, Pâris takes for woman Œnone, a nymph, girl of the god river Cébren. It has of them a son, Corythos. It will give up them both to join Helene (see below).

The judgment of the Ida mount

To the weddings of Shovelful and Thétis on the Olympe, all the gods are invited except obviously Éris, goddess of the discord. To be avenged, it sends a to them Pomme of gold on which is written: “with most beautiful” ( Ἡ καλὴ λαϐέτω / He kalê labetô : it is famous “the bone of contention”). Three goddesses assert apple then, it is about Athéna, Héra and Aphrodite. In order to put a term at the argument between the three goddesses, Hermes chooses Pâris, which was with the mount Ida at this time there, like judges to indicate gaining it. Héra promises to the young man a kingdom, Athéna wisdom and the warlike value, and Aphrodite, the love of the more beautiful woman of Greece.

Pâris chooses Aphrodite, involving thus doubly the loss of its family and her fatherland: initially, by removing Helene de Sparte, price promised by the goddess, then, by attracting the fatal enmity of the two other goddesses, who will show adversaries keen of Troyens. Homère refers to the event in some worms of song XXIV of Iliade :

“… Héra and the Virgin with the eyes pers.
These kept all their hatred in holy Ilion,
In Priam and his, since Pâris aveuglé
Their had made insult, by daring, without its sheep-fold,
To choose that which offered the bitter lust to him. ”
(Translation of Frederic Mugler to the Actes Sud editions, 1995)

The return to Troy

Pâris returns to Troy at the time of a contest organized by Priam between the Trojan princes, which has as a reward a splendid ox of the Ida mount. However, this ox was taken in Pâris, and he intends well to take part in the contest to recover it. The young man leaves victorious all the meetings. In last, which opposes it to that which is not other than his/her brother, Hector, it has one moment the advantage.

Furious to let an unknown take the advantage, Hector is begun again and missed killing it. Pâris saves its life while taking refuge on the furnace bridge of Zeus. There, Cassandre, struck by its air of family, questions it, and discovers that it is about the exposed child. Priam, forgetting the warnings of the destiny, accommodates the prince in his family.

The Trojan War

A little later Pâris leaves in an embassy in Greece, in spite of the warnings of Cassandre. The pretext is to take news of Hésione, sister of Priam given in marriage to Télamon, king of Salamine, but actually, Pâris comes to seek its due, promised by Aphrodite. Arrived at Sparte, it is received by Ménélas. Benefitting from a short voyage of the king Spartan in Crete, it allures and removes Helene, his wife. It will have of them three wire, Bounicos, Aganos and Idacos, and a girl, Héléna. According to the authors, Helene is removed from gladly or not. The Trojan does not forget to also make control on part of the richnesses of its host, the whole being carried in Troy. To avenge this affront, Ménélas asks for the support of all the Greeks in the name of the Serment of Tyndare, which causes the Trojan War.

The gods and the goddesses of Olympe take each one the party of one of the protagonists of this conflict: Aphrodite (Venus) is the allied one of Troyens (it is besides mother of the one of them, the prince Énée) while Athéna and Héra, to which Pâris preferred Aphrodite, are obviously as regards Greeks.

In Iliade , it is described there in a not very flattering way like a ladies' man with little courage. Contrary to the other heroes, it is an archer - the arc is a nonnoble weapon, carried by the cowards, the traitors or the bastard ones. The first time that he sees Ménélas with the combat, he flees, and is saved in its duel against this one only by Aphrodite, who deposits it out of the zone of the combat, which never arrives when the other gods protect the heroes. His/her own Hector brother treats it of “Pâris of misfortune”, of “fop, woman-chaser and suborner”. Nevertheless, Pâris kills three Greeks in the engagements and wounds warriors such as Diomède, Machaon, Archiloque or Palamède. It is him which, guided by Apollon, keep silent Achille by striking it of an arrow from the heel.

During the catch of Troy, Pâris is mortally wounded by an arrow of Philoctète. Brought back on the Ida mount, he asks Œnone, his first wife, to look after it, but this one refuses and he dies.

Pâris is usually represented like a beautiful young man, rather effeminate, carrying a Phrygian cap because Pâris is famous being of Phrygian origin .

Sources

(III, 5).
.
.
( passim ).
(XCI).
Isocrate, Praise of Helene .
.
.
Quintus of Smyrna, the Continuation of Homère : to see song X concerning the death of Pâris

See too

External bond

Simple: Paris (mythology)

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