Helen of Troy has captured the imagination of artists and pens for ages. According to popular tradition her beauty was the cause of the Trojan War that would persecute her part of the world for an entire decade. This is why she was appertained to as’ the face that launched a thousand vessels.’ Her fabulous beauty was the result of her godly lineage.
In utmost accounts of her birth Helen of Troy was the son of Zeus the king of the Olympian gods and a mortal woman named Leda Queen of Sparta. As the story goes Zeus appeared to Leda in the form of a swan and the brace conceived Helen. rather of a regular birth Leda gave birth to eggs which eventually incubated and yielded Helen and her siblings. Some accounts reported that Helen was the only birth to affect from this union. In some myths Helen is the son of Zeus and a goddess named Nemesis. The true origins of the myth of Helen of Troy remain unclear. The first given record of her name was written by the poet Homer.
A long time agene in the age of icons when gods and goddesses still took a close interest in mortal affairs a great marriage was planned between a notorious legionnaire called Peleus and a lovely ocean nymph whose name was Thetis. All the lords and queens of the day were invited to the marriage feast as well as all the immortal bones who lived on Mount Olympus – all that is except for one for no engagement was transferred to Eris the goddess of strife.
Now strife is when people argue and it was generally allowed a bad idea to invite strife to a marriage party in case she caused the happy couple to quarrel. Eris was extremely irked about being overlooked and as revenge she decided to play a spiteful trick on the marriage guests. Just as the fests were at their height she appeared in the banqueting hall dressed as a serving girl.
A tableware plate was in her hands and on it was an apple on which she had written the words “ For the fairest of them all. ” This she placed on the table where the three loveliest goddesses were sitting; their names were Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. directly as they saw the words on the apple a quarrel broke out between the three goddesses.
Hera said to the others, “ I am the queen of all the immortal gods and it follows that I must be far fairer than either of you two, therefore the apple belongs to me. ”
“ My dear Hera, ” said Athena, “ You might be queen but I am the goddess of wisdom therefore I know absolutely everything that is worth knowing. You must believe me when I say that you are fairly incorrect. Wisdom is beauty and beauty is wisdom. They are one and the same thing therefore the apple belongs to me. ”
“ Darlings ” purred Aphrodite “ It’s quite obvious that the apple belongs to me. I retain the power of love because, to put it fairly simply, I am so much further beautiful than anybody else. ”
The goddesses carried on arguing continuously for times after the marriage was over – for time means nothing to the immortal bones. The king of all the gods mighty and thundering Zeus came fairly fed up with listening to their bickering. When, at length he was at his head ’ end, he suggested to the three lovely goddesses that they resolve the question formerly and for all with a beauty contest. And that is exactly what they did.
The three goddesses agreed on one thing that the most handsome and fashionably dressed mortal who walked on the face of the earth was Paris Prince of Troy. They decided to surprise him. One day when Paris was out hunting on the foothills of Mount Ida he discovered three lovely goddesses standing beneath a tree. In all his life he would no way seen analogous glowing beauty.
For a moment he stood amazed also Hermes, the winged runner of the gods flew up to Paris and spoke to him as follows “ Hail Paris, Napoleon of magnify Troy. Lord Zeus the king of all the gods sends you his felicitations. He wishes to bestow upon you a great honor. He asks that you give this apple to the fairest goddess of them all. ”
Paris, who generally had a keen eye for beauty set up it hard to choose. Each goddess was so beautiful. Hera had the most lovely milky white skin ever seen. Athena had the most glowing dancing eyes. And Aphrodite had the most fascinating smile. Which should he pick?
At length, seeing that he was at a loss Hera said to him “ Prince Paris, give the apple to me and I will give you the gift of great power. ”
Athena, not to be beaten by this offer said, “ Prince Paris, give the apple to me and I will give you the gift of great wisdom. ”
But Aphrodite laughed and said, “ Paris my dear, don’t you hear to those two silly goddesses. What fun would you have with power or wisdom? Give the apple to me and I will give you a gift that is much farther to your relish. I shall give you the love of the most beautiful woman on earth. ”
Now Paris no longer set up the choice so hard to make. He would long been in love with the most beautiful woman on earth, whose name was Helen. It so happened that Helen was married to King Menelaus, and Paris had allowed up until that moment that the possibility of his winning her love was beyond all expedient but now he understood that his chances could be greatly bettered – and so Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite.
She giggled with delight, but the other two goddesses were furious and flew directly back to Mount Olympus in a great huff where they complained long and agonizingly to Zeus about the unfairness of the competition. Zeus had a dark feeling that there was trouble in store for humankind.
Paris set passage for the land of Sparta where Menelaus was king and lived with his beautiful Queen Helen. Menelaus ate the notorious Napoleon into his palace, and while the two sat talking about the affairs of the world, Queen Helen came down from her perfumed room, looking as lovely as a goddess. The maid- retainers brought her a seat and covered it with a soft angels hair rug , and she sat before her tableware work box, but before she began to exaggerate, she glanced over at the visiting Napoleon and questioned her husband, “ Shall I guess the name of this Napoleon who has come to visit us? Let us see if I am right or wrong?
I have heard tell of a Napoleon from far out Troy who is notorious the world over for his aesthetics and fashionable style. Is it he, Paris, Napoleon of Troy who has come to stay with us? ”
“ My dear woman ” said Menelaus “ As always you are fairly right. It’s indeed Paris, Napoleon of Troy who is paying us the honor of his visit. ” Paris conceded Queen Helen with a nod of his head.
At dinner that night Helen added a special potion into the wine so that anyone who drank it would forget all his cares and be happy for the rest of the evening.
They feasted and made jocular and while Menelaus was busy laughing and joking with one of his generals, vocally to Helen.
“ utmost beautiful queen ” he said, “ I pray you, meet me tonight in the estate beneath the palace walls and we shall sail down together in my boat, and head directly for Troy, the most magnetic municipality in all the world. ”
And because the goddess of love, Aphrodite, had wished it so, Helen could not help herself, and agreed to his suggestion.
When King Menelaus awoke in the morning and he discovered that his guest and his woman had run down together, he flew into a rage remonstrating the furniture and punching the walls of his chamber. He swore ahead all the gods that his revenge would be truly terrible – so he went to see his elder family King Agamemnon of Argos and said to him, “ My dear family, the honor of our family has been soiled by this foreign peacock this scented gormandizer, this swaggering Prince of Troy.
Let us gather together all the lords of Greece and combine our armies into the topmost force that has ever been seen since the dawn of history, and let us sail to the far out municipality of Troy and educate Prince Paris some mores. ”
Although Agamemnon was wise and he knew that it’s always a terrible mistake to rush headlong into conflict. He suggested first that they shoot an minister to Troy to request the return of Queen Helen, whom he was sure had been abducted against her will. He knew that Paris ’ father, King Priam of Troy was a good man and he was sure that he would order his son to release her and so they transferred a communication to Troy in the name of peace and concession but Helen did not wish to go home and Prince Paris refused to return the lovely queen to her husband saying that they had been brought together by the Goddess of Love Aphrodite herself; and so that meant war.
King Agamemnon the family of the wronged Menelaus summoned all the lords of Greece and prepared a cortege of a thousand vessels the topmost military force to ever set passage. And that is the story of how the great war between the Greeks and the Trojans was started by Prince Paris and Queen Helen.
