The Judgment of Paris, Peter Paul Rubens, ca 1636 (National Gallery, London)

For the wine-tasting event known as "The Judgment of Paris", see Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1088x770, 139 KB) Peter Paul Rubens, Judgement of Paris, c. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1088x770, 139 KB) Peter Paul Rubens, Judgement of Paris, c. ... Rubens and Isabella Brant in the Honeysuckle Bower Alte Pinakothek Pieter Pauwel (Peter Paul) Rubens (June 28, 1577 – May 30, 1640) was the most popular and prolific Flemish and European painter of the 17th century. ... The National Gallery from Trafalgar Square The National Gallery is an art gallery in London, located on the north side of Trafalgar Square. ... French wines were generally believed by most people to be the very best wines in the world until 1976. ...

The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, in which the legendary roots of the Trojan War can be found. As with many mythological tales, details vary depending on the source. The story is casually referred to by Homer (Iliad, XXIV, 25–30) as a mythic element with which his hearers were well familiar, and it was elaborated in Kypria, a lost work of the Epic Cycle, of which only fragments remain. It is told in more detail by Ovid (Heroides xvi.71ff, 149–152 and v.35f), Lucian (Dialogues of the Gods 20), and Hyginus (Fabulae 92), all of whom are late and have skeptical, ironic or popularizing agendas. But it appeared wordlessly on the ivory and gold votive chest of the 7th-century tyrant Kypselos at Olympia, which was described by Pausanias as showing The Oricoli bust of Zeus, King of the Gods, in the collection of the Vatican Museum. ... The fall of Troy by Johann Georg Trautmann (1713–1769) From the collections of the granddukes of Baden, Karlsruhe The Trojan War was a war waged, according to legend, against the city of Troy in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), by the armies of the Achaeans, after Paris of Troy... Homer (Greek HómÄ“ros) was a legendary early Greek poet and aoidos (singer) traditionally credited with the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. ... This is about the eBook reader. ... In the study of mythology, a mytheme is a feature of a myth, which may be shared with other, related myths. ... The Kypria (Greek: Κύπρια; Latin: Cypria) is a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. ... In mathematics, see epic morphism. ... Engraved frontispiece of George Sandyss 1632 London edition of Publius Ovidius Naso (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC â€“ Tomis, now Constanta AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. ... Lucian Lucian of Samosata (Greek, Λουκιανὸς Σαμοσατεύς, Latin, Lucianus; c. ... Gaius Julius Hyginus, (c. ... Cypselus (or Kypselos) was the first tyrant of Corinth, Greece in the 7th century BC. With increased wealth and more complicated trade relations and social structures, Greek city-states tended to overthrow their traditional hereditary priest-kings; Corinth, the richest archaic polis, led the way. ... Olympia (Greek: Ολυμπία Olympía or Ολύμπια Olýmpia, older transliterations, Olimpia, Olimbia), a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. ... Pausanias (Greek: ) was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. ...

"Hermes bringing to Alexandros the son of Priamos the goddesses of whose beauty he is to judge, the inscription on them being: 'Here is Hermes, who is showing to Alexandros, that he may arbitrate concerning their beauty, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite." (Description of Greece, LXV.9.5).

The subject was favored by painters of Red-figure pottery as early as the 6th century (e.g. Kerenyi, fig. 68). Judgement of Paris by Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. ... In Greek mythology, Priam (Greek Πρίαμος) was the king of Troy during the Trojan War, and son of Laomedon. ... Detail of Athenian calyx krater by the Aegisthus painter — 460 BC Red-figure pottery is a style of archaic Greek pottery, later adopted in southern Italy. ...

The story

It is recounted that Zeus held a banquet in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. However, Eris, goddess of discord, was uninvited. Angered by this snub, Eris arrived at the celebration, where she threw a golden apple (the Apple of Discord) into the proceedings, upon which was the inscription καλλίστῃ ("for the fairest one"). The Statue of Zeus at Olympia Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall statue of Zeus at Olympia about 435 BC. The statue was perhaps the most famous sculpture in Ancient Greece, imagined here in a 16th century engraving In Greek mythology, Zeus (in Greek: nominative: Ζεύς Zeús, genitive... Nubian wedding with some international modern touches, near Aswan, Egypt Preparing for the photographs, at a wedding in Thornbury Castle, England A traditional Japanese wedding ceremony A wedding is a civil or religious ceremony which celebrates the beginning of a marriage. ... Peleus consigns Achilles to Chirons care, white-ground lekythos by the Edinburgh Painter, ca. ... This article is about the Greek sea nymph. ... Eris (ca. ... // The Golden apple is an element that appears in some countries legends or fairy tales. ...

Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. They asked Zeus to judge which of them was fairest, and eventually Zeus, reluctant to favor any claim himself, declared that Paris, a Phrygian mortal, would judge their cases, for he had recently shown his exemplary fairness in a contest in which Ares in bull form had bested Paris's own prize bull and the shepherd-prince had unhesitatingly awarded the prize to the god.(For a more complete history of Paris, see Paris.) Statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of the agriculture A goddess is a female deity, in contrast with a male deity known as a god. Many cultures have goddesses, sometimes alone, but more often as part of a larger pantheon that includes both the conventional genders and in some cases... Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera (IPA pronunciation: ; Greek or ) was the wife and older sister of Zeus. ... Helmeted Athena, of the Velletri type. ... The Birth of Venus, (detail) by Sandro Botticelli, 1485 Aphrodite (Greek: Ἀφροδίτη, pronounced in English as and in Ancient Greek as ) was the Greek goddess of love, lust, beauty, and sexuality. ... Judgement of Paris by Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. ... In Greek mythology, Ares (in Greek, Άρης — battle strife)[1] is the son of Zeus (king of the gods) and Hera. ... Judgement of Paris by Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. ...

Thus it happened that with Hermes as their guide all three of the candidates appeared to Paris on Mount Ida, in the climactic moment that is the crux of the tale. After bathing in the spring of Ida, each attempted with her powers to bribe Paris; Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite, who had the Charites and the Horai to enhance her charms with flowers and song (according to a fragment of Kypria quoted by Athenagoras), offered the love of the world's most beautiful woman (Euripides, Andromache, l.284, Helena l. 676). This was Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus. Paris accepted Aphrodite's gift and awarded the apple to her, receiving Helen as well as the enmity of the Greeks and especially of Hera. The Greeks' expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War. Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles Hermes (Greek IPA: ), in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and invention and commerce in general... Two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida in Greek mythology, equally named Mount of the Goddess. ... Look up monarch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... World map showing Europe A satellite composite image of Europe Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. ... World map showing the location of Asia. ... Personification of wisdom (Greek Σοφια) in Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey Detail from the Allegory of Wisdom and Strength by Paulo Veronese (c. ... A war is a conflict between two or more groups that involve large numbers of individuals. ... The Three Graces, from Sandro Botticellis painting Primavera Uffizi Gallery In Greek mythology, the Charites were the graces. ... Horai is a place in Japanese mythology. ... Athenagoras has been the name of several notable Greek individuals: Athenagoras of Ephesus, a tyrant of Ephesus around the 6th century BC Athenagoras of Athens (circa 133-190), early Christian philosopher Patriarch Athenagoras (1886-1972), Patriarch of Constantinople from 1948 to 1972 Athenagoras is also the title of a 1682... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Love Look up love in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A statue of Euripides Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (c. ... In Greek mythology, Helen (Greek: , Helénē), also known as Helen of Troy, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda and the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. ... Sparta (Doric: , Attic: ) is a city in southern Greece. ... This article is about Menelaus the king of Sparta. ... Walls of the excavated city of Troy Troy (Greek: Τροία [Troia], also Ίλιον [Ilion], Latin: Troia, Ilium) is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer. ... The Trojan War was a war waged, according to legend, against the city of Troy in Asia Minor by the armies of the Achaeans, following the kidnapping (or elopement) of Helen of Sparta by Paris of Troy. ...

According to tradition, Hera was indeed the most objectively beautiful, being described often as "cow eyed" ("cow eyed" being a particularly high admonition of beauty for the ancient Greeks, probably best translated idiomatically as "blond bombshell" today). Hera was the Goddess of the marital order and of cuckholded wives, amongst other things. Hera was often portrayed as the shrewish, jealous wife of Zeus, who himself often escaped from her controlling ways be cheating on her with mortal and immortal women.

Aphrodite, though not possessing the beauty as Hera, was effortlessly sexual and charming (as opposed to Hera's natural shrewish nature), and thus her ability to sway Paris and her position as Goddess of Love were more palatable to Paris. In later years, the Romans who compared Cleopatra to Aphrodite (or, more properly, her Roman counterpart, Venus) did so conscious of the fact that while Aphrodite was not gorgeous, she was incredibly seductive, as was Cleopatra. This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Adjective Venusian or (rarely) Cytherean (*min temperature refers to cloud tops only) Atmospheric characteristics Atmospheric pressure 9. ...

Athena's beauty is rarely commented upon in the myths, perhaps because Greeks held her up as an asexual being, being able to "overcome" her "womanly weaknesses" in order to become both wise and talented in war (both considered male domains by the Greeks). In any event, she is considered an also ran by mythology in this contest, though her rage at losing makes her join the Greeks in the battle against Paris's Trojans, a key event in the turning point of the war (she is the Goddess of War, and held much higher in esteem than her cowardly brother, the God of War, Ares). In Greek mythology, Ares (in Greek, Άρης — battle strife)[1] is the son of Zeus (king of the gods) and Hera. ...

Seen purely as a story, such as is recounted in Bulfinch's Mythology, the Judgement of Paris is simply an amoral episode in which Paris' skill for sound judgment (for which the gods approved him) is overcome by appeals to his lust; thus a lengthy and blood-soaked war revolves upon a series of apparently trivial episodes, each adding to the inertia that drives events to their inevitable and tragic conclusions. Thomas Bulfinch (July 15, 1796 - May 27, 1867) was an American writer, born in Newton, Massachusetts to a highly-educated but not rich Bostonian merchant family. ...

Alternatively, the narrative can be seen as a rationalized series of episodic causes and consequences that has been developed to embed within a human timeframe, and to explain, a moment of epiphany that occurs in a suspended moment out of time that artists endeavor to recapture in an icon (illustration): a blissfully fortunate mortal is confronted by a trinity of goddesses and a transcendent gift, the "apple", is exchanged. The story appears to be the result of an interpretation of an archaic iconic image representing such an ecstatic moment, which logically must have preceded the narrative invented to explicate it. This article is about a feeling, for other meanings see epiphany (disambiguation). ... Christ the Redeemer (1410s, by Andrei Rublev) An icon (from Greek , eikon, image) is an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it, or by analogy, as in semiotics; in computers an icon is a symbol on the...

In the archaic prototypical stories antedating the Judgement of Paris, the gift is imparted by the deity, like the pomegranate that the Goddess offers on Minoan seal-impressions, and the mortal the recipient. As such, the classic telling of the Judgment of Paris is an example of mythic inversion, in which the apple becomes his to award. Binomial name Punica granatum L. The Pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing to 5–8 m tall. ...

The mytheme of the Judgement of Paris naturally offered artists the opportunity to portray three ideally lovely women in undress, as a sort of beauty contest, but the myth, at least since Euripides, rather concerns a choice among the gifts that each goddess embodies: a subtext of the bribery involved is ironic, and a late ingredient. In the study of mythology, a mytheme is a feature of a myth, which may be shared with other, related myths. ... Irony is a literary or rhetorical device in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says, and what is generally understood (either at the time, or in the later context of history). ...

In each allusion to the Judgment of Paris or narrative account, an aspect of Paris' sojourn as a shepherd-exile that is never linked to the explication of the central moment is his connection with the nurturing nymph of Mount Ida, Oenone. In Greek mythology, Oenone (wine woman) was the first wife of Paris. ...

Kalliste

Kalliste is the word of the Ancient Greek language inscribed on the Golden Apple of Discord by Eris. In Greek, the word is καλλίστῃ (the dative singular of the feminine superlative of καλος, beautiful). Its meaning comes out to be "to the fairest one" or "to the prettiest". The Greek language (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA // – Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of some 3,000 years. ... Eris (ca. ... Dative has several meanings. ... In linguistics, the term grammatical number refers to ways of expressing quantity by inflecting words. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... In grammar the superlative of an adjective or adverb is a form of adjective or adverb which indicates that something has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to in a given context. ... A nymph with morning glory flowers by Lefebvre. ...

Use in Discordianism

Main article: Apple of Discord

The word Kallisti (Modern Greek) written on a golden apple, has become a principal symbol of Discordianism, a modern religion. In non-philological texts (such as Discordian ones) the word is usually spelled as καλλιστι. Most versions of Principia Discordia actually spell it as καλλιχτι, but this is definitely incorrect; in the afterword of the 1979 Loompanics edition of Principia, Gregory Hill says that was because on the IBM typewriter he used, not all Greek letters coincided with Latin ones, and he didn't know enough of the letters to spot the mistake. Zeus' failure to invite Eris is referred to as The Original Snub in Discoridan mythology. An apple of discord is a reference to the Golden Apple of Discord which, according to Greek mythology, the goddess Eris (Gr. ... Discordianism is a modern, chaos-based religion founded in either 1958 or 1959. ... Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ... The Loompanics Yellow Cover combined 4th & 5th Edition Principia Discordia, (1979). ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... This image appears on the cover of every Loompanics catalog. ... Greg Hill (a. ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

Other uses

• Kallisti (Καλλίστη) is also an ancient name of Santorini.

Satellite image of Santorini. ...

Dramatizations

The Judgment of Paris was burlesqued to great effect in the 1954 musical The Golden Apple. In it, the three goddesses have been reduced to three town biddies in smalltown Washington state. They ask Paris, a travelling salesman, to judge the cakes they have made for the church social. Each woman (the mayor's wife, the schoolmarm, and the matchmaker) makes appeals to Paris who chooses the matchmaker. The matchmaker, in turn, sets him up with Helen, the town floozy. And she runs off with him. Photograph of Sally Rand, 1934. ... The Golden Apple is a musical adaptation of both the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, produced both off-Broadway and on- in 1954. ...

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Judgement of Paris

• Discordianism

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ... Discordianism is a modern, chaos-based religion founded in either 1958 or 1959. ...

External links

• The Judgment of Paris
• Full-text of Bulfinch's Mythology

Reference

• Kerenyi, Karl, 1959. The Heroes of the Greeks, vii: "The Prelude to the Trojan War"