Judgment of Paris

But Cypris won the day by her deceitful promises, sweet-sounding words, but fraught with ruthless overthrow to Phrygia’s hapless town and Ilium’s towers.

what sorrows did the son of Zeus and Maia herald, in the day he came to Ida’s glen, guiding that fair young trio of goddesses, all girded for the fray in bitter rivalry about their beauty, to the shepherd’s fold, where dwelt the youthful herdsman all alone by the hearth of his lonely hut.

Chorus:

The strife the shepherd decided on Ida, between three daughters of the blessed gods,

It was the work of Hera, and the rivalry of the three goddesses.

Regarding the judgment, Hera made it a cause of these troubles for you?

For the sake of beauty, three goddesses came to a deep valley on Mount Ida, to Paris:

Then there came to Lacedaemon from the Phrygians the man who, Argive legend says, judged the goddesses’ dispute;

You came, O Paris, to the place where you were reared to herd the cows among the white heifers of Ida, piping in foreign strain and breathing on your reeds an echo of the Phrygian airs Olympus played.

for our husbands tell us that fair-haired Menelaus and high-born Agamemnon are leading them to Troy on a thousand ships in quest of Helen, whom Paris the herdsman carried off from the banks of reedy Eurotas, his gift from Aphrodite, when that queen of Cyprus entered beauty’s contest with Hera and Pallas at the gushing fountain.

This man was to judge the claims of three rival goddesses;

First I will take up the cause of those goddesses, and prove how she perverts the truth.

Cypris won the day over the goddesses, and thus far has my marriage proved of benefit to Hellas, that you are not subject to barbarian rule, neither vanquished in the strife, nor yet by tyrants crushed.

for they forgave not the wrong [ atê] done them by Alexander in disdaining the goddesses who came to him when he was in his sheepyards, and preferring her who had offered him a wanton to his ruin.

For not much later when strife arose among the goddesses for the prize of beauty, and Alexander, son of Priam, was appointed judge and when Hera offered him sovereignty over all Asia, Athena victory in war, and Aphrodite Helen as his wife, finding himself unable to make a distinction regarding the charms of their persons, but overwhelmed by the sight of the goddesses, Alexander, compelled to make …

Strife arrives while the gods are feasting at the wedding of Peleus and stirs up a quarrel about beauty among Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite;