Paris

The next company was led by Paris, Alkathoos, and Agenor;

Aeneas on the other side called to his comrades, looking towards Deiphobos, Paris, and Agenor, who were leaders of the Trojans along with himself, and the people followed them as sheep follow the ram when they go down to drink after they have been feeding, and the heart of the shepherd is glad - even so was the heart of Aeneas gladdened when he saw his people follow him.

Paris was deeply grieved by the death of Harpalion, who was his host when he went among the Paphlagonians;

For surely it did not turn out for the better for Menelaus that he was able to receive the wealthiest guest from Asia, and that no one else in Sparta was competent to entertain the son of King Priam.

For indeed, having stripped his house and besides his goods carried off his wife, leaving his daughter orphaned of her mother, he sailed away.

And indeed, through the covetousness of one man, the man who seized Helen and the possessions of Menelaus, those who dwelt in the greatest city of Asia perished, with children and wives;

Paris, the shepherd of Ida, left his ox-stalls and came to Sparta, to have me in marriage.

O Paris, who utterly destroyed my whole house, these things ruined you also, and countless bronze-clad Danaans.

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

it was I that bore Paris, whose fatal shaft laid low the son of Thetis.

Woe and tribulation were made my lot in life, when Alexander first cut his beams of pine in Ida’s woods, to sail across the heaving sea in quest of Helen’s bed, loveliest woman on whom the sun-god turns his golden eye.

Chorus:

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

The son of Atreus, encircling Pergamus, the Phrygians’ town, with murderous war around her stone-built towers, dragging Paris’s head backward to cut his throat and sacking the city from roof to base, shall be a cause of many tears to maids and

and he, finding Menelaus gone from home, carried Helen off, in mutual desire, to his steading on Ida.

Fate hath not willed that Paris by thy deed

Behold,’tis Paris, hasting there toward

PARIS.

And Paris married the daughter of Zeus, whereas, had he never done so, the alliance he made in his family would have been forgotten.

First, then, that woman was the author of these troubles by giving birth to Paris;

With no small goddess at his side he came, my evil genius, call him Alexander or Paris, as you will;

nor was the fact that I went down to the Campus the cause of my playing at ball, nor was Hecuba the cause of the Trojans’ destruction because she bore Alexander, nor Tyndareus the cause to Agamemnon because he begot Clytaemnestra.

nor, when we see the lust of Aegisthus or that of Paris, do we ask a cause sent by a god, when we almost hear the voice of guilt itself;

she contended with the ox-eyed goddess, and the goddesses, stripping themselves naked for the sake of an apple, presented themselves to the shepherd, that he might judge which of them seemed fair.

But I will teach thee henceforth to consider Idaean Paris a foe less terrible than Peleus, unless forthwith thou pack from this roof, thou and thy childless daughter too, whom my own true son will hale through his halls by the hair of her head;

for Paris who slew thy son Achilles, was brother to Hector, whose wife she was.

’Twas no bride Paris took with him to the towers of Ilium, but a curse to his bed when he brought Helen to her bower.

for she filled all Hellas with tears, through that accursed, accursed Paris of Ida, who drew Hellas to Troy.

Thus in Homer, in the agreement between Paris and Menelaus, that Helen should be given up to the conqueror, when compared with what follows, it is evident that by the conqueror is meant the combatant, who killed the other.

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 …

I am astonished that anyone should think that Alexander was ill-advised in choosing to live with Helen, for whom many demigods were willing to die.

No sensible person surely could find fault with this reasoning, but some, who have not taken into consideration the antecedent events but look at the sequel alone, have before now reviled Alexander;

For if those who made war against an Alexander and took a single city were accounted worthy of such praise, what encomiums should we expect these men to win who have conquered the whole of Asia?

Under the Phrygian Alexander's breast,

Had ne'er enkindled that renowned strife

Involved in flames old Pergama, by a birth

You shall go with this man to the Trojan city, where, first, you shall be healed of your cruel sickness, and then, chosen out as foremost among the warriors in prowess, with my bow you shall sever Paris, the author of these evils, from life.