Paris (mythology)

• 1. Marked Before Birth

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  Paris of Troy was condemned before he was born. His mother Hecuba dreamed she gave birth to a flaming torch. The seer Aesacus read this as a verdict, not a vision: the child would destroy Troy. Priam ordered his chief herdsman, Agelaus, to take the infant away.

  Agelaus could not bring himself to do it. He carried the baby to Mount Ida and left him there, hoping the mountain would finish what he refused to start. Nine days later, he returned. Paris was still alive, nursed by a she-bear on the slopes. Agelaus brought the child home and raised him as his own son. He presented Priam with a dog's tongue as false proof that the deed was done.

  Aesacus's prophecy was not cancelled. It was only postponed. Every retelling of his story argues about the same question. Did the gods move Paris like a piece on a board, or did he choose his own way?

• 2. Two Names, One Prince

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  The name Parris is probably of Luwian origin. Linguists compare it to Parizitis, a name attested for a Hittite scribe, understood as a compound meaning "foremost man." The mythology offered a different explanation. A folk etymology connects the name to the Greek word phera, meaning backpack, because Agelaus carried Paris home in one.

  Herodotus, writing in his Histories, refers to the prince only as Alexander, meaning "defender of men." He offers no explanation for the name. The most likely reading is that Alexander is an approximate Greek rendering of the same Luwian root. The name has also been noted for its resemblance to Alaksandu, a king of Wilusa. Paris earned that second name through action. As a boy, he drove off a gang of cattle thieves and restored the stolen animals to the herd.

  Philostratus wrote that Paris refused to let dirt settle on his hair even in battle. He polished his nails and had his eyes painted. Homer called him "godlike." The chronicler Malalas painted him as black-haired, charming, and eloquent, but also cowardly and hedonistic. Dares the Phrygian drew the opposite portrait: "fair, tall, and brave," with blond hair and a pleasant voice. He was eighteen years old when he traveled to Sparta. Whatever he actually looked like, the gods had already chosen him for a task that would define him more than his appearance ever could.

• 3. Three Goddesses and a Choice

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  At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis on Mount Olympus, Zeus hosted a banquet for every deity and demigod in the Greek world. Every guest received an invitation except Eris, the goddess of strife. She was excluded because no one wanted a troublemaker at a wedding. Her revenge was to throw a golden apple inscribed with the words "For the most beautiful" into the gathering.

  Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite each claimed the apple. Their quarrel grew so intense that Zeus was asked to settle it. Knowing that any decision would earn him two powerful enemies, he declined. He appointed Paris, the mortal herdsman on the slopes of Mount Ida, to judge the contest.

  Hermes escorted the three goddesses to Paris while he tended his cattle. Each goddess offered a bribe. Hera promised ownership of all of Europe and Asia. Athena offered skill in battle, wisdom, and the abilities of the greatest warriors. Aphrodite offered the love of the most beautiful woman on Earth. Paris chose Aphrodite. Her offer was Helen of Sparta.

  Helen was already married to King Menelaus. Her father Tyndareus, following Odysseus's advice, had made every suitor swear an oath to defend her marriage. When Paris arrived in Sparta and Helen left with him, Menelaus invoked that oath. Her former suitors, who together represented the military strength of most of Achaea, were obligated to respond. The war that followed was built on a promise made long before Paris ever arrived in Sparta.

• 4. The Archer's War

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  Homer's Iliad does not present Paris as a hero. His brother Hector scolds him after he abandons a duel with Menelaus that had been arranged to end the war without further bloodshed. Menelaus defeats Paris easily. Aphrodite spirits Paris away before Menelaus can kill him. Paris is returned to his bedchambers. There he greets Helen with the words: "Come, let us take our joy, couched together in love; for never yet hath desire so encompassed my soul."

  In Book 11 of the Iliad, Paris wounds Diomedes through the foot with an arrow. Diomedes shouts back: "Archer, you who without your bow are nothing, slanderer and seducer!" The accusation that the bow is a coward's weapon follows Paris through the whole poem. Yet he also kills several named Greek fighters without divine help. His wounding of Machaon shifts the battle in Troy's favor. In a private moment, Hector acknowledges his brother's skill but wishes Paris would commit more fully to the fight.

  In the Aethiopis, a poem that continues the story past the Iliad, Achilles dies from an arrow shot by Paris with Apollo's help. Hyginus, in his Fabulae, records that Apollo disguised himself as Paris to fire the shot. Whether the god aimed the bow or only guided the man who held it, Achilles died. The man Diomedes had called useless without his bow had brought down the greatest fighter Greece sent to Troy.

• 5. Oenone's Refusal

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  Oenone, a nymph from Mount Ida in Phrygia, was the first woman Paris loved. Her father was the river-god Cebren. Rhea had taught her prophecy, and Apollo had taught her medicine. She foresaw from the beginning that Paris would leave her. When he departed for Helen, she gave him one instruction. If he was ever wounded, he must return to her. She alone could heal any injury.

  Paris was mortally wounded late in the war by Philoctetes. In later accounts, Helen travels to Mount Ida to beg Oenone to heal him. Oenone refuses. She is still bitter over how Paris had abandoned her, first for his birthright in Troy and then for Helen. Helen returns alone, and Paris dies later that same day. In another version, Paris makes the journey himself, pleading with Oenone in great pain, and is refused again. He dies on the mountainside.

  When Oenone hears of his death, she runs to his funeral pyre and throws herself into the fire. His brother Deiphobus took Helen as his wife after Paris died, and paid for it when Troy fell to Menelaus.

• 6. Two Thousand Years of Retelling

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  Dante placed Paris in the second circle of the Inferno, among the sinners punished for lust alongside Helen. In the moral framework of medieval Europe, Paris stood for desire that destroyed a civilization. He was a sinner before he was a soldier.

  In 1864, Jacques Offenbach turned the seduction of Helen into a comic operetta called La belle Helene. His librettists were Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy, and the piece gave Paris the lead male role. The 1951 Swedish film Skona Helena adapted the same operetta, with Max Hansen and Eva Dahlbeck in the principal roles.

  The 1956 film Helen of Troy portrayed Paris as a man who valued peace and was drawn into conflict by treacherous Greeks. Rudolf Hagelstange made him the protagonist of the 1959 novel Spielball der Gotter, meaning "Game of Gods." Michael Tippett's 1962 opera King Priam used the Judgement of Paris as its central episode. Jon English and David Mackay wrote a 2003 musical simply titled Paris; a concept album preceded it by thirteen years, in 1990.

  Orlando Bloom played Paris in the 2004 Hollywood film Troy. The character was portrayed as an irresponsible prince who put romance before family and country. That film gives Paris a different ending: he escapes the burning city with Helen and survives. The writers gave him what the ancient sources denied: an exit from Troy.