Lines 132-267

So he cried. And Paris bent a gentle eye and quietly essayed to judge the beauty of each. He looked at the light of their grey eyes, he looked on the neck arrayed with gold, he marked the bravery of each; the shape of the heel behind, yea and the soles of their feet. But, before he gave judgement, Athena took him, smiling, by the hand and spake to Alexander thus: “Come hither, son of Priam! leave the spouse of Zeus and heed not Aphrodite, queen of the bridal bower, but praise thou Athena who aids the prowess of men. They say that thou art a king and keepest the city of Troy. Come hither, and I will make thee the saviour of their city to men hard pressed: lest ever Enyo of grievous wrath weigh heavily upon thee. Hearken to me and I will teach thee war and prowess.”

So cried Athena of many counsels, and white-armed Hera thus took up the tale: "If thou wilt elect me and bestow on me the fruit of the fairer, I will make thee lord of all mine Asia. Scorn thou the works of battle. What has a king to do with war? A prince gives command both to the valiant and to the unwarlike. Not always are the squires of Athena foremost. Swift is the doom and death of the servants of Enyo!”

Such lordship did Hera, who hath the foremost throne, offer to bestow. But Cypris lifted up her deep-bosomed robe and bared her breast to the air and had no shame. And lifting with her hands the honeyed girdle of the Loves she bared all her bosom and heeded not her breasts. And smilingly she thus spake to the herdsman: "Accept me and forget wars: take my beauty and leave the sceptre and the land of Asia. I know not the works of battle. What has Aphrodite to do with shields? By beauty much more do women excel. In place of manly prowess I will give thee a lovely bride, and, instead of kingship, enter thou the bed of Helen. Lacedaemon, after Troy, shall see thee a bridegroom.”

Not yet had she ceased speaking and he gave her the splendid apple, beauty’s offering, the great treasure of Aphrogeneia, a plant of war, of war an evil seed. And she, holding the apple in her hand, uttered her voice and spake in mockery of Hera and manly Athena: "Yield to me, accustomed as ye be to war, yield me the victory. Beauty have I loved and beauty follows me. They say that thou, mother of Ares, didst with travail bear the holy choir of the fair-tressed Graces. But to-day they have all denied thee and not one hast thou found to help thee. Queen but not of shields and nurse but not of fire, Ares hath not holpen thee, though Ares rages with the spear: the flames of Hephaestus have not holpen thee, though he brings to birth the breath of fire. And how vain is thy vaunting, Atrytone! whom marriage sowed not nor mother bare, but cleaving of iron and root of iron made thee spring without bed of birth from the head of thy sire. And how, covering thy body in brazen robes, thou dost flee from love and pursuest the works of Ares, untaught of harmony and wotting not of concord. Knowest thou not that such Athenas as thou are the more unvaliant -- exulting in glorious wars, with limbs at feuds, neither men nor women?”

Thus spake Cypris and mocked Athena. So she got the prize of beauty that should work the ruin of a city, repelling Hera and indignant Athena. And unhappy Paris, yearning with love and pursuing one whom he had not seen, gathered men that were skilled of Atrytone, queen of handicraft, and led them to a shady wood. There the oaks from Ida of many tree-trunks were cut and felled by the excellent skill of Phereclus, source of woe; who at that time, doing pleasure to his frenzied king, fashioned with the wood-cutting bronze ships for Alexander. On the same day he willed and on the same made the ships: ships which Athena neither planned nor wrought.

And now he had just left the hills of Ida for the deep, and, after with many a sacrifice upon the shore he had besought the favour of Aphrodite that attended him to aid his marriage, he was sailing the Hellespont over the broad back of the sea, when to him there appeared a token of his laborious toils. The dark sea leapt aloft and girdled the heaven with a chain of dusky coils and straightway poured forth rain from the murky air, and the sea was turmoiled as the oarsmen rowed. Then when he had passed Dardania and the land of Troy and, coasting along, left behind the mouth of the Ismarian lake, speedily, after the mountains of Thracian Pangaeon, he saw rising into view the tomb of Phyllis that loved her husband and the nine-circled course of her wandering path, where thou didst range and cry, Phyllis, waiting the safe return of thy husband Demophoon, when he should come back from the land of Athena. Then across the rich land of the Haemonians there suddenly arose upon his eyes the flowery Achaean land, Phthia, feeder of men, and Mycene of wide streets. Then past the marshes where Erymanthus rises he marked Sparta of fair women, the dear city of the son of Atreus, lying on the banks of the Eurotas. And hard by, established under a hill’s shady wood, he gazed upon her neighbour, lovely Therapne. Thence they had not far to sail, nor was the noise of the oars rowing in the calm sea heard for long, when they cast the hawsers of the ship upon the shores of a fair gulf and made them fast, even they whose business was the works of the sea.

And he washed him in the snowy river and went his way, stepping with careful steps, lest his lovely feet should be defiled of the dust; lest, if he hastened more quickly, the winds should blow heavily on his helmet and stir up the locks of his hair.

And now he scanned the high-built houses of the hospitable inhabitants and the neighboring temples hard by, and surveyed the splendour of the city; here gazing on the golden image of native Athena herself, and there passing the dear treasure of Carneian Apollo, even the shrine of Hyacinthus of Amyclae, whom once while he played as a boy with Apollo the people of Amyclae marked and marvelled whether he too had not been conceived and borne by Leto to Zeus. But Apollo knew not that he was keeping the youth for envious Zephyrus. And the earth, doing a pleasure to the weeping king, brought forth a flower to console Apollo, even that flower which bears the name of the splendid youth.

And at last by the halls of the son of Atreus, builded near, he stood, glorying in his marvellous graces. Not so fair was the lovely son whom Thyone bare to Zeus: forgive me, Dionysus! even if thou art of the seed of Zeus, he, too, was fair as his face was beautiful. And Helen unbarred the bolts of her hospitable bower and suddenly went to the court of the house, and, looking in front of the goodly doors, soon as she saw, so soon she called him and led him within the house, and bade him sit on a new-wrought chair of silver. And she could not satifgy her eyes with gazing, now deeming that she looked on the golden youth that attends on Cythereia -- and late she recognized that it was not Eros; she saw no quiver of arrows -- and often in the beauty of his face and eyes she looked to see the king of the vine: but no blooming fruit of the vine did she behold spread upon the meeting of his gracious brows. And after long time, amazed, she uttered her voice and said: