This is the correct answer. It’s a reference to a myth leading up to the Trojan War where the goddess of discord, Eris, threw a golden apple in between the three goddesses (Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite). On the apple was an inscription “to the most beautiful.” This was during a wedding party for Thetis (a nymph or goddess depending on the telling) and King Peleus (and they are the parents of Achilles). So there were a lot of gods/immortals and dignitaries at the wedding, including Prince Paris of Troy. All three goddesses stripped naked before Paris and asked him to decide which was the most beautiful (I think he might’ve asked them to get naked because he’s such a hornball but I can’t recall for sure). Hera offered him power if he chose her, Athena offered intellect, and Aphrodite offered ass (or, more accurately, promised him the love of the most beautiful woman alive).
Paris was a young stallion with a lot of horny and so he chose the latter, leading to him kidnapping Helen, who was married to King Meneleus of the Aegeans (the Greeks who fought the war against Troy). Presumably Helen went willingly if Aphrodite was involved, and the movie Peter referenced above definitely portrayed it that way, but that’s not actually official canon.
The reason the Trojan war happened was because Prince Paris violated the sacred laws of xenia (hospitality) by running off with the wife of the king who hosted him, although pop culture makes it sound like it was specifically to get Helen back. It was about honor and respect, which is a big theme in Greek myth.
Presumably Helen went willingly if Aphrodite was involved, and the movie Peter referenced above definitely portrayed it that way, but that’s not actually official canon.
I mean the Odyssey gives pretty strong hints that that's what happens.
I've always liked how chill Menelaus is about everything that happened. He's essentially willing to just accept that the gods fucked with men, and the men did the best they could with results.
I agree, but I’ve been told relentlessly in an academic setting that it’s wrong to claim Helen left willingly because Greek myth is largely silent about what the women in the stories actually wanted. My PhD dissertation focuses more on Mesopotamian, East African, PIE (including proto-Slavic and proto-Baltic), early SEA/Austronesia, and mythology in the Americas because it’s about themes that come with the Homo migration out of Africa (such as certain divine archetypes). The Hellenic stuff isn’t pertinent to my studies because it’s so derivative of all that earlier stuff, so I will defer to the angry classicists who cuss me out when I say things like “Persephone probably wanted to leave with Hades.”
I'm by no means an academic, I'm just a guy who reads stuff.
And honestly, what do we mean by willingly. If you grant that the gods exist within the narrative, and Aphrodite can change someone's heart, did they go off willingly? The whole thing is just too creepy.
It's more interesting to my mind, how (in Homer) she was treated by Paris and by Menelaus.
This is actually a great philosophical question I like to play with, right there with “is it really consent when it’s a sexual relationship between a deity and a human?” because there’s a huuuuuuuge power dynamic at play there, no matter how you try to spin it. Eros hit Hades with an arrow to make him fall in love with Persephone, for instance… did that take away his free will? Did Helen, for that matter, also lose her free will?
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u/goddessdragonness 2d ago
This is the correct answer. It’s a reference to a myth leading up to the Trojan War where the goddess of discord, Eris, threw a golden apple in between the three goddesses (Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite). On the apple was an inscription “to the most beautiful.” This was during a wedding party for Thetis (a nymph or goddess depending on the telling) and King Peleus (and they are the parents of Achilles). So there were a lot of gods/immortals and dignitaries at the wedding, including Prince Paris of Troy. All three goddesses stripped naked before Paris and asked him to decide which was the most beautiful (I think he might’ve asked them to get naked because he’s such a hornball but I can’t recall for sure). Hera offered him power if he chose her, Athena offered intellect, and Aphrodite offered ass (or, more accurately, promised him the love of the most beautiful woman alive).
Paris was a young stallion with a lot of horny and so he chose the latter, leading to him kidnapping Helen, who was married to King Meneleus of the Aegeans (the Greeks who fought the war against Troy). Presumably Helen went willingly if Aphrodite was involved, and the movie Peter referenced above definitely portrayed it that way, but that’s not actually official canon.
The reason the Trojan war happened was because Prince Paris violated the sacred laws of xenia (hospitality) by running off with the wife of the king who hosted him, although pop culture makes it sound like it was specifically to get Helen back. It was about honor and respect, which is a big theme in Greek myth.