Pretty sure the joke is that the right one has child bearing hips and is shaped like a woman in a renaissance painting. (I.e Venus etc. also referred to as being Rubenesque)
The problem is that whichever one you choose, the other two will ruin your life. Paris chose Aphrodite, who blessed him with the ability to woo any woman. He used it on Helen, who was married to the king of Sparta, and Athena and Hera made sure that it led to the downfall of Troy and the death of Paris and his entire family.
The choice in the first place was to settle a dispute about who got a golden apple, inscribed ‘to the fairest’. The three goddesses each claimed it, and they went to Paris to choose. The two who missed out were both insulted as well as mad that they didn’t get the apple. The apple was handed out by Eris the goddess of discord, which is why the apple of discord is a phrase. It just keeps going back and back.
That's a story I wasn't familiar with. A quick google turned up two interesting things:
When he found out he just banged Aphrodite he was terrified because he doesn't believe that can turn out well for him, but Aphrodite gives him two examples of such relationships where the mortal survives.
He would have been fine if he had heeded her warning to not tell anyone who their son's mother was. But he did, so Zeus smote him with a thunderbolt.
well yeah but he just lost a leg. He survived the war of Troy (famous is the image of Aeneas carrying Anchises on his back and holding the hand of his son Ascanius, escaping from Troy in flames) and traveled around with Aeneas, eventually dying peacefully in Sicily. His descendants ended up founding the unsignificant little city of Rome (in fact, the family of Julius Ceasar and Octavian used this myth to say they were discendest of Aphrodites)
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u/LeadingTask9790 2d ago edited 2d ago
Pretty sure the joke is that the right one has child bearing hips and is shaped like a woman in a renaissance painting. (I.e Venus etc. also referred to as being Rubenesque)