“The Judgment Of Paris“ (1625)
Peter Paul Rubens
___________
at the end of a long overdue visit to
a friend’s home the other night, she
asked me, did you notice their facial
skin, which of us do you think had
the best complexion, you can be
honest, she insisted
we had intended to watch the finals
of a voice competition we’d both
been following, over a glass of
wine, or two, each, when a friend
called, from, essentially, the door,
with a second friend in tow on their
way to a concert in the city
the friend of the friend, a lovely,
effervescent woman, from Poland
originally, with a story to tell of
growing up behind the Iron
Curtain, was also a beautician in
a spa she runs in a nearby resort
city
the first friend, equally effervescent,
had been telling my own friend of the
intervening events since last they’d
met, while I lapped up, more or less
by default, this other alternate Soviet
reality, perfumed as it was irresistibly
throughout with the friend’s
friend’s mellifluous Polish accent
I hadn’t paid any attention whatsoever
to skin quality apart from accepting
a spa courtesy card for my mother, who
would, naturally, be interested
my dearest dear, I answered, I am
not going anywhere near that one,
look what happened to Paris when
he fell into that trap
what happened, she asked
the Trojan War, I answered
the Trojan War, she asked
Paris was the son of Priam and Hecuba,
king and queen of Troy, I explained, he,
one of its princes, he’d been awarded
Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta,
by Aphrodite, goddess of love, he’d
chosen Aphrodite to be the most
beautiful among the goddesses, that
was her prize
but let me step back a little, I
interrupted, you need more context
Eris, goddess of discord, had not been
invited to the marriage of Peleus and
Thetis, I recounted, he a Greek hero,
she a sea nymph, parents both later to
Achilles, hero at Troy, slain, incidentally,
by that very Paris, you can read all about
it in the “Iliad“, I highly recommended
during the festivities, Eris tosses a
golden apple among the assembled
divinities, which reads
“to the fairest”
you can hear the stirrings of the much
later Sleeping Beauty, incidentally, in
this earliest of tellings, reconfigured
from the original myth
Athena, Aphrodite and Hera, all assume
they are meant to receive the apple, and
ask Zeus, father and husband, to decide
you’ll have to get someone else to touch
that one, he replies, much as I did
and delegates the task, with the help
of Hermes, the messenger god, to the
the guileless Paris, son of Priam and
Hecuba, Trojan king and queen, as I
said, he, Paris, prince
Paris was tending sheep on Mount Ida
when, fatefully, by a spring, the nubile
goddesses appeared vaunting their
unadorned splendours, stark, flagrant,
manifest, to the musical accompaniment
of the Graces, Faith, Hope and Charity,
also the Horae, the Hours, goddesses
of the seasons, maidens all in complicit
attendance
Paris, mere mortal, would never have
stood a chance
but to sweeten, nevertheless, the
deal, were it not yet sufficiently sweet,
Hera promises Paris Europe and Asia
should he choose her, Athena,
conquest in war, Aphrodite, goddess
of love, was set to give him the most
beautiful woman in the world
Paris opts for Aphrodite, and is
awarded Helen, the face that
launched the thousand proverbial
ships, the wife, not incidentally,
and completely inconveniently, of
the King of Sparta, Menelaus, who
attacks thereupon Troy with his
brother, Agamemnon, and their
allied legions, to reclaim
Menelaus’, whether abducted, or
indeed unfaithful, wife, no one
has ever conclusively determined,
Paris having been Paris
no one won
no one survived but Odysseus,
but that’s another story
I walked home shortly afterwards,
crossed my own Aegean, ten or
eleven blocks back, red lights,
nighttime traffic, watched the voice
competition I’d taped in any case at
home, whooped it up along with my
favourite contestants, drank to my
narrow miss, had gotten away, I
considered, with the equivalent of
Europe and Asia, if only in my
mind
beauty might be in the eye of the
beholder, I surmised, but it can
have its thorny indeed
consequences
Richard
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