Păris

, the son of Priam king of Troy by Hecuba, also called Alexander . He was destined, even before his birth, to become the ruin of his country; and when his mother, in the first month of her pregnancy, had dreamed that she should bring forth a torch which should set fire to her palace, the soothsayers foretold the calamities which might be expected from the imprudence of her future son, and which would end in the destruction of Troy. Priam, to prevent so great and so alarming an evil, ordered his slave Archelaus to destroy the child as soon as born. The slave, either touched with humanity, or influenced by Hecuba, did not destroy him, but was satisfied to expose him on mount Ida, where the shepherds of the place found him, and educated him as their own son. Some attribute the preservation of his life, before he was found by the shepherds, to the motherly tenderne of a she-bear which suckled him. Young Paris, though educated among shepherds and peasants, gave early proofs of courage and intrepidity, and from his care in protecting the flocks of mount Ida against the rapacity of the wild beasts, he obtained the name of Alexander ( helper or defender ). He gained the esteem of all the shepherds, and his graceful countenance and manly deportment recommended him to the favour of Œnone, a nymph of Ida, whom he married, and with whom he lived with the most perfect tenderne . Their conjugal peace was soon disturbed. At the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, the godde of discord, who had not been invited to partake of the entertainment, showed her displeasure by throwing into the a embly of the gods who were at the celebration of the nuptials, a golden apple on which were written the words Detur pulchriori . All the godde es claimed it as their own: the contention at first became general, but at last only three, Juno, Venus, and Minerva, wished to dispute their respective right to beauty. The gods, unwilling to become arbiters in an affair of so tender and so delicate a nature, appointed Paris to adjudge the prize of beauty to the fairest of the godde es, and indeed the shepherd seemed properly qualified to decide so great a contest, as his wisdom was so well established, and his prudence and sagacity so well known. The godde es appeared before their judge without any covering or ornament, and each tried by promises and entreaties to gain the attention of Paris, and to influence his judgment. Juno promised him a kingdom; Minerva, military glory; and Venus, the fairest woman in the world for his wife, as Ovid expre es it, Heroides , poem 17, li. 118 , Udaque cum regnum; bell i daret alter a laudem; Tynd arid is conjux, tertia dixit, eris. After he had heard their several claims and promises, Paris adjudged the prize to Venus, and gave her the golden apple, to which, perhaps, she seemed entitled as the godde of beauty. This decision of Paris in favour of Venus drew upon the judge and his family the resentment of the two other godde es. Soon after Priam proposed a contest among his sons and other princes, and promised to reward the conqueror with one of the finest bulls of mount Ida. His emi aries were sent to procure the animal, and it was found in the po e ion of Paris, who reluctantly yielded it up. The shepherd was desirous of obtaining again this favourite animal, and he went to Troy and entered the list of the combatants. He was received with the greatest applause, and obtained the victory over his rivals, Nestor the son of Neleus; Cycnus son of Neptune; Polites, Helenus, and Deiphobus sons of Priam. He also obtained a superiority over Hector himself, and the prince, enraged to see himself conquered by an unknown stranger, pursued him closely, and Paris must have fallen a victim to his brother’s resentment, had he not fled to the altar of Jupiter. This sacred retreat preserved his life, and Cas sandra the daughter of Priam, struck with the similarity of the features of Paris with those of her brothers, inquired his birth and his age. From these circumstances she soon discovered that he was her brother, and as such she introduced him to her father and to his children. Priam acknowledged Paris as his son, forgetful of the alarming dream which had influenced him to meditate his death, and all jealousy ceased among the brothers. Paris did not long suffer himself to remain inactive; he equipped a fleet, as if willing to redeem Hesione, his father’s sister, whom Hercules had carried away and obliged to marry Telamon the son of Æacus. This was the pretended motive of his voyage, but the causes were far different. Paris recollected that he was to be the husband of the fairest of women; and if he had been led to form those expectations while he was an obscure shepherd of Ida, he had now every plausible reason to see them realized, since he was acknowledged son of the king of Troy. Helen was the fairest woman of the age, and Venus had promised her to him. On these grounds, therefore, he visited Sparta, the residence of Helen, who had married Menelaus. He was received with every mark of respect, but he abused the hospitality of Menelaus, and while the husband was absent in Crete, Paris persuaded Helen to elope with him and fly to Asia. Helen consented, and Priam received her into his palace without difficulty, as his sister was then detained in a foreign country, and as he wished to show himself as hostile as po ible to the Greeks. This affair was soon productive of serious consequences. When Menelaus had married Helen, all her suitors had bound themselves by a solemn oath to protect her person, and to defend her from every violence [ See: Helena ], and therefore the injured husband reminded them of their engagements, and called upon them to recover Helen. Upon this all Greece took up arms in the cause of Menelaus; Agamemnon was chosen general of all the combined forces, and a regular war was begun. See: Troja . Paris, meanwhile, who had refused Helen to the petitions and emba ies of the Greeks, armed himself with his brothers and subjects to oppose the enemy; but the succe of the war was neither hindered nor accelerated by his means. He fought with little courage, and at the very sight of Menelaus, whom he had so recently injured, all his resolution vanished, and he retired from the front of the army, where he walked before like a conqueror. In a combat with Menelaus, which he undertook at the persuasion of his brother Hector, Paris must have perished, had not Venus interfered, and stolen him from the resentment of his adversary. He neverthele wounded, in another battle, Machaon, Euryphilus, and Diomedes, and, according to some opinions, he killed with one of his arrows the great Achilles. See: Achilles . The death of Paris is differently related; some suppose that he was mortally wounded by one of the arrows of Phi loc tetes, which had been once in the po e ion of Hercules, and that when he found himself languid on account of his wounds, he ordered himself to be carried to the feet of Œnone, whom he had basely abandoned, and who, in the years of his obscurity, had foretold him that he would solicit her a istance in his dying moments. He expired before he came into the presence of Œnone, and the nymph, still mindful of their former loves, threw herself upon his body, and stabbed herself to the heart, after she had plentifully bathed it with her tears. According to some authors, Paris did not immediately go to Troy when he left the Peloponnesus, but he was driven on the coast of Egypt, where Proteus, who was king of the country, detained him, and when he heard of the violence which had been offered to the king of Sparta, he kept Helen at his court, and permitted Paris to retire. See: Helena . Dictys Cretensis , bks. 1, 3, & 4.— Apollo dor us , bk. 3 , ch. 12 .— Homer , Iliad .— Ovid , Heroides , poems 5, 16, & 17.— Quintus Calabrus [Smyrnæus] , bk. 10 , li. 290 .— Horace , ode 3.— Euripi des , I phi gene i a .— Hyginus , fables 92 & 273.— Virgil , Æneid , bk. 1 , . — Ælian , Varia Hist or i a , bk. 12 , ch. 42 .— Pausanias , bk. 10 , ch. 27 .— Cicero , de Div in at i one .— Lycophron . & Tzetzes on Lycophron .――A celebrated player at Rome, in the good graces of the emperor Nero, . Tacitus , Annals , bk. 13 , ch. 19 , .