I never meant to start a war (The Iliad, book 3)
ALEXA, PLAY - Battlefield by Jordin Sparks
In book 3 we finally hop over to the Trojan side of things. It begins with the Greek army marching to Troy and thus waking up the Trojan warrior, Paris. Paris is READY TO GO. He wants to fight like right now. He runs out in full armor, yelling at the Greeks that he would fight any one of them Mano a Mano right then and there.
On the side of the Greeks, the soldier, Menelaus sees Paris and basically starts foaming at the mouth. Those two dudes have some major beef that I'll get into in a minute.
Paris sees Menelaus and immediately turns tail and runs away. Apparently he didn't think anyone would actually want to accept his challenge, let alone his biggest enemy.
Hector, the brother of Paris, saw all of this go down and basically says “I wish you were dead”. Hector then goes on to just lean into Paris, basically telling him that it was all his fault that they have been embroiled in this war for so long. And if we're being honest, he is.
::Cue the wooshy time-travel sound effects::
*This origin story is not actually part of The Iliad, rather it is from another work by Homer who alludes to it, assuming the audience is familiar with his entire body of work. Presumptuous bb.*
Big Daddy Zeus and one of his godly pals wanted to start a war (ya know, for funsies). Enter Eris, the goddess of strife and discord. She throws an apple onto the Olympian banquet table which starts a squabble between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. This, of course, was the famous apple of discord. For some reason, Zeus decided that the best person to judge this contest was Paris, a mortal man who lived on Mount Ida. He sent the goddesses down with Hermes to present themselves to Paris. Hera offered to make Paris the king of all men if he chose her. Athena promised him victory in war. Aphrodite promised him Helen. Helen was deemed the most beautiful of all women (but Aphrodite still held the crown of most beautiful of all). Paris saw Helen and did that thing in cartoons where his eyes popped out of his head and little hearts started circling around him. We don’t know if Aphrodite cheated and had her son, Eros (aka Cupid), sneakily shoot Paris with his little love arrows, but regardless, Paris chose Aphrodite as the victor and she gave him Helen. (Again, giving women away like prizes… not cool.)
The only problem? Helen was married to Menelaus. We don’t necessarily know whether Helen willingly went with Paris (because he was a babe) or if she wanted to stay with Menelaus. Either way, she went with him, thus causing a giant rift between the Greeks and Trojans. Helen’s was the face that launched a thousand ships.
::Back to the Iliad!::
So… here it is, nine years later and Paris and Menelaus, the two men fighting for the affections of Helen, are face to face. Paris tells his brother, Hector, that he is finally ready to man up. He offers to challenge Menelaus to a fight, just the two of them, man to man, winner take all - both the war and the girl. Hector went with Paris to present the offer and Menelaus agreed.
And just where is Helen in all of this? She was weaving in the palace of King Priam, father of Hector and Paris. Just before the action is about to start, she is visited by Iris (goddess of rainbows and occasional messenger of the gods), who has taken the form of her friend/relative Laodice (Lay-odd-iss-ee). Iris/Laodice lets Helen know what’s about to go down and suggests that she go watch from the wall of the palace.
They went to the wall and found King Priam and some of his old man friends already there watching. The old man friends notice Helen and whisper loudly enough so that she could hear about how this whole dang war is her fault. The king pulls her next to him though and lets her know that he doesn’t think it’s her fault. He then asks her if she knew any of the soldiers down there waiting for the fight to start. She pointed out the main contenders; Odysseus, Ajax, etc.
Then they noticed that the sacrifices (cows, goats, other unsuspecting animals) were being brought out. It was decided before the fight that both sides would make a sacrifice to Big Daddy Zeus. So King Priam started to make his way down to say a few words to everyone, then he retreated back to the gate, out of harm’s way.
The fight begins! Paris threw his spear first but it was deflected by Menelaus’ shield. Menelaus threw his spear but Paris was able to swerve out of the way. They switched to swords but got nowhere. They began grappling. Menelaus grabbed the plume of Paris’ helmet and started dragging him. Aphrodite noticed this and intervened. She cut the chin strap on the helmet so Paris was able to slide out, leaving Menelaus left holding the hard hat.
Menelaus, now furious, picked up his spear and started to charge at Paris, who was still on the ground. Aphrodite again interfered. She wrapped her champion in a shroud of mist and transported him back to his bedroom in the palace.
Aphrodite then went to Helen, appearing as an old woman, and told her that she had to go to Paris. (the man, not the city. Le sigh.) Helen saw through Aphrodite’s disguise and TBH at this point was pretty fed up with all the shenanigans happening in her name. She told the goddess that seeing all the Greek soldiers made her miss home and she was an emotional wreck and was not in the mood for Paris. By now, I think we all know that it is a bad idea to disagree with any of the goddesses. So Aphrodite threatened Helen and they went back to Paris.
After the goddess left them alone, Helen just leaned into Paris. She told him that Menelaus would have won if it had been a fair fight and it’s a good thing they didn’t fight to the death because he would definitely have been dead by now and how he was not the fighter that he boasted he was. Paris agreed with her and only made the small argument that he thought Athena was there (but invisible) helping Menelaus, which is why he did so poorly in the fight. Then he took Helen to bed. (And Helen agreed to that ONLY because she had just been threatened by a goddess who was really forcing this ship to happen.)
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, everyone was looking for Paris, who had mysteriously disappeared. The Trojan army even said that they would hand him over if they found him hidden among their ranks, because they were also sick and tired of this war.
Agamemnon stood up and declared that since Paris disappeared, Menelaus was the winner of the fight. And the Greek army cheered!
