Book Three: Paris and Menelaus

The story

After Homer’s Iliad, Book Three

When the armies met, Paris stepped out and challenged the best of the Greeks. But on seeing Menelaus, the husband he had wronged, he shrank back into the crowd. Hector was furious: he wished his brother had never been born. After that, Paris had no choice but to fight. He offered a duel: whoever won would take Helen home, and the war would end.

Agamemnon stopped his archers in case they shot Hector while he was speaking, and Menelaus accepted. Meanwhile, the goddess Iris brought Helen to the walls so that she could watch. The old men of Troy couldn’t help staring at her: she looked like a goddess, they said, but no woman was worth losing a city for. Priam, more kindly, asked her to point out the Greek leaders: Agamemnon, Odysseus, the giant Ajax.

In the duel, Paris’s spear bent on Menelaus’ shield, and Menelaus’ sword broke on Paris’s helmet. Then Menelaus seized Paris by the crest and dragged him away, and Paris nearly got strangled by his own chin strap. But Aphrodite broke the strap, hid him in a mist and carried him to his room.

She went to fetch Helen, but at first Helen wouldn’t go: “Go and sit with him yourself!” In the end she obeyed, afraid of the goddess. On the field, Menelaus searched everywhere for Paris, and Agamemnon claimed the victory.

No wonder the Trojans and the Greeks suffer so long for a woman like that…