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information about the Amateur Rights to this work click to www.davidspicer.com |
September 7, 2010 |
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Introduction
: Back Story : Synopsis
: Lyrics : Paris Live! |
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Back
Story.. |
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Our story begins more than a
thousand years before the birth of Christ. A son, Paris, is born to King
Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. As is the custom of the times, Priam already
has many children to many wives, including an older son and a daughter to
Hecuba – Prince Hector and the young Princess Cassandra. |
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Before Paris is born, Hecuba has a dream
that the child she is carrying will one day bring about the downfall of
Troy. When the baby arrives, Priam consults a seer who foretells the same
terrible fate. Priam gives the baby boy to his chief herdsman and orders
that the infant be put to death. After all, Priam reasons, he has many other
sons. |
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But Paris is indeed a most beautiful baby
and the herdsman cannot bring himself to carry out his orders (sound familiar?).
He abandons the baby on Mt Ida, but when he returns days later the infant
is still alive. The herdsman takes the child and secretly raises the boy
as his own. Paris the Trojan Prince becomes a shepherd. |
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Paris grows into a youth of much prowess
and extreme beauty. One day when he is tending his flocks, he is visited
in a dream by three goddesses; Hera, the Queen of the Gods (and the wife
of Zeus); Athena, the goddess of Wisdom and War; and Aphrodite, the goddess
of Love and Passion. In their divine vanity, the goddesses had each laid
claim to a golden apple that was inscribed ‘to the fairest’.
When they were unable to reach a consensus as to which of them was the most
deserving of the golden apple, they appealed to Zeus to decide. |
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The Judgment
of Paris by Lucas Cranach the Elder |
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| Zeus, knowing
that any choice he made between them would only cause more mythical
mayhem, ordered the three to earth, where he said a mortal would be
the one to decide. The ‘fairest’ would then receive the
‘golden apple of the sun’ as the prize. Paris, being young
and innocent and most fair of face and judgement himself was the chosen
mortal. |
| And so the goddesses duly
placed the golden apple of the sun at Paris’s feet and commanded
him to chose the fairest of the three. Not content to leave it to
chance, they each wooed him with promises. Hera offered him great
power and wealth, Athena offered him wisdom and great luck in battle,
whereas Aphrodite, in her effortlessly sexual and charming way, told
him he could have the most beautiful woman in the world. |
| “If you choose me,”
Aphrodite told him as she cavorted seductively before the shepherd
boy in his dreams, “I will give you this.” And she showed
him a vision of Helen, the daughter of the King of Sparta –
a mortal woman made in her own image. (In fact, Helen was not actually
mortal, she was half goddess as her real father was Zeus … but
that’s another story!) |
| Now mythology has it that
Paris of course knew Aphrodite was offering him Helen, the most beautiful
woman in the world, but here we have taken some liberty with the story.
For the purposes of our love tale, Paris believed Aphrodite was offering
him herself if he chose her as the fairest. And so, overpowered by
the intoxication of her words and the ecstasy of her promises, he
found himself handing her the golden apple without further ado. Hera
went away to sulk. Athena plotted revenge. |
| As the daughter of the
King of Sparta and indeed being considered the most beautiful woman
in the world, when the time came to marry, Helen was courted by all
the Lords of Greece, including Menelaus of Mycenae – the brother
of Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, who was married to her elder sister,
Clytemnestra. For the sake of future peace, Helen’s suitors
all agreed that no matter who she chose the others would swear to
protect the sanctity of the marriage – mainly of course to ensure
their own future safety should they be the one lucky enough to be
chosen. |
| Helen eventually chose
Menelaus, who upon the death of her father, then became the King of
Sparta. |
| In time, some legends
say it was due to Paris’s great prowess on the games field,
the herdsman confessed to Priam and Hecuba that their youngest son
still lived, and so Paris was restored to his rightful place in the
royal household. But Priam never entirely forgot Hecuba’s dream.
When the time came to choose an ambassador to help negotiate peace
and trade with the Greeks, Priam selected Paris – a charming
but … dispensable, emissary. |
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| Paris in his
turn never forgot his shepherd’s dream and Aphrodite’s
promise to him, and while he eagerly accepted the role assigned him
by his father, at the back of his mind was the thought that maybe,
just maybe, the time had now also come for Aphrodite’s reward. |
| Some tales of Greek mythology
tell us that Paris charged off to Greece with the sole aim of abducting
Helen, after which she fell in love with him with a little, or perhaps
a lot, of help from Aphrodite along the way. Our take on the story
prefers a more subtle version that brings the star crossed lovers
together in the form of a shipwreck, though still with the necessary
prerequisite help from Aphrodite. |
| Far from being the subservient
miss sometimes portrayed, Helen was a Princess of Sparta and half
divine to boot. I would imagine she was no trembling flower easily
abducted, nor one to give in to mindless fantasies of love. But Helen
is at the will of forces greater than her own here, and her inexplicable
attraction to Paris pushes her as surely as the rising tide along
the path to Troy. In helping to affect Paris’ escape from Agamemnon’s
far from friendly intentions, Greek blood is spilled by Helen, and
she is therefore left with no other choice but to follow Paris. |
| Still smarting from not
being chosen as the fairest, Athena meanwhile watches these events
unfold with a gleam in her eye, knowing their inevitable conclusion.
She has even done her bit to help things along. When it appears that
the Greek leaders are about to withdraw their support for Agamemnon
and there will be no war against Troy after all, Athena intervenes.
Agamemnon is able to convince Menelaus that his wife has been abducted
against her will (knowing well that she has not), and so the Greek
lords are forced to honour their commitment to protect the royal marriage
and to retrieve Helen from Troy. War thus is assured. |
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| It is Athena also who
gives the wooden horse strategy to Ulysses, the decisive turning point
in the battle for Troy. There is no question whose side the Goddess
of wisdom and war is on, and with her help there is little doubt the
Greeks will win the forthcoming battle. |
| But it is Aphrodite whose
aim guides Paris’s arrow straight and true to Archilles heel.
Archilles, half god, who was held aloft by one foot by his sea nymph
mother and dipped in the river Styx to make him invulnerable where
the waters touched him, thereby leaving a heel wound the only way
to his potential downfall. |
| As for the rest, the heart
rending ending of the story goes much as most of us would know it.
No happily ever after for our Prince and Princess here. |
| But then again, real life
often isn’t … |
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