Paris

Who He Is

Paris, also called Alexander, is the son of Priam who carried Helen to Troy and, with that, gave cause to the war. He is handsome, has the gifts of Aphrodite, and, in the words of his brother Hector, more appearance than strength of spirit. The poem shows him backing away from the husband he offended, proposing to settle the war in a duel, saved by a goddess at the moment he was losing, and lying in his room while the others die. It also shows him shooting from behind a stele and wounding Diomedes in the foot, laughing. The Trojans hate him like black death, and Hector rebukes him without sparing him. Paris recognizes when the censure is just, explains that he stayed in his room out of sorrow, and returns to the fight.

Trajectory

In Book III, Paris advances in front of the Trojans, with a leopard skin, bow, and sword on his shoulders, and challenges the best Achaeans. Seeing Menelaus advance, his heart is shaken, and he retreats into the midst of his companions, like a man who sees a serpent and flees pale. Hector rebukes him and tells him that the Achaeans laugh, because they took him for a champion on account of his beauty.

Paris acknowledges the justice of the reproach, but asks Hector not to throw the gifts of Aphrodite in his face. Then he proposes to put the war into the bodies of two men, himself and Menelaus, to fight for Helen and all the goods. He does not propose to return Helen: he proposes to put her at stake.

Armed with the cuirass of his brother Lycaon, he throws his spear first, but its point bends on Menelaus's shield. Menelaus seizes him by the helmet and drags him toward the Achaeans, the strap choking him, until Aphrodite breaks it, and the helmet comes away empty in the victor's hand. The goddess snatches him from the field, covers him in mist, and sets him down in his perfumed chamber.

When Helen arrives and rebukes him, Paris answers that she should not wound him with insults: Menelaus won this time with Athena's help, and there are gods on their side too. He invites her to bed with a declaration of desire greater than that of the abduction.

In Book IV, when Zeus provokes Hera, he recalls that Aphrodite never abandons Paris and has just saved him when he seemed lost. In Book V, the Trojan Phereclus, the craftsman who built for Paris the ships that were the beginning of the Trojans' evil, is killed by Meriones, and the poem says that Athena loved him, but he did not know the decrees of the gods.

In Book VI, Hector finds him in his room, polishing his armor, his shield, his cuirass, and his curved bow, while Helen directs the maidservants. Hector tells him that men die around the city because of him. Paris acknowledges that the censure was just and explains that he stayed in his room not out of anger toward the Trojans, but out of sorrow, and that his wife encouraged him with gentle words. He goes to arm himself and catches up with Hector at a run, like a stable horse that breaks its tether, head held high and mane flying.

In Book VII, Paris rejoins the fight with Hector and kills Menesius. In the Trojan assembly, Antenor proposes returning Helen, and Paris answers Antenor that, if he is serious, the gods have taken away his wits: the woman will not be returned, and he gives all the goods he brought from Argos, and others from his house. Priam sends the offer as a message from Paris.

In Book VIII, Paris wounds one of Nestor's horses, and the old man is caught in its harness. In Book XI, hidden behind the stele of Ilus's tomb, he shoots at Diomedes while he strips a dead man and wounds his foot, laughing. Diomedes says that the arrow of an archer with combed hair matters to him no more than the blow of a woman or a child. Paris also wounds the physician Machaon in the shoulder, and Nestor takes him to the ships.

In Book XIII, Hector finds him on the left side of the tearful struggle, encouraging his companions, and insults him: Dyspar, handsome, mad for women, deceiver. He asks where Deiphobus, Helenus, Adamas, Asius, and Otryoneus are. Paris answers that Hector accuses the innocent, that his mother did not bear him without courage, that since Hector stirred up the fight by the ships they have fought without rest, and that no one fights beyond his own power. Hector lets himself be persuaded. Paris, angered by the death of his guest Harpalion, kills Eucenor, son of the seer Polyidus, who knew his fate and boarded the ship all the same.

In Book XV, he kills Deiochus from behind, while the Trojans strip the dead.

In Book XXII, Hector, alone by the wall, imagines offering Achilles Helen, the goods Paris carried to Troy, and half of what the city keeps, and discards the idea. Dying, Hector warns Achilles that the day when Paris and Apollo destroy him will come at the Scaean Gates.

In Book XXIV, at the beginning of the book, the narrator says that Hera, Poseidon, and Athena have continued to hate Troy since Paris offended the goddesses and preferred the one who offered him desire. Priam, as he drives the Trojans out of the portico, shouts against the sons left to him, among them Paris, whom he calls wicked and disgraceful. Helen, in her lament, says that her husband is Alexander, of godlike appearance, who brought her to Troy, and she wishes she had died before.

Themes Embodied

Paris embodies War through its cause rather than through combat: he is the man whose choice gives rise to it, and who almost always flees from fighting. He embodies Honor and Reputation in reverse, in the public shame that Hector wants to correct and that he accepts as just. Fate and Free Will appears in the line where he says that the gifts of the gods are not chosen, and in the belief that there are gods on their side too.

Paris tells Hector that the gifts of Aphrodite are not to be rejected, and the line has two readings. It may be an excuse, which frees him from responsibility for the beauty that carried him where he went. It may be an observation about the gifts of the gods, which no one obtains by wanting them, the same idea Priam takes up when he attributes the war to the gods. The text does not choose. What Hector measures in him is what the enemies see, beauty without strength of spirit. What Paris himself measures is something else: the desire he says he never felt so strongly as in bed, after being saved by a goddess, when the scene cuts to Menelaus moving through the ranks like a beast. There are also two Parises in the poem, the one in the room and the one who shoots from behind the stele, and the poem does not reconcile them.

Relationships

• Helen: the woman he carried to Troy, whom he censures and to whom desire calls him back.
• Menelaus: the offended husband, who drags him by the helmet in the duel and prays to Zeus to punish him for having wronged his host.
• Hector: the brother who rebukes him for backing away, for staying in his room, and for not showing himself, and who hears from him the reason for the room.
• Priam: the father who passes on his offer to the Achaeans and curses him in Book XXIV.
• Zeus: the god who, in Book IV, speaks of Aphrodite, who never abandons Paris.
• Hera: the goddess who, in Book XXIV, continues to hate Troy since Paris offended the goddesses.
• Achilles: the warrior whom Hector says Paris and Apollo will destroy at the Scaean Gates.
• Aphrodite: the goddess who saves him from Menelaus and puts him in his room.