House of the Muses – The Latter Days of Sappho of Lesbos

This concludes the online version of House of the Muses #5. For those of you who weren’t sure who the sinister new villainess is, here’s a line or two from good old Wikipedia:

Eris (Greek Ἔρις, “Strife”) is the Greek goddess of strife, her name being translated into Latin as Discordia. Her Greek opposite is Harmonia, whose Latin counterpart is Concordia. Homer equated her with the war-goddess Enyo, whose Roman counterpart is Bellona. Eris, the solar system’s largest known dwarf planet, is named after the goddess.

The most famous tale of Eris (which Dika, being a huge fan of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey can tell you) recounts her initiating the Trojan War. The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite had been invited along with the rest of Olympus to the forced wedding of Peleus and Thetis, who would become the parents of Achilles, but Eris had been snubbed because of her troublemaking inclinations.

She therefore (in a fragment from the Kypria as part of a plan hatched by Zeus and Themis) tossed into the party the Apple of Discord, a golden apple inscribed Kallisti – “For the most beautiful one”, or “To the Fairest One” – provoking the goddesses to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. The hapless Paris, Prince of Troy, was appointed to select the most beautiful by Zeus. Each of the three goddesses immediately attempted to bribe Paris to choose her. Hera offered political power; Athena promised skill in battle; and Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. While Greek culture placed a greater emphasis on prowess and power, Paris chose to award the apple to Aphrodite, thereby dooming his city, which was destroyed in the war that ensued.

Oops. She’s HERE? Oh, crap, we’re not in Kansas anymore. Don’t forget–hopefully by February we debut House of the Muses #6: The Last Child of Herakles! DON’T MISS IT!!!