This is a story, which I created by adding made-up crap of my own to the works of other authors, just like they all did.

Zeus, the lord of all the gods, threw a party to celebrate the wedding of someone of little importance to this story (regardless how much importance they or their child may have had in other stories). Being a gracious host of godly means, Zeus ensured that everyone he knew was invited. Everyone, that is, except Eris, the goddess of discord, who had been left off the guest list deliberately for obvious reasons.

This pissed her off.

Seeking revenge as only she knew how to deliver it, Eris crashed the party anyway, bearing a single gift, which she threw into the midst of the party attendees. That gift, a golden apple of divine origins, and thus having power even over gods, bore an inscription (in the original Greek, which I have taken the liberty of transcribing into this language thusly): "To the Fairest" - clearly meaning the most beautiful, not the best judge.

Three attendees claimed the prize, each asserting that she, among all others, gods and goddesses and mortals alike, was the fairest living creature, let alone among those at the party. Those three who claimed the apple were: Hera, queen of the gods, and goddess of power, and Athena, who had somehow (the gods only know how) become the goddess of both wisdom and war, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love (but not also hate, except in the sense of two sides of the same coin).

The three goddesses asked Zeus to judge which of the three deserved the prize. In a rare display of wisdom (or not-so-rare display of cowardice), Zeus delegated the dangerous task to another, choosing a mortal man, Paris, the shepherd son of a king, whose fairness had already been proven (never mind how; this story is long enough as it is).

At the bidding of Zeus, Hermes, the god of messengers, swiftly brought the golden apple to Paris at Mount Ida, where he was herding sheep. "You must judge which of three women is the most beautiful," he commanded. "This golden apple bearing the inscription 'To the Fairest' shall thusly be awarded to that woman."

"Are you sure you have the right person?" Paris replied in bewilderment.

"Yes, certainly," Hermes confirmed. "Your fairness and wisdom are beyond doubt among gods and mortals. Zeus himself recognises your fairness and wisdom for a previous act you performed, never mind what, since this story is long enough as it is, and he selected you for this honor."

"Well, since Zeus commands this task to me, I shall perform it as best I can," Paris humbly agreed, "but I still think he has clearly picked the wrong person for this particular job. May I ask who the three women are?"

"They are the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite."

"Oh."

Hermes swiftly departed, leaving Paris to await the goddesses in a garden.

The instant Hermes vanished, Eris appeared before Paris, who recognised the goddess of discord from earlier encounters. "Never dare to spoil my vengeance, mortal!" she threatened him. "If you do, I will make your life miserable." She waved her hand, and two nearby sheep butted heads as if they were rams, or worse, humans. They bleated from the pain, and butted heads again, each angry at the other for causing them pain.

"I acknowledge your abilities, goddess," Paris replied respectfully, "but I doubt there is anything you could do that would make me any more miserable than other humans already deliberately do. Threatening to make me miserable is like threatening to make Medusa ugly. Or perhaps closer to the point, like threatening to make Tantalus miserable. I intend to judge this contest fairly, as Zeus expects. Whether that will result in the strife you desire has yet to be seen. You may as well wait and see."

Eris stormed off, furious that her threat had been outmatched by mere mortals.

Presently, the other goddesses appeared before him, each vying to win the prize of the golden apple, but more importantly, the prize of being judged the most beautiful living creature.

Hera, queen of the gods, would unquestionably turn the head of most any mortal man who set eyes upon her. Yet she was also the goddess of modesty. She appeared before Paris attired in a long flowing robe of godly beauty, allowing to show only her own beauty of face, hair, arms, and feet. Paris gazed at her and sighed. Sensing him to be unconvinced, and unwilling to leave the matter to chance, Hera smiled her most charming smile and spoke. "Upon winning the golden apple, I would grant incalculable power to some deserving mortal man," she promised - without saying to whom she would grant that power, and thus actually making an overt bribe of it. "My selection would become king of both Europe and Asia, and since that is the entire world, he would be king of the entire world ¹ . Imagine the wealth he would have as king of the entire world." She smiled and left him with those thoughts. Paris sighed.

Athena, paradoxically goddess of both wisdom and war, somewhat like a lesser goddess of both delicious foods and caviar, appeared before Paris. She had bathed in the stream in the garden on Mount Ida, dried herself and her hair of godly beauty, and appeared before him wearing nothing but that hair. She held arms aside and turned, allowing him to gaze upon her without hindrance. Most any mortal man would be awestruck by her beauty. Paris gazed upon her and sighed. Sensing him to be unconvinced, and wishing to be certain of her triumph over the other two goddesses, Athena smiled her most charming smile and spoke. "If I were to win this golden apple," she mused, despite not being a Muse herself, "I would pick a deserving mortal man and make him the most famous warrior in the world, skilled in every art of war, a kill easy, a victory certain. Kings would be forgotten, while his name would be remembered for ages upon ages beyond count," she promised - without actually making an overt bribe of it. "I do not guarantee anyone would pronounce his name correctly ² , of course," she admitted, "but imagine the fame he would have as the greatest warrior the world has ever known." She smiled and left him with those thoughts. Paris sighed.

Shortly thereafter, Aphrodite, having also bathed in the garden stream, appeared before Paris clothed identically in attire her second competitor had chosen, with one exception. Being the goddess of love, she had an enchanted necklace that enhanced her power over mortal men's minds, and that necklace alone she wore. She showed Paris her charms - all of her charms, including the necklace - allowing him to gaze upon her limitless immortal beauty. Most any mortal man would be speechless from admiration. Speechlessly, Paris gazed at her, and sighed. Sensing him to be unconvinced of her superiority, and in terror of losing a beauty contest to the goddess of war, or (gods forbid!) modesty, Aphrodite smiled her most charming smile and spoke. "Golden apples are a trifle, mere toys to delight the eye, but if I were to win the title of Fairest, I would be exceedingly grateful and in a wondrously generous mood," she murmured seductively. "In my generous mood, I would choose some deserving mortal man and bring to his bed the most beautiful mortal woman in the world to love him," she promised - without actually making an overt bribe of it. "That woman, by which I mean Helen of Sparta, I believe you have met her, would love him in all the ways a man wishes to be loved. You can imagine his happiness." She smiled and left him with those thoughts. Paris sighed.

Hours of pondering passed in seconds, because otherwise the reader would get bored. The goddesses returned to Paris together. "You have had long enough," Hera stated. "You must make a decision," Athena added. "The right decision," Aphrodite winked, garnering glares from the other two that would melt bronze or cripple chariots at a hundred paces. And sometimes had.

Paris sighed. "You are all three of such indescribable beauty that most any mortal man would award the title to any of you. But all three, showing lack of confidence in your chances of winning by merit of your beauty alone, or perhaps in tacit admission that you believe the beauty of your competition is greater than your own, have offered me bribes."

Three goddesses each protested that she had never offered any such thing; no bribe had come from her lips, at least.

Paris shrugged. "Even if cleverly stated, I heard three intentional bribes to win my favor. The meaning was clear," he interrupted three more protests. "My decision would have been easy if one of you had offered me no bribe, thus proving her confidence in her own beauty, as well as her resolve to win or lose fairly. While Zeus selected me for my honesty, each of your bribes essentially assume my dishonesty. But that is not the biggest problem. It is the nature of your bribes." Paris sighed.

"First, Hera offered to make me king of the entire world, that being Europe and Asia." (Save your indignation! he gestured to Athena. Your turn is coming, and yours, too, Aphrodite.) "In essense, she offered me the power to force other people to do my bidding. Everyone in the entire world. This I do not want. Thus her bribe is valueless to me.

"Second, Athena offered to make me virtually king upon the battlefield, with the power to force other people to do my bidding through the use of brutal and lethal force. This I do not want. Thus her bribe, too, is valueless to me."

Paris turned to the third goddess. "I see you smiling smugly, Aphrodite, thinking you have won, for what man could possibly refuse your bribe? Yet what you have offered me is doubly valueless. You have offered me the power to make one woman do my bidding, regardless of her will in the matter. This I do not want. I am trying to be very clear about this. I do not want power to force anyone to do my bidding, whether it be everyone through politics, nor only the combatants in war, nor even a single person in a single room, not one single time, let alone live a lifetime of forcing my will upon others.

"Together, you three have offered me wealth, fame, or happiness. Careers in politics or the military cannot tempt me. You seem not to have noticed that my chosen career, despite being the son of a king, is to be a shepherd. Happiness is the only offer that could tempt me, and then only if what was offered would actually make me happy.

"But her bribe misses the mark even wider than the others," Paris continued, "since she offered to bring the most beautiful mortal woman in the world to my bed, and that alone makes her offer valueless to me. I told Hermes I was the wrong person to judge this contest. At least if she had offered me Helena, her bribe would not have been quite as far off the mark, though it still would have missed for the other reason."

"But I did offer you Helen!" Aphrodite exclaimed.

"Aha!!" Athena shouted. "So you admit it!!" Hera scolded, her arms folded.

"Don't be hypocrites," Paris scolded back ³ . "And I would not want Helen's love anyway. I said Helena."

"What? You can't mean-" Athena began. "Helen's daughter?" Hera continued for her. "But she's only six!" Aphrodite finished. Paris sighed.

"Yes, I mean," Paris echoed, despite not being Echo, "Helen's daughter, Helena. And she's only six, as you say, and she was five when I met her, but to me she's the most beautiful person I have ever seen, present company included, though no offense intended. But even so, if Aphrodite had offered to force her to my bed against her will, or even to use her power to change Helena's will to submit to mine, I would have refused her bribe with as much outrage as a mortal man can feel. When you are free to choose whom to love, and how to love, that is real happiness, Aphrodite. Denying that happiness to anyone is the gravest of all injustices, the worst of all cruelties. I would never do to anyone what others do to me without a moment's pause. I would certainly never do it to someone I loved, for that is not love." Paris sighed.

"I am still charged with awarding this apple," Paris reminded them, "and that task remains, and I have made a decision. You have all offered me bribes that I do not want. But I do ask this of each of you: when I give my decision, accept it with the grace and good will of a goddess, realising that it is merely the opinion of one mortal man among the thousands of men there must be in the entire world-"

"Tens of thousands," Hera interrupted.

"Fine, tens of thousands of mortal men. The point is, I am just one, and my opinion does no harm to anyone, so do not punish me for it. Assume there are thousands of men who would choose Hera, and thousands who would choose Athena, and thousands who would choose Aphrodite, based on your immortal beauty alone. Some men might even want to award it to Hermes, if he would even accept it. Since I am in none of those camps, I can award the apple impartially as few other men could, and you will all go away confident of your beauty regardless, and let the matter rest. Agreed?"

Three goddesses hesitantly nodded their agreement. Disguised in the grass nearby, Eris clenched her jaw, and discovered that vipers can accidentally bite themselves.

Paris then awarded the apple. "Hera shall divide the apple into three pieces as evenly as a goddess of her powers can achieve. Then Athena shall divide each of the three pieces into two pieces as evenly as a goddess of her skill can achieve. Then Aphrodite shall choose one piece for herself, Athena choose a piece for herself, Hera choose two pieces, Athena choose a second piece, and Aphrodite shall receive the remaining piece. If I judge that anyone is deliberately dividing the apple unevenly, she will be denied any pieces at all. And I hope that if you have any ire about my decision, you will throw the pieces at the goddess of discord, not at me."

"I can cut an apple, even of gold," Hera said, "but how do you propose that I ensure the pieces are of identical size?"

"Since the apple is of divine origins and is thus perfect," Paris explained, "it has no deformities, therefore the indentation is the exact center of a perfect circle. Take a grass stem," he pointed to a suitable one that his flock had overlooked, "wrap it around the apple at its widest, trim it to the exact length that goes around once, then fold it into three equal lengths by adjusting before creasing it. Wrap it around the apple again, then cut the apple from the ends of each section of grass directly to the center of the apple."

"Any advice for me, Pythagoras?" Athena asked mock-mockingly.

"You could continue the cuts Hera makes, through to the other side, if you wished, or put the apple back together and cut through all three pieces level with the grass stem, but as long as you divide each of the pieces using the same method, you will get three pieces of equal size, and three other pieces of equal size. My method of choosing assures that each of you will get one from each group, if the groups are of slightly different size."

Athena smiled. "As the goddess of wisdom, I consider myself taught a lesson."

The other two goddesses nodded agreement. Disguised in some nearby rocks, Eris thrashed in frustration, and discovered that scorpions can accidentally sting themselves.

Paris sighed. "I cannot hope to equal your wisdom, Athena, but I humbly appreciate your compliment. Now, given that you have all offered bribes- I mean, things I do not value, yet things that would require the power of the gods to grant, I ask something else of you and you may grant it or not as you choose. It might take all three of you together."

"What is it you wish, mortal?" Hera asked. "I am inclined to grant it, if possible."

The other two goddesses nodded agreement. Now disguised as a hornet, Eris discovered that hornets have no teeth to gnash.

Paris sighed. "I can't have love, not in this hate-infested world the way it is. I refuse to force my will on anyone, as you have learned, yet I can't even go to Helena and play with her, make her happy, and through my merits and my love for her, get her to love me in return. This is a right that almost all men simply take for granted, and would be outraged if that right was violated by anyone as they seek someone to love and be loved by, yet they utterly deny the same right to me and others like me, unthinkingly, and unrelentingly. At the same time, in fact in the very same act, they deny that right to the ones who would love us."

Paris bit back hard on his anger in an effort to conceal his pain and woe, and continued, his voice edged with bitterness that a vision of a future lifetime of lovelessness had given him. "I can't even go to her and teach her basic geometry, ethics, or chemistry, because hateful people would suspect me of loving her (and they would be right about that one thing) or suspect that she loved me (they would probably be right about that, too) and out of hatred, immediately put a stop to it." Paris sighed.

"All I want is for people to get the Hades out of the way and stop stopping me from loving someone, and stop stopping her from loving me in return if that is her will. If I had my choice, Helena would herd sheep with me while she grew up, or I could go herd sheep nearby and meet her whenever she wished, and if her choice was given the respect she deserves, she might decide to spend that time with me. Or she might not, but it would be her choice, not some harpy or cyclops making the choice for her and imposing their will on her by force, which is despicable, regardless who does it. I ask this not just for me, but for the others like me. Among the tens of thousands of mortal men in the world, who would have trouble picking the fairest among you three, there are probably a dozen, or dozens, like me, -"

"Hundreds, I would guess," Hera speculated.

"Fine, hundreds then, out of tens of thousands, like me, who would choose someone like Helena as the most beautiful person they had ever seen, or to be fair to all, someone like her brother, whatever the Hades his name was. Just please get people to stop trampling on love just because they don't feel that sort of love themselves. Is that so much to ask??"

Hera listened carefully to his words, slowly growing somber and thoughtful. "Now that you remind me, Paris, I have known men such as yourself. In my own youth, I met many such men. Brave Helios woke his steeds and traversed the sky in his fiery chariot over my head about eighty thousand times while I looked, acted, and I must assume felt, exactly like a mortal girl child, attracting the attentions of those who found themselves attracted to such an enchanting creature. Satyrs played me like an instrument until I sang like a Siren, and I delighted in the contact, just as any mortal girl child would. Pan himself-" Hera recalled, appearing lost in her memories. "Um, never mind about that," she warned, returning to the moment.

"Mortal men were always my favorites, however, since their passion for me came from their hearts. I needed none of Aphrodite's powers: such men loved me, and treated me well, and made me happy, because it was in their nature to do so. I had no interfering parents around to threaten them to keep them away from me, nor to destroy their lives afterward for making me happy. I loved them for loving me, and I brought happiness to their lives in return, without powers, simply by being myself.

"Only later did I absorb the hatred that so pollutes this world that even gods and goddesses are affected," Hera's voice quieted, hinting that even goddesses could feel shame. "Only later did I forget the joy and love such men gave to me in my youth, or learn to see something sinister and ugly in a garden where only happiness grew.

"If one destroys such a garden with acid and fire and poison, one should not be surprised to see that only weeds, stunted and blackened and sick, hiding in crevices, manage to survive the attack, while everything beautiful and good that once flourished and made the garden a wonderland withers and gets forgotten. Yet the fault lies not with the garden, nor with the flowers that died, nor even with the survivors, however vile they may have become in the wreckage, their potential for beauty stolen from them."

She turned to her companions. "You missed out on so much, Athena, by springing fully-formed from the forehead of Zeus. And you, Aphrodite, you are the goddess of love, yet stepping fully-grown from a clam shell, there is a flavor of love you have never tasted: being loved by a man who cannot love women. I almost pity you. I do pity the mortal girls of the world as it is now, as unjustly denied that love as the men who would love them."

"Sorry to bring it up," Aphrodite said, "but you were swallowed by your father when you were born, were you not?"

"Well, yes, and if it were not for Zeus, I would still be there," Hera admitted ⁴ , "but you don't do much growing in those circumstances, and like many others, I consider that my life began only when I escaped from my father's control and finally made my own choices. It is a shame it should ever be that way for anyone, a shame that there are any parents who must be escaped from before one can exercise free will and pursue one's own happiness, especially in matters of love. You would think that parents, of all people, would value their child's happiness enough to recognise it when they see it, and to protect it instead of deliberately destroying it."

She turned to face the mortal among them, and gently took his hand. "Yes, Paris, there are other good men such as yourself, living lives of undeserved loneliness and lovelessness, and my estimate is probably low. I am grateful to you for reminding me of truths I once knew."

The goddesses turned away and discussed his request privately for some minutes as Paris waited. Athena spoke first when they returned. "What you ask is wise and reasonable, Paris. We are inclined to grant it. And speaking as the goddess of wisdom, that goes double for me." She paused.

"And speaking as the goddess of love," Aphrodite added, "I, too, can see the sense in your request. Love truly felt, freely given, and freely returned can never be wrong. But-" she paused.

"But?" Paris asked.

"But we are only gods," Hera sighed. "I can make someone king of the entire world, but not even Poseidon himself can move the entire ocean, and human stupidity and hatred is more massive than the ocean."

"Why do you think I am so busy as the goddess of war?" Athena interjected.

"I thought it was because you do not use your powers as goddess of wisdom often enough," Aphrodite teased. Athena let it slide.

"No, what you ask is beyond the power of all the gods together to grant," Hera concluded. "If it is even possible, then only humans can move human stupidity and hatred. And it is doubtful they ever will, because they are so ungodly stupid and hateful."

"That is what I thought," Paris sighed.

"But about Helena, perhaps I can help," Aphrodite offered. "I can distract her jailors to give you a chance to spend one day with her, and after that, if she freely chooses to leave with you, I will distract them some more. But if you do this, and allow a child to make her own choices about her life and whom to love, in this world the way it is, I can't predict the consequences."

"I can," said the goddess of war. "Heedless of the pain she causes her own child, the ugly hatred on Helen's face will launch a thousand ships against anyone who respects her child's wishes and brings her child happiness."

Disguised as a wasp nearby, Eris silently laughed, and decided that would be more than adequate reward, especially since mortals would do the rest of the work for her.

If you like this story, feel free to copy it anywhere, intact, you don't have to cite me as the author, in fact I'd rather you didn't, just don't claim to be the author yourself.

⁴ 'You people are weird,' Paris thought, then suddenly hoped that they couldn't tell his thoughts. Athena glanced at him ambiguously.