Ζεὺς δὲ ἰδὼν ἐλέησε, καὶ ἐν πυκιναῖς πραπίδεσσι
Σύνθετο κουφίσαι ἀνθρώπων παμβώτορα γαῖαν,
Ῥιπίσας πολέμου μεγάλην ἔριν Ἰλιακοῖο,
Ὄφρα κενώσειεν θάνατῳ βάρος· οἱ δ᾽ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ
Ἥρωες κτείνοντο, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή.
The same motive is touched upon by Eurip. Orest, 1635; Helen. 38; and seriously maintained, as it seems, by Chrysippus, ap. Plutarch. Stoic. Rep. p. 1049: but the poets do not commonly go back farther than the passion of Paris for Helen (Theognis, 1232; Simonid. Amorg. Fragm. 6, 118).
The judgment of Paris was one of the scenes represented on the ancient chest of Kypselus at Olympia (Pausan. v. 19, 1).
[689] Argument of the Ἔπη Κύπρια (ap. Düntzer, p. 10). These warnings of Kassandra form the subject of the obscure and affected poem of Lycophrôn.
[690] According to the Cyprian Verses, Helena was daughter of Zeus by Nemesis, who had in vain tried to evade the connection (Athenæ. viii. 334). Hesiod (Schol. Pindar. Nem. x. 150) represented her as daughter of Oceanus and Têthys, an oceanic nymph: Sapphô (Fragm. 17, Schneidewin), Pausanias (i. 33, 7), Apollodôrus (iii. 10, 7), and Isokratês (Encom. Helen. v. ii. p. 366, Auger) reconcile the pretensions of Lêda and Nemesis to a sort of joint maternity (see Heinrichsen, De Carminibus Cypriis, p. 45-46).
[691] Herodot. ii. 117. He gives distinctly the assertion of the Cyprian Verses, which contradicts the argument of the poem as it appears in Proclus (Fragm. 1, 1), according to which latter, Paris is driven out of his course by a storm and captures the city of Sidôn. Homer (Iliad, vi. 293) seems however to countenance the statement in the argument.