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44-434: The theme for the guest room has been variously described as 'The Earth and Her Productions' and 'Vita Nova' ('New Life'). The Golden Bed matched the rest of the furniture designed for the guest bedroom, in keeping with the room's decorative scheme. The Golden Bed is a large bed, measuring 2.28 metres (7.5 ft) long, 1.93 metres (6.3 ft) high and 1.57 metres (5.2 ft) wide. It is made from wood, gilded gold. The bed

88-519: A golden apple , inscribed, "To the fairest one," which she threw into the wedding. Three guests, Hera , Athena and Aphrodite , after some disputation, agreed to have Paris of Troy choose the fairest one. Paris chose Aphrodite, she having bribed him with the most beautiful mortal woman in the world, Helen of Sparta , wife of Menelaus . Whereupon Paris carried Helen off to Troy , and the Greeks invaded Troy for Helen's return. Eris' Apple of Discord

132-508: A lost work of the Epic Cycle , of which only fragments (and a reliable summary ) remain. The later writers Ovid ( Heroides 16.71ff, 149–152 and 5.35f), Lucian ( Dialogues of the Gods 20), Pseudo-Apollodorus ( Bibliotheca , E.3.2) and Hyginus ( Fabulae 92), retell the story with skeptical, ironic or popularizing agendas. It appeared wordlessly on the ivory and gold votive chest of

176-540: A Trojan mortal, would judge their cases, for he had recently shown his exemplary fairness in a contest in which Ares in bull form had bested Paris's own prize bull, and the shepherd-prince had unhesitatingly awarded the prize to the god. With Hermes as their guide, the three candidates bathed in the spring of Ida, then met Paris on Mount Ida . While Paris inspected them, each attempted with her powers to bribe him; Hera offered to make him king of Europe and Asia, Athena offered wisdom and skill in war, and Aphrodite, who had

220-419: A highly successful score to the same libretto in 1742. The opera Le Cinesi ( The Chinese Women ) by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1754) concludes with a ballet, The Judgement of Paris , sung as a vocal quartet. Francesco Cilea 's 1902 opera Adriana Lecouvreur also includes a Judgement of Paris ballet sequence. The story is the basis of an earlier opera, Il pomo d'oro , in a prologue and five acts by

264-468: A larger painted panel at Burges' rooms in Buckingham Street, where he had lived before Tower House. The sideboards of the bed are ornamented with glass covering pieces of illuminated vellum and fragments of textiles. Grotesque figures, of a female and male, feature in the side brackets at the head of the bed. The bed head and foot posts are surmounted by half orbs of rock crystal . The foot of

308-414: A meeting between them. The Achaeans next desire to return home, but are restrained by Achilles, who afterwards drives off the cattle of Aeneas, sacks neighbouring cities, and kills Troilus . Patroclus carries away Lycaon to Lemnos and sells him as a slave, and out of the spoils Achilles receives Briseis as a prize, and Agamemnon Chryseis . Then follow the death of Palamedes, the plan of Zeus to relieve

352-581: A newly created 'Burges room' at Knightshayes Court. Judgement of Paris On the Greek side: On the Trojan side: The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology , which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War , and in later versions to the foundation of Rome . Eris , the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis . In revenge, she brought

396-403: A sort of beauty contest between three beautiful female nudes, but the myth, at least since Euripides, rather concerns a choice among the bribes that each goddess embodies. The bribery involved is ironic and a late ingredient. According to a tradition suggested by Alfred J. Van Windekens, "cow-eyed" Hera was indeed the most beautiful, before Aphrodite showed up. However, Hera was the goddess of

440-473: A subject for easel paintings, it was more common in Northern Europe, although Marcantonio Raimondi 's engraving of c. 1515, probably based on a drawing by Raphael , and using a composition derived from a Roman sarcophagus , was a highly influential treatment, which made Paris's Phrygian cap an attribute in most later versions. The subject was painted many (supposedly 23) times by Lucas Cranach

484-521: Is a lost epic poem of ancient Greek literature , which has been attributed to Stasinus and was quite well known in classical antiquity and fixed in a received text, but which subsequently was lost to view. It was part of the Epic Cycle , which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic hexameter verse. The story of the Cypria comes chronologically at the beginning of the Epic Cycle, and

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528-499: Is decorated with carvings and 'fragments of illuminated manuscripts under glass and rock crystal'. Two mirrors are inset into the headboard, which features a painting by Thomas Weekes of the Judgement of Paris at its centre. The three gods in the 'Judgement of Paris' are wearing clothes of the 13th-century, with Mercury standing to the left of Paris , with Venus bowing to Paris on the right. The painting had previously been part of

572-547: Is followed by that of the Iliad ; the composition of the two was apparently in the reverse order. The poem comprised eleven books of verse in epic dactylic hexameters . The Cypria , in the written form in which it was known in classical Greece , was probably composed in the late seventh century BCE, but there is much uncertainty. The Cyclic Poets, as the translator of Homerica Hugh G. Evelyn-White noted, "were careful not to trespass upon ground already occupied by Homer ," one of

616-638: The Aethiopis , also lost, but which even in its quoted fragments is more independent of the Iliad as text. The stories contained in the Cypria , on the other hand, were fixed much earlier than that, and the same problems of dating oral traditions associated with the Homeric epics also apply to the Cypria . Many or all of the stories in the Cypria were known to the composer(s) of the Iliad and Odyssey . The Cypria , in presupposing an acquaintance with

660-506: The Charites and the Horai to enhance her charms with flowers and song (according to a fragment of the Cypria quoted by Athenagoras of Athens ), offered the world's most beautiful woman ( Euripides , Andromache , l.284, Helena l. 676). This was Helen of Sparta , wife of the Greek king Menelaus . Paris accepted Aphrodite's bribe and awarded the apple to her, receiving Helen as well as

704-523: The Cypria' s original text, quoted by others. For the content we are almost entirely dependent on a prose summary of the Cyclic epics contained in the Chrestomathy attributed to an unknown "Proclus" (possibly to be identified with the 2nd-century AD grammarian Eutychius Proclus , or else with an otherwise unknown 5th-century grammarian). Many other passing references give further minor indications of

748-560: The Troad is repulsed by the Trojans, and Protesilaus is killed by Hector . Achilles then kills Cycnus , the son of Poseidon , and drives the Trojans back. The Greeks take up their dead and send envoys to the Trojans demanding the surrender of Helen and the treasure. The Trojans refusing, they first attempt an assault upon the city, and then lay waste the country round about. Achilles desires to see Helen, and Aphrodite and Thetis contrive

792-440: The 7th-century BC tyrant Cypselus at Olympia , which was described by Pausanias as showing: ... Hermes bringing to Alexander [i.e. Paris] the son of Priam the goddesses of whose beauty he is to judge, the inscription on them being: 'Here is Hermes, who is showing to Alexander, that he may arbitrate concerning their beauty, Hera , Athena and Aphrodite . The subject was favoured by ancient Greek vase painters as early as

836-527: The Elder , and was especially attractive to Northern Mannerist painters. Rubens painted several compositions of the subject at different points in his career. Watteau and Angelica Kauffman were among the artists who painted the subject in the 18th century. The Judgement of Paris was painted frequently by academic artists of the 19th century, and less often by their more progressive contemporaries such as Renoir and Cézanne . Later artists who have painted

880-473: The Italian composer Antonio Cesti , with a libretto by Francesco Sbarra (1611–1668). Kallistēi is the word of the ancient Greek language inscribed on Eris ' Apple of Discord . In Greek, the word is καλλίστῃ (the dative singular of the feminine superlative of καλος, beautiful ). Its meaning can be rendered "to the fairest one". Calliste (Καλλίστη; Mod. Gk. Kallisti ) is also an ancient name for

924-521: The bed is inscribed with the Latin phrase 'VITA NOVA' ('New Life'), with the posts of the bed inscribed 'WILLIAM BURGES ME FIERI FECIT' ('William Burges Made Me') on the right, and 'ANNO DOMINI MDCCCLXXIX' ('In the Year of Our Lord 1879') on the left. The estimate book Burges used for Tower House records the bed on 12 March 1879 as costing £39 13s (equivalent to £4,550 in 2023). Thomas Nicholls carving for

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968-705: The bed is marked by a payment of £15 15s in June that year (equivalent to £1,750 in 2023). From 1952 to 1953 the Exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts was held at the V&;A, at which the Golden Bed and an accompanying washstand , also from the guest bedroom at The Tower House , were lent for display. Oliver Poole, 1st Baron Poole was originally asked to lend the bed but Poole subsequently requested that Colonel T.H. Minshall D.S.O. be acknowledged as

1012-405: The cattle of Idas and Lynceus , are caught and killed: Zeus gives them immortality that they share every other day. Iris informs Menelaus, who returns to plan an expedition against Ilium with his brother Agamemnon . They set out to assemble the former suitors of Helen, who had sworn an oath to defend the rights of whichever one won her hand. Nestor in a digression tells Menelaus how Epopeus

1056-571: The celebration with a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides , which she threw into the proceedings as a prize of beauty. According to some later versions, upon the apple was the inscription καλλίστῃ ( kallistēi , "To/for the fairest one"). Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera , Athena and Aphrodite . They asked Zeus to judge which of them was fairest, and eventually he, reluctant to favour any claim himself, declared that Paris ,

1100-475: The city's rescue and is wounded by Achilles . The fleet scattered by storm, Achilles puts in at Skyros and marries Deidameia , the daughter of Lycomedes , then heals Telephus, so that he might be their guide to Ilium. When the Achaeans have been mustered a second time at Aulis, Agamemnon is persuaded by Calchas to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis and obtain safe passage for

1144-530: The enmity of the Greeks and especially of Hera. The Greeks' expedition to retrieve Helen from Paris in Troy is the mythological basis of the Trojan War . According to some stories, Helen of Troy was kidnapped by Paris and group of Trojans; in others, she simply followed Paris willingly because she felt affection for him, too. The story of the Judgement of Paris naturally offered artists the opportunity to depict

1188-406: The epic was said in one ancient tradition to have been given by Homer as a dowry to his son-in-law, a Stasinus of Cyprus mentioned in no other context; there was apparently an allusion to this in a lost Nemean ode by Pindar . Some later writers repeated the story. It did at least serve to explain why the Cypria was attributed by some to Homer and by others to Stasinus. Others, however, ascribed

1232-530: The events of the Homeric poem, in the received view thus formed a kind of introduction to the Iliad though there is an overlap in events from the death of Palamedes , including the catalogue of Trojan allies. J. Marks observes that "Indeed, the junction would be seamless if the Kypria simply ended with the death of Palamedes." The title Cypria , associating the epic with Cyprus , demanded some explanation:

1276-455: The isle of Thera . The word Kallisti (Modern Greek) written on a golden apple, has become a principal symbol of Discordianism , a post-modernist religion. In non- philological texts (such as Discordian ones) the word is usually spelled as καλλιστι . Most versions of Principia Discordia actually spell it as καλλιχτι, but this is definitely incorrect; in the afterword of the 1979 Loompanics edition of Principia , Gregory Hill says that

1320-450: The marital order and of cuckolded wives, amongst other things. She was often portrayed as the shrewish, jealous wife of Zeus, who himself often escaped from her controlling ways by cheating on her with other women, mortal and immortal. She had fidelity and chastity in mind and was careful to be modest when Paris was inspecting her. Aphrodite was the goddess of sexuality , and was effortlessly more sexual and charming than any goddess. Thus, she

1364-440: The outcome. In Lacedaemon the Trojans are entertained by the sons of Tyndareus , Castor and Pollux , and by Menelaus, who then sets sail for Crete, ordering Helen to furnish the guests with all they require. Aphrodite brings Helen and Paris together, and he takes her and her dowry back to his home of Troy with an episode at Sidon , which Paris and his men successfully storm. In the meantime Castor and Pollux, while stealing

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1408-472: The owner. Minshall had owned Tower House in the 1920s. Poole and his mother, Mrs. Minshall, later agreed to donate the bed and washstand to the V&A in the name of Colonel Minshall. In 2002 the Golden Bed was lent to Knightshayes Court in Tiverton , Devon, by the V&A. Knightshayes Court had been built by Burges from 1867 to 1874. The bed joined a wardrobe designed by Burges on loan from Tower House in

1452-565: The poem to Hegesias (or Hegesinus) of Salamis in Cyprus or to Cyprias of Halicarnassus (see Cyclic Poets ). It is possible that the " Trojan Battle Order " (the list of Trojans and their allies, of Iliad 2.816–876, which forms an appendix to the Catalogue of Ships ) is abridged from that in the Cypria , which was known to contain in its final book a list of the Trojan allies. In current critical editions only about fifty lines survive of

1496-552: The poem's storyline. What follows embeds reports of known content of the Cypria in a retelling of the known events leading up to the anger of Achilles. The poem narrates the origins of the Trojan War and its first events. It begins with the decision of Zeus to relieve the Earth of the burden of population through war, a decision with familiar Mesopotamian parallels. The war of the Seven against Thebes ensues. The Cypria described

1540-453: The reasons for dating the final, literary form of Cypria as post-Homeric, in effect a " prequel ". "The author of the Kypria already regarded the Iliad as a text. Any reading of the Kypria will show it preparing for events for (specifically) the Iliad in order to refer back to them, for instance the sale of Lycaon to Lemnos or the kitting out of Achilles with Briseis and Agamemnon with Chryseis ". A comparison can be made with

1584-552: The ships, after he offends her by killing a stag. Iphigeneia is fetched as though for marriage with Achilles. Artemis, however, snatches her away, substituting a deer on the altar, and transports her to the land of the Tauri , making her immortal. Next they sail as far as Tenedos , where while they are feasting, Philoctetes is bitten by a snake and is left behind in Lemnos . Here, too, Achilles quarrels with Agamemnon. A first landing at

1628-528: The sixth century BC, and remained popular in Greek and Roman art, before enjoying a significant revival as an opportunity to show three female nudes, in the Renaissance . It is recounted that Zeus held a banquet in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (parents of Achilles ). However, Eris , goddess of discord, was not invited, for it was believed she would have made the party unpleasant for everyone. Angered by this snub, Eris arrived at

1672-551: The subject include André Lhote , Enrique Simonet ( El Juicio de Paris 1904), and Salvador Dalí . Ivo Saliger (1939), Adolf Ziegler (1939), and Joseph Thorak (1941) also used the classic myth to propagate German renewal during the Nazi period. The story is the basis of an opera, The Judgement of Paris , with a libretto by William Congreve , that was set to music by four composers in London, 1700–1701. Thomas Arne composed

1716-458: The war. The subject became popular in art from the late Middle Ages onwards. All three goddesses were usually shown nude, though in ancient art only Aphrodite is ever unclothed, and not always. The opportunity for three female nudes was a large part of the attraction of the subject. It appeared in illuminated manuscripts and was popular in decorative art, including 15th-century Italian inkstands and other works in maiolica , and cassoni . As

1760-401: The wedding of Peleus and Thetis ; in the Judgement of Paris among the goddesses Athena , Hera , and Aphrodite : Paris awards the prize for beauty to Aphrodite, and as a prize is awarded Helen , wife of Menelaus . Then Paris builds his ships at Aphrodite's suggestion, and Helenus foretells the future to him, and Aphrodite orders Aeneas to sail with him, while Cassandra prophesies

1804-467: Was able to sway Paris into judging her as the fairest. Athena's beauty is rarely commented on in the myths, perhaps because Greeks held her up as an asexual being, able to "overcome" her "womanly weaknesses" to become both wise and talented in war (both considered male domains by the Greeks). Her rage at losing makes her join the Greeks in the battle against Paris's Trojans, a key event in the turning point of

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1848-660: Was because on the IBM typewriter he used, not all Greek letters coincided with Latin ones, and he didn't know enough of the letters to spot the mistake. Zeus' failure to invite Eris is referred to as The Original Snub in Discordian mythology. Chronological listing of classical literature sources for The Judgement of Paris, including the Apple of Discord: Cypria The Cypria ( / ˈ s ɪ p r i . ə / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Κύπρια Kúpria ; Latin : Cypria )

1892-503: Was destroyed after seducing the daughter of Lycus , the story of Oedipus , the madness of Heracles , and the story of Theseus and Ariadne . In gathering the leaders, they detect Odysseus ' feigned madness. The assembled leaders offer ill-omened sacrifice at Aulis , where the prophet Calchas warns the Greeks that the war will last ten years. They reach the city of Teuthras in Mysia and sack it in error for Ilium: Telephus comes to

1936-513: Was thus the instrumental casus belli (or her not being invited to the wedding in the first place) of the Trojan War. As with many mythological tales, details vary depending on the source. The brief allusion to the Judgement in the Iliad (24.25–30) shows that the episode initiating all the subsequent action was already familiar to its audience; a fuller version was told in the Cypria ,

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