Fractiously Esoteric Labile Legion of the Ascended Temple of Eris

Introductory Twaddle

Hereafter find the canonical, accepted, infallible, entirely approved exegesis of Eris as revealed to FELLATE via holy writ, wholly writ on the stall of a bathroom in a sketchy comfort station somewhere outside of Howl, Kansas (adjacent to the Holy Cocks of the Grandfathers Church, Head Priest Rev. Al Ginsberg), otherwise known as: The Golden-Apple Thing.

Here beginneth the reading.

001.

The Golden-Apple Thing (told you)

THE STORY OF ERIS AND THE APPLE OF DISCORD, also known as The Golden-Apple Thing, is attached, according to non-Homeric sources, to an Iliadic prequel-cum-side-quest called the Judgment of Paris.Dig it:King Peleus of Phthia (say it three times fast. Or even once) was going to marry Thetis, a sea-nymph, who was an immortal, which meant the Olympians all had invites to the wedding — except that notorious troublemaker, Eris. She’d been excluded from the guest list, her presence nixed by the other goddesses, in an action that Discordians refer to as the Original Snub.“What the fuck ever,” Eris said. “Who needs those bitches anyway? Besides, I’ve got a supernova to set off this afternoon so future Babylonian astrologers can attribute a ‘new star’ to some dude gonna be born in a hay-trough outside of Philistia in about thirteen hundred years.” And off she thhp’d to do just that. (She’d agreed to do it as a favor for a minor Semitic demigod who had big plans for himself, and if she’d known how that would turn out, she would’ve told him to stuff it. This was before he got all high and mighty, stomping around the astral and insisting he was the sole god, and everyone should worship only him. It was so long ago that he and Asherah were still an item, and he was a lot happier than he turned out to be later on.)

002.

A Wedding and an Apple

Meanwhile the goddesses began getting ready for the wedding, trying on different chitons and peplosae, modeling laurel wreaths at each other, pondering deeply the virtues of gold, silver, or silk-wrapped sandals, blibbering about how wonderful and romantic it was going to be, and especially how beautiful they were going to look, fishing for compliments and landing rubber boots (“Does this peplos make my butt look big?” “The peplos? No…” and so on), because as far as they were concerned, Peleus and Thetis were not the actual centerpiece of the upcoming event.They weren’t even halfway finished with all the primping and preening when Eris returned from her task with an oenochoe of Canaanite wine tucked under her arm (she’d checked in to confirm mission-accomplished with the demigod, and his good lady consort had refused to let her leave without a jug of hooch; really, he was a lot different back then), overheard all, and rolled her divine eyes.“Show those self-absorbed cows a thing or two, tellya what,” Eris said to herself, popped over to the garden of the Hesperides, and convinced them to cough up a golden apple. (Some accounts suggest she stole it. FELLATE has it on good authority that she talked them out of it.) “Lemme have just one,” she said to them. “And then I’ll prank those stuck-up birdbrains, and we can all watch the fireworks.” And perhaps with a bit of snorting and giggling, an apple somehow found its way into her hands.However it happened, Eris secured the golden apple, and on its side she inscribed the words τηι καλλιστηι: tei kallistei, ancient Greek for to the most beautiful. Then she poofed the apple amid the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, who were, at last, all decked out and ready to roll, be-gowned, be-laureled, and be-smitten with themselves.They all looked around and caught sight of the apple at the same time, said oh looky here, a prize, read the inscription, and calmly asked one another whom the apple was meant for; tried to give it to one another and failed, as each of them politely refused it; then sat down to write out lists of reasons why each goddess thought the other two should have the apple.Pfft. These goddesses? Not in ten trillion quantum-variant cosmoses.

003.

Petty Clash

Immediately after the apple appeared among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, there was a catfight of truly mythic proportions, complete with shrieking, clawing, hissing and spitting, garments being rent, hair getting mussed, enough smiting to satisfy even an Old Testament demagogue, and laurel leaves scattered just everywhere. Zeus, hearing the screeching all the way from the peak of Olympus, popped in to ask what the flaming braziers the fuss was about.“This apple appeared in our midst, O my husband,” said Hera. “And Athena and Aphrodite believe, for some reason ahaha, that it wasn’t intended for me.”“Oh right,” said Athena while Zeus peered at the apple’s inscription and thought, well, shit. “And just who is it that’s always referred to as the grey-eyed goddess? I mean, I’ve never been so hard up for the happy-slap that I need to shag my own brother. That is my apple.”“Listen to these clucking hens peck at each other,” Aphrodite said, “and then take just one look at me, zee-boy. It’s obvious the apple was meant for me.”“You decide,” said Athena to Zeus. “Which of us gets the apple?”

004.

Zeus bobs, weaves

Now, Zeus is a lot of things. He’s arrogant, impulsive, unfaithful to his wife and sister (who are the same person, you know), and is perfectly at ease aspecting himself as a swan or bull just so he can grab a bit of mortal girl or boy on the side. But for all that short-sighted and often dick-centric behavior, he’s not entirely a fool. He looked at the three goddesses, knew what it would mean to him personally if he chose one and implicitly rejected the other two, and thought: Man, I am royally fucked.“Lemme just … hold on a moment, and I’ll…” he said through a cold sweat, sidling toward a doorway.“No running off to hide, now,” Hera said. “The wedding is soon and we need a decision, beloved husband.”“Oh, haha, I’m not going anywhere,” Zeus said, pretending his sidle was merely a brief withdrawal to think. He went to his Olympian overlook, stood at the balcony rail and cast about the landscape, wondering how in Tartarus he was going to escape this trap — or if maybe just leaping into Tartarus right now and getting it over with would be the least agonizing choice — when his gaze happened upon Anatolia, and a lone figure therein.Aha, he thought.

005.

The Royal Goatherd

“Girls,” Zeus said jovially, coming back to the goddesses. “Girls! I’m unutterably honored that you think me worthy to judge your beauty contest, but how can you ask me to make such a decision, knowing and adoring you all as much as I do? You’re all breathtaking, just knockouts, utterly gorgeous, and there’s no way a simple little god like me can choose between the three of you. I’m practically blind, confronted as I am with the combined effect of your dazzling glory.”“Mmm-hmm,” Athena said, tapping her sandaled toes.“Who was that?” Zeus said, looking about himself. “Which radiant beauty of the three radiant beauties before me said that? Blinded! Blinded by the glory, I am! Anyway, poleaxed as I am by all the goddess-ly splendor arrayed before me, I know who can make the decision. What we need is an impartial and worthy judge, a royal-born mortal, a youth of fine vigor and of an age to fully appreciate all the graces of feminine charm, wink wink, and I have just the lad in mind. Behold the mortal prince, Paris!” And he flourished his hands and caused a lovely aerial view to appear of a meadow, which the goddesses all squinted at.“Where is he, behind the goatherd?” said Aphrodite.“No no, he is the goatherd.”“…Say what?”“See, when Paris was born, the prophetess Cassandra predicted that if he lived to the age of twenty, his father’s city, Troy, would fall,” said Zeus. “So Priam, that’s his dad, the king, you know, he bundled up the babe, passed him to a guard, and told him to make the brat vanish, chop-chop. Only the guard didn’t have the heart to murder an infant, let alone a prince, so he took him off to a family of goatherds, claimed he was an orphan, and paid them a few shekels to adopt the kid. So he’s been raised as a goatherd, and he thinks he’s a goatherd, but he’s really the prince of Troy.”“And your idea is … what, that he’ll see us, suddenly forget all about being a goatherd for the last … how long?” said Hera.“He’s nineteen now,” said Zeus.“For the last nineteen years, and be filled with royal judgment instead?”“Yeah!” Zeus said, pointing to her. “You got it!”“Just like that.”“Blood always tells,” Zeus said.“Yes,” said Athena, darkly. “It does.”“Um…”“And you want him to decide which of us gets the golden apple?” said Aphrodite.“Yup.”“Based on what qualifications? He’s done nothing for the last two decades except stare at goats’ asses.”“Based on the qualifications of better him than me,” said Zeus. “I mean! Haha, I meeeaan … he’s of royal blood and we all know how choosy royal mortals are about beauty after all they live such short horrible lives ahaha and they go for the prettiest and bestest because of their inherently refined tastes and anyway it’s got a nice symmetry don’t you think considering Peleus the mortal is marrying Thetis the immortal so he chose her as the winner in the contest of love and that’s so romantic and golly just look at the time…”Long and short, Zeus talked a fast slick game, the goddesses fell for it (or caved in under it), and Paris was fingered for doom.“Phew,” said Zeus.

006.

A Trip to Paris

Zeus, Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite apparated in the Anatolian meadow, inadvertently catching Paris on his knees in a carnal moment with a nanny, and not as in the woman who looked after him when he was an infant. They hung back as he finished, unhurriedly, then rearranged his chiton and stood, goatherd’s staff in hand, looking about himself and idly picking his nose.The goddesses looked Paris up and down. “Truly a prince, not a goatherd?” Hera said.“Cross my heart,” said Zeus.“Because he looks like a goatherd.”“It’s a disguise,” Zeus said.“Smells like one too,” Athena said, sniffing the air. “Eww.”“That's part of the disguise.”“And he just finished humping a goat,” Aphrodite said. “Just like a goatherd. Not a prince.”“Girls! My beautiful lovely not-at-all shallow girls! Would I lie to you about something as significant to we gods as mortal royalty?”“In a New Corinth minute,” Hera said.“Sister! I’m wounded,” Zeus said. “You wound me.”“Oh, what the fuck ever,” Athena said, striding toward Paris. “Let’s just get it over with.”“Hey now,” Hera said, “just where do you think you’re off to?”“Just gonna prime the pump a little,” said Athena. “It’s the judge’s interview part of the contest, get it? Settle down; you and Boobalicious over there will get a shot at it too.”Zeus said, “You can talk to him, but no cheating, no glamours, and no threats. That goes for all three of you.”“When have I ever threatened anyone?” Athena said, bold in the face of her entire history.

007.

Offer the First

Athena hiked up the hem of her peplos, slogged through the goaty traces abundantly scattered in the meadow, came up to Paris and said, “Hi there. How’s it hanging?”“Um,” Paris said, and looked down. “Well, about half-mast right now, but a minute ago, it was—”Athena winced. “Yeah, forget I asked that. So we’re having this contest on Olympus, it’s a beauty pageant thing, whatever, doesn’t mean all that much to this particular curvy grey-eyed vixen, ha ha, only if I win, it’ll mean a lot to you.”“Olympus? Really?” said Paris. “Wow. Are you a goddess?”“Yup, name of Athena, and it’s your lucky day, kid. Pick me as the most beautiful — pardon me while I roll my grey eyes and toss my sun-glossed tresses at the foolishness of it all — and I’ll make you the best military strategist and statesman Anatolia has ever seen.”“Oh,” Paris nodded. “Cool.”“Sound good?”“Yeah, sure.”“Great. Then I guess we’re all set.”“Yeah, we are. Um. Just one question?”“Fire away, baby.”“Where’s Anatolia?”Athena goggled at him. “Wh … ff … y … it’s all around us!”“What, the meadow?” said Paris.“No, the land. The land is called Anatolia.”“Huh,” said Paris, looking around. “I always thought it was called the south patch of alfalfa by the river Karamenderes.”“Well now y—”“Or sometimes just dirt.”“Well now you know,” Athena said.“I guess I do.”“Yup. So—”“Learn something new every day.”“If you live long enough, yes.” Athena waited, expectantly, for the final synapse to close and for Paris to agree to her terms. She found herself waiting for quite a while as he looked around at the landscape. “So…”“So … is the whole ten-stadia patch called Anatolia?”“Oh, fuck this,” Athena said, and stalked off.“What is Anatolia, anyway, some sub-variety of clover?”“Just … pick me, you, you … goatherd!” she called over her shoulder. She saw the way Zeus was eyeing her and said, “I didn’t cheat. Just offered a little incentive, that’s all. He can take it or leave it; it’s all the same to me.”

008.

Offer the Second

“Mmm-hm,” Hera huffed, and went up to Paris to try her own hand at bribery. “So, young man,” she said. “I’m betting you’ve learned a lot about life by taking care of goats.”“Well, I suppose,” Paris said. “It’s really not too hard. I mostly just need to keep them from wandering off, and guard them from being poached or taken by wolves, but…”“Yes yes, fascinating I’m sure, I’ve often thought animal husbandry is a lot like raising a family, what with all the bleating and the pooping and the constant humping, and it looks like it’s pretty much the same with goats, but that contest Athena was talking about? Well, it doesn’t mean all that much to me, I mean, I’m no one special, just Hera, wife and sister of Zeus, king of the gods, ahaha, yet Athena figures she’s somehow better than that … but why would a fragile, short-lived, and prone-to-smiting mortal such as yourself care about lofty court intrigues involving those whose husbands wield thunderbolts? Ahahaha. Anyway, set me up to win, and I’ll fulfill you in the graces of hearth, home, and mother — uh, parenthood. Whaddaya say, huh? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.”“Mmm,” Paris said. “I mean, I’m not married yet, don’t even have a girlfriend, and really, I’ve got my goats to keep me warm, so a hearth…”“And it’s never occurred to you that the latter may be the reason for the former?” said Hera, fanning a hand under her nose.“Huh?”“Nothing, dear, bless your heart,” Hera said, patting his arm. “Just pick me, and all will be well, and we won’t have to worry even a teeny bit about any smiting that I, wife and sister of the almighty Zeus, might’ve mentioned in passing.”“Um,” said Paris. “Oh-kayyyy…”Hera returned to the little clique and shot an eyebrow at Aphrodite. “Good luck, honey, you’ll need it…”

009.

Offer the Third

“Hmph,” Aphrodite said, and arranged her bosom, and fixed up her hair, and tore her peplos up the side to show a lot of long golden thigh, and then she sashayed up to Paris, throwing a lot of hip into it. And with Aphrodite, that’s really saying something; that hip stayed good and thrown while the rest of her sinuoused itself along behind. “Hey, cutie,” she said. “I bet it’s tough being out here all the time, looking after these goats, with no one soft and warm to keep you warm and hard.”“Huh?” said Paris.“You do like girls, right?” Aphrodite said, just as a sunray fell across her hair so it shone.“You bet I do,” said Paris.“Uh-huh, you look the type. I can tell, being Aphrodite, the goddess of love and all. Think about girls a lot, do you? The way they giggle and jiggle, bobble and bounce? Kinda like this?” she demonstrated.“Oh, well,” Paris blushed, pupils bobbling in time. “Yeah…”“Mmm, thought so, strapping handsome lad that you are. Well, you’ve probably heard about this silly little beauty contest, and that got me thinking about feminine pulchritude, which in turn set me to thinking that you must get about as randy as those billys sometimes, and spend a tragically large amount of your young energies wishing you had an appealing companion of the female persuasion, so you could enjoy her most compelling attributes at your merest beckon.”Paris looked at her. “Uh … most compelling … what?”“Tits,” Aphrodite said.“Oh. Oh those. Yeah, you’re … yeah,” Paris said, blushing again. “Yeah, that would make a nice change. I mean I’m nineteen, and goats … they’re okay, but…” he sighed wistfully. “They sure aren’t girls.”“Mmm-hm, well, there’s no shame in being young and virile. It’s only a shame if you don’t have anyone to share it with.” And she leaned in close, so her breasts pressed warm against his arm and her breath slipped sultry over his ear. “It just so happens that I know a chick, name of Helen, right around your age, and she’s a stone-cold fox.”“Oh yeah?”“Mmm-hmm. Just gorgeous. Eyes like honeyed dates, lips ripe and red as fresh pomegranate, teeth as white as pearls, and she still has the complete set. Better still, she’s hotter to trot than Helios’s horses. I mean the bedroom boogaloo is all she ever thinks about, and she has boobs out to here, and they’re even firmer than they look. Sweet ripe hips, too, like yea, and they curve smoother than the best extra-virgin oil, and believe me, honey, that is the only context in which the word virgin applies to her. She’s got skills, boy, she’s got the looks, she’s got thighs made for parting, embracing, straddling, and gliding up and down with a hypnotizing rhythm, and she can suck the bronze off a chariot. She’s almost as hot as me, kid.”“Wow,” Paris said.“You’ve got a little drool, hanging off your … there, you got it. And I forgot to mention the best part. She’s not a goat, and doesn’t even smell like one.”“Well, I mean, nobody’s perfect,” Paris said.“W—” Aphrodite blinked at him. “…You’re a slightly odd one, aren’t you? Anyway, pick me to win, and I’ll help you bag Helen, and after that…” she waggled her eyebrows. “She’ll straighten all the kinks out of your goatherd’s staff, know what I mean?”“Um…” said Paris.“I mean she’ll put the ram in your rod. Get that ole pole standing tall and proud. Polish up your wood until it glows and the sap flows in heavy, rich pulses.”Paris eyed his staff, picked at some of the bark that still clung to it. “Huh. I don’t think birch has a lot of sap in it…”Aphrodite puffed. “She’ll make your dick solid as stone and fuck you so hard that you’ll cum yourself inside-out, okay?”“Oh!” said Paris. “Golly, that … yeah, that does sound pretty nice.”“Okay, then,” Aphrodite said, patted his cheek, and left. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “It’s like shoving a boulder uphill with this kid.”“I know what you mean,” groaned a voice from deep in the Underworld.“No one’s talking to you, Sisyphus,” she said. “Get back to work.”“Awww…”

010.

Certainly Not an Attempted Alibi

Right around this time, Eris judged the show was over, so she shot off to a sylvan glade to romp around a bit with a satyr she knew.

011.

A Minor Complication

The tl;dr is that Aphrodite won the contest and the apple, and broke from longstanding Olympian tradition by keeping a promise to a mortal. Paris was somehow re-established as the prince of Troy, went to visit King Menelaus of Sparta for some reason, and some way or other managed to convince Helen to run off to Troy with him, with abundant help from Aphrodite, and with all three of them overlooking the fact that Menelaus was Helen’s husband.The trouble was that back in the day, before Helen was even old enough to have a figure, she was sought after by pretty much every king of every city-state in the Aegean, and not because they all mistook her for a particularly lovely boy. At least, probably not. And there was a strong possibility that whichever one landed her (once she was of age, which in those days was old enough for boobs to be showing and grass to be on the field) would have to forever guard against the others stealing her away, until Helen’s dad, Tyndareus, hit upon the solution. Before he put his daughter up to auction a betrothal contest, he made all the kings swear an oath of loyalty to one another: If Helen was ever kidnapped, everyone would come to her husband’s aid (whomever he turned out to be) to retrieve her, which you’ve gotta admit was a pretty clever way to keep honest-ish men honest-like, and may explain why Helen decided to scarper with Paris, who was about her age when he turned up, was from very far away, and still had plenty of sap left in his birch, unlike her unchosen-by-her and rather-a-bit-older hubby.So anyway, there was Menelaus, who’d won the contest and Helen’s hand in marriage, and now she was gone, and he was saying she’d been kidnapped.D’oh.So he gets an entire flotilla of heavily armed dudes ready to help out, casts far and wide until he figures out where Helen is, a thousand ships are launched at her face or something like that, Anatolia invaded, Troy under siege, yadda yadda. The gods and goddesses, being who they are, pick sides, place bets, pop in and out of the field of battle to play favorites and attempt to thwart each other’s strategies, and generally behave as the squabbling children the Greeks expected them to be.

012.

Fix the Blame, Not the Problem

Zeus, annoyed at the infighting among the Olympians as they obsessed over the war, stomped into the overlook one day and said, “Why are the Achaeans and the Trojans fighting? And by the way, isn’t that Peleus’s and Thetis’s kid, Achilles, leading the Myrmidons?”“Who in Tartarus are Peleus and Thetis?” said Hera.Zeus fetched a sigh. “The wedding? The one you all went to — oh, never mind. How did this happen? Who started it all?”“Um,” Athena said, and frowned. “I don’t quite…”“Search me,” said Artemis, oiling her bow and eyeing Achilles’s heel. “I was banging Orion when it started.”“Who cares, Dad?” said Ares. “It’s WAR!!!!”Even Zeus rolled his eyes at that. “Anyone else?”“Something to do with Paris and Helen, I think,” said Apollo.“Psh, sss, fff, who said I had anything to do with it?” Aphrodite said.Apollo blinked at her. “Uh … I didn’t even mention you.”“Good thing, too, cause it sure wasn’t me who started it.”“Well, then, who did?” said Zeus.Aphrodite looked around and, a moment later, pointed off to a bench in the corner. All the deities turned that direction.“What?” Eris said, looking up from doing her toenails. “Why’s everyone looking at me?”

Here endeth the reading.

• What a vacuous load of crap!

• I haven't learned enough yet and wish to see more.

"I am Chaos, I am alive, and I tell you that you are free."— Eris —

Holy awfulized by Her Donutholiest, St. Dionysia Cameltoe Upskirt the Pantyless, Reverse Cowgirl of FELLATE.