The Apple of Discord

As I have mentioned in at least one previous post, I have an insatiable desire to learn the orgins of words and phrases in particular. The topic of this post as you can see from the title is "The Apple of Discord." My original interest for this phrase was rooted in the word Discordia, which is the Roman name of the Greek goddess Eris and part of the title of a book, Principia Discordia. After 6 degrees of Wikipedia, I found a story called the Judgement of Paris which is a background tale about the Trojan War and its origin.

In short, this chick Eris was pissed because she didn't warrant an invite to a social event of Grecian proportions. Enraged and bitter, she threw an apple into the party with the word "Kallisti" enscribed on said fruit. Translated, this word means "to the fairest" or "to the prettiest." In an argument over who got the title of "Kallisti"est, three of the more prominent female Greek goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite were bitchin' about who should get the apple. Fearful of the consequences that he would face from these three women by making this judgement, Zeus passed the buck to a mortal by the name of Paris (Orlando Bloom's character in Troy).

Now this was before the time of swimsuit and talent competitions, so Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite offered Paris many bribes to be named "the fairest of them all." Paris gave into Aphrodite's promise of the love of Helen of Sparta after snubbing Hera's offer of being King of Europe and Asia, and Athena's proposition of wisdom and skill in war. The rest is a part of the Trojan War epic.

Back to the original point of this post is that phrases like "bone of contention" or "the crux of the story" have their roots in this tale of Greek legend. My apologies for geeking out over this, but I can't help it. I am sure that the time that I spent researching this post is in profound disproportion to the outcome of replies that will follow. Yet, down the road I will be waiting to give my knowledge to some unsuspecting victim that could give a shit about Greek gods and their exploits.