Irische Texte : mit ersetzungen und Wterbuch

76 The Destruction of Troy.
vited all the deities, both male and female, with Jove son of
Saturn, with Apollo son of Jove, with Dardanus son of Jove,
with Mercury son of Jove, with Neptune, with Venus, with
Minerva, with Juno. Howbeit Discordia, was not brought there
at all. Now when there was great glee in the drinking-house,
Discordia went to the garden of the Hesperides, and brought
thence an apple of gold, and wrote thereon an inscription, to
wit, hoc est donum pulcerrimae deae, and flung it from her
over the window of the house in presence of them all. Thereat
the hosts marvelled, and what was on the apple was read out
before them. Now from that tale there groweth a great con-
test between the three goddesses who were the loveliest in the
world, to wit, Juno and Minerva and Venus. It seemed to
Juno that there was no contending against her, for she was
daughter of a king, namely Saturn, she was the sister and the
wife of another king, namely Jove son of Saturn. Comely, then,
was that woman, both as to hair and eye and tooth, both as
to size and fitness and evenness: hair on her, thin below, . . .
Two black, dark eyebrows had she, which used to cast a shadow
on each of her two cheeks. She did not think that any woman
of the world's women could surpass her in beauty. As to
Minerva, then, she did not think that anyone could equal her,
for the excellence of her form and her shape and her race
and her science; for every science that is practised in the world,
by her it hath been discovered. Then Venus raised on high
her form and her shape and her delightfulness; because from
her is every wooing and every love -intrigue that is found in
the world. For there was not in the world a woman resembling
her, so that all that time men's eyes were unable to behold her
because of her beauty and her . /-. pleasantness. Then they
went for arbitration unto Jove. „I will not", saith he, „deliver
a judgment to you: but go to Alexander son of Priam, who is
on Mount Ida — and Mercury shall go before you — so that
he may deliver judgment to you." Then the four of them,
namely Venus and Juno and Minerva, and Mercury before
them, came unto me," saith Alexander, that I might deliver judg-