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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: three goddesses were required to appear before him on Mount I'da, so that he might see their charms with his own eyes, and be the better able to give a just decision. Each goddess tried by bribes to persuade Paris to decide in her favor. Juno offered him wealth and power; Minerva promised him great wisdom; Venus tempted him by an offer of the fairest woman in the world for his wife. The Tro'jan prince already had a wife, the charming young nymph, CE no'ne, who loved him dearly; but he was weak enough to yield to the inducement offered by the goddess of beauty, and so gave judgment in her favor. III. ABDUCTION OF HELEN. The fairest woman in the world at that time was Hel'en, wife of Men e la'us, king of Lac e daa mo'ni a, or Spar'ta, in Greece. The old legends tell us how Paris, prompted and directed by Venus, sailed from Troy with a number of ships and companions, and, arriving in Greece, made his way to the royal palace of Sparta. Here he and his retinue were honorably received by King Menelaus, who had no suspicion of the object of the Trojan prince's visit. This, however, was soon disclosed. Some time previous to the arrival of Paris, the Abduction of Helen. chapter Section 4Spartan king had accepted an invitation to join a hunting expedition in the island of Crete. On leaving home for this purpose, he intrusted to his wife, the beauteous Queen Helen, the duty of entertaining his Trojan guests until his return. The absence of Menelaus was the opportunity desired by Paris. He told Helen of the promise of Venus, and, making her believe that it was the will of the gods that she should be his wife, he induced her to abandon her home and her husband and fly with him to Troy. From her husband's stranger sheltering home He tempted Helen o'er the ocean foam. Elto...
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