The famous hero Peleus was the son of the wise Aeacus, the son of Zeus and the daughter of the river god Asopus, Aegina. Peleus's brother was the hero Telamon, a friend of the greatest of heroes - Hercules. Peleus and Telamon had to flee their homeland because they killed their half-brother out of envy. Peleus retired to rich Phthia. There the hero Eurytion received him and gave him a third of his possessions, and gave him his daughter Antigone as his wife. But Peleus did not remain in Phthia for long. During the Calydonian hunt, he accidentally killed Eurytion. Saddened by this misfortune, he left Peleus Phthia and went to Iolcus. And in Iolka misfortune awaited Peleus. In Iolka, the wife of King Akast was captivated by him and persuaded him to forget about his friendship with Akast. Peleus rejected his friend’s wife, and she, taking revenge on him, slandered him in front of her husband. He believed his wife Acast and decided to destroy Peleus. One day, while hunting on the wooded slopes of Pelion, when Peleus, tired of the hunt, fell asleep, Acastus hid the wonderful sword of Peleus, which the gods had given him. No one could resist Peleus when he fought with this sword. Acast was sure that, having lost his wonderful sword, Peleus would die, torn to pieces by wild centaurs. But the wise centaur Chiron came to the aid of Peleus. He helped the hero find a wonderful sword. Wild centaurs rushed at Peleus, ready to tear him to pieces, but he easily repelled them with his wonderful sword. Peleus was saved from imminent death. Peleus took revenge on the traitor Acastus. With the help of the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeuces, he took the rich Iolcus and killed Acastus and his wife.
When the titan Prometheus revealed the great secret that from the marriage of Zeus with the goddess Thetis a son should be born who would be more powerful than his father and would overthrow him from the throne, he advised the gods to give Thetis as a wife to Peleus, since from this marriage a great hero would be born. This is what the gods decided to do; The gods set only one condition: Peleus had to defeat the goddess in single combat.
When the god Hephaestus informed Peleus of the will of the gods, Peleus went to the grotto in which Thetis often rested, swimming from the depths of the sea. Peleus hid in the grotto and waited. So Thetis rose from the sea and entered the grotto. Peleus rushed at her and wrapped his powerful arms around her. Thetis tried to escape. She took the form of a lioness, a snake, she turned into water, but Peleus did not release her. Thetis was defeated, now she had to become the wife of Peleus.
In the vast cave of the centaur Chiron, the gods celebrated the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. The wedding feast was luxurious. All the gods of Olympus took part in it. The golden cithara of Apollo sounded loudly, and to its sounds the muses sang about the great glory that would be the lot of the son of Peleus and the goddess Thetis. The gods feasted. The Oras and Charites led a round dance accompanied by the singing of the muses and the playing of Apollo, and among them the warrior goddess Athena and the young goddess Artemis stood out for their majestic beauty, but all the goddesses were surpassed in beauty by the eternally young goddess Aphrodite. Both the messenger of the gods, Hermes, and the frantic god of war, Ares, who had forgotten about the bloody battles, took part in the round dance. The gods richly gifted the newlyweds. Chiron gave Peleus his spear, the shaft of which was made of ash, hard as iron, grown on Mount Pelion; Lord Poseidon gave him horses, and the other gods gave him wonderful armor.
The gods were having fun. Only the goddess of discord, Eris, did not participate in the wedding feast. She wandered alone near Chiron's cave, deeply harboring a grudge in her heart that she was not invited to the feast. Finally, the goddess Eris figured out how to take revenge on the gods, how to stir up discord between them. She took the golden apple from the distant gardens of the Hesperides; There was only one word written on this apple - “The most beautiful.” Eris quietly approached the banquet table and, invisible to everyone, threw a golden apple onto the table. The gods saw the apple, picked it up and read the inscription on it. But which of the goddesses is the most beautiful? A dispute immediately arose between three goddesses: Zeus’s wife Hera, the warrior Athena and the golden goddess of love Aphrodite. Each of them wanted to get this apple, none of them wanted to give it to the other. The goddesses turned to the king of gods and people Zeus and demanded to resolve their dispute.
Zeus refused to be a judge. He took the apple, gave it to Hermes and ordered him to lead the goddesses to the vicinity of Troy, to the slopes of high Ida. There, the beautiful son of King Priam of Troy, Paris, had to decide which of the goddesses the apple should belong to, which of all was the most beautiful. Thus ended the wedding feast of Peleus with the discord of the goddesses. This dispute between the three goddesses was supposed to bring many troubles to people.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru