Ipheginia at Aulis by Euripides: The Lust for Beauty and Pride

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Paris is “young and handsome” even according to the goddess of beauty6. While he possesses beauty already, it doesn’t stop him from lusting after another’s beauty that he can ‘own’. Even though Paris found out that Helen is married, he fell in lust. When Paris first realized that Aphroditie is talking about a married woman, he was shocked: “What are you saying? Me with a married women? 7” Yet after Aphrodite barely tried to convince him, he agreed with the plan. It is quite visible here that even though Paris is already an attractive young man himself, he can’t ignore the idea of a beautiful woman, like any other men. Moreover, the lust for beauty, even the beauty of another, is a strong enough lure to meddle with one’s sensibleness.

Menelaus, the husband of Helen is furious that Helen has been ‘abducted’ by Paris. He used the loss of Helen to drive his ambition, which in some people’s minds made him a great Spartan. However, he failed to see what he has done is pointless. Even if Menelaus is able to bring Helen back to Greece, her heart likely belongs to someone else now. His lust for Helen’s beauty has blinded him from seeing what is clear: that Helen doesn’t deserve to be ‘fetched’ with so many lives being put on the line for her. Even Agamemnon is able to see it as he says “It’s you that’s mad: mad to want that trollop back when a kindly heaven rid you of her.8” Perhaps Menelaus is mad. The lust for Helen’s great beauty has taken Menelaus so deep into his limbo that he has lost his judgement when he has lost Helen, willing to sacrifice thousands of men to retrieve her. At the same time though, an interesting fact comes up: a great beauty can do no wrong. Even though Helen has left Menelaus and Sparta, she was not punished at all when she was retrieved. Perhaps the lust for beauty extents farther than just giving an individual the thrill of owning such beauty, but the ownership of great beauty also wields great power, as both Paris and Menelaus has shown absolutely no control of resistance against it.

Throughout history, every single important character of a story- a hero, a god, the protagonist, he or she will always have some amount of pride to carry them through. Without pride, a character would be a mere ‘nothing’ to the audience. Maintaining what little pride is left in a person can cause the loss of something else that person holds dear. Most of the time though, an individual would choose their pride over another significance in this unfair game of trades. This is due to the belief that pride, is what holds a person up. Without one’s pride, or maybe the idea of pride, a person becomes irrelevant, especially if that person is supposedly a hero or even a goddess. In another case, an individual possibly had no pride to begin with, therefore labelled as ‘nothing’. During the inner struggle between “Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain9”, a person may choose to gain enough pride to become the hero, even if that means making the ultimate sacrifice.

Between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, each of them offered Paris a piece of something that they control. Hera is the technically the ‘Queen’ of the Olympian gods, so she offered a great reign in Asia. Athena being the goddess of war, offered Paris to never be defeated. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty, so she offered a beautiful girl as Paris’ love interest. While they control the domain that might be gifted to Paris, it is a sacrifice in a way that these goddesses have to give up something. Clearly, the sacrifice is worth less than the winning of the competition according to these goddesses. However, the winning of this beauty contest doesn’t actually give any of the goddesses a physical advantage and losing the contest doesn’t take away anything from them, except it may shake their pride. In the competition between the three goddesses, each of them held on to their pride too tightly, willing to offer anything that will allow them to win, to keep their pride. All of these offers could potentially change the course of history, putting millions of lives into a game of chance, while sacrificing what is supposed to be sacred to them. As the goddesses offered what are technically their own detriments, the love for their own pride will start a decade of warfare. The Trojan War will create many painful sacrifices of its own, seemingly replicating the goddesses ideals, as many of these sacrifices are made to protect or build one’s own pride.

Agamemnon made the decision to sacrifice her own daughter to appease the army. To murder his own off spring! All of that just to keep his pride. The decision to him was almost natural as he reasoned with his wife10. The idea that all of Agamemnon’s pride comes from his military position is not surprising. At the same time though, it seems odd that such a successful man has no hope in the armies’ trust for him. He wants to keep his status as a hero and maintain his ‘masculinity’, proving his worth to the other warriors around him, even if it means to lose someone who he holds dear. During Agamemnon’s search for pride, he has lost sight of what should be the most important thing to him, causing him to make the uncomfortable decision to lose his daughter. As he gets ready for war, it is observed that his belief is very similar to those who started the war: the goddesses. He is both stubborn and egotistical, causing him to make great sacrifices as the only way to keep his beloved pride.

Iphigenia is the self-respectful, gracious, and brave character who sacrifices herself in order to let the Greek army set sail to Troy. While she was never considered a hero before her selfless sacrifice, Iphigenia is now considered courageous and glorious. Her sacrifice is her way to make amends for herself and her family, to turn herself into a hero with pride. For Iphigenia, a short but brilliant life is better than a long and tedious one. That is why she chose to make the ultimate sacrifice on her search for pride. Her desire to possess pride is perhaps the purest, and it is what made her pride so great. However, the trade she made for that pride did cost her the most valuable thing she owns- her life.

Ultimately, it can be seen that the deadly flaws of many of the characters in Iphigenia at Aulis1 and other major characters in the battle between Troy and Greece was the reflection of the vanity and arrogance that the goddesses possessed in The Judgement of Paris2. The unlimited desire for beauty and pride may be able to lead a man to perform extraordinary things while in search for more of these qualities. However, that ambitious search usually becomes dangerous as the yearning for beauty and pride starts to blind one’s logic due to its addictive nature. Without