The Apple of Discord (Ancient Greek: μῆλον τῆς Ἔριδος) was a golden apple dropped by Eris, the goddess of strife, at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis in the Greek myth of the Judgement of Paris. It sparked a vanity-fueled dispute among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite that eventually led to the Trojan War.[1]
In common parlance, the apple of discord is the core, kernel, or crux of an argument, or a small matter that could lead to a bigger dispute.[2]
In the Eixample district of Barcelona, there is a block nicknamed in Spanish La manzana de la discordia (Catalan: Illa de la Discòrdia).[3] The reason for this usage is that the word manzana means both "apple" and "city block" in Spanish. It was so named ("block of discord") because it features four different interpretations of Modernisme architecture: Antoni Gaudí's Casa Batlló, Lluís Domènech i Montaner's Casa Lleó Morera, Josep Puig i Cadafalch's Casa Amatller, and Enric Sagnier's Casa Mulleras.
In some later sources, Eris inscribed on the apple "for the fairest"[4] or "to the most beautiful" before tossing it. The most popular version of the inscription is ΤΗΙ ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗΙ (Ancient Greek: τῇ καλλίστῃ, romanized: tē(i) kallistē(i), lit. 'for/to the most beautiful', Greek: τη καλλίστη, romanized: ti kallisti).[5] Καλλίστῃ is the dative singular of the feminine superlativeofκαλός, "beautiful". In Latin sources, the word is formosissima.[6]
In an attempt to rationalize the myth, Ptolemaeus Chennus wrote that instead of an apple, the three goddesses fought over which would get a man named Melus ("apple") as her priest, with Paris deciding in favour of Aphrodite.[7]
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