The first sorrow in the lives of King Priam and his good queen came a
short time before the birth of Paris, when Hecuba dreamed that her next
child would bring ruin upon his family and native city. This caused the
deepest distress to Priam and Hecuba, especially when the soothsayer
Æsʹa-cus declared that the dream would certainly be fulfilled. Then,
though they were tender and loving parents, they made up their minds to
sacrifice their own feelings rather than that such a calamity should
befall their country. When the child was born, the king, therefore,
ordered it to be given to Ar-che-laʹus, one of the shepherds of Mount
Ida, with instructions to expose it in a place where it might be
destroyed by wild beasts. The shepherd, though very unwilling to do so
cruel a thing, was obliged to obey, but on returning to the spot a few
days afterwards he found the infant boy alive and unhurt. Some say that
the child had been nursed and carefully tended by a she-bear. Archelaus
was so touched with pity at the sight of the innocent babe smiling in
his face, that he took the boy to his cottage, and, giving him the name
Paris, brought him up as one of his own family.
With the herdsmen on Mount Ida, Paris spent his early years, not knowing
that he was King Priam's son. He was a brave youth, and of exceeding
beauty.
"His sunny hair
Cluster'd about his temples like a god's."
TENNYSON, _Œnone_.
He was skilled, too, in all athletic exercises, he was a bold huntsman,
and so brave in defending the shepherds against the attacks of robbers
that they called him Alexander, a name which means a protector of men.
Thus the young prince became a favorite with the people who lived on
the hills. Very happy he was amongst them, and amongst the flocks which
his good friend and foster father, Archelaus, gave him to be his own. He
was still more happy in the company of the charming nymph Œ-noʹne, the
daughter of a river god; and he loved her and made her his wife. But
this happiness was destined not to be of long duration. The Fates[A] had
decreed it otherwise. Œnone the beautiful, whose sorrows have been the
theme of many poets, was to lose the love of the young shepherd prince,
and the dream of Hecuba was to have its fulfillment.
The Fate
That rules the will of Jove had spun the days
Of Paris and Œnone.