It's All Geek to Me:
tales of the Greek Gods by Leah Samul
Lammas 1989: Hail Eris! Hail, Yes!
The name Eris is translated as Discord or Strife. Homer calls her the sister of Ares, who is the God of War. Hesiod saw her as the daughter of Nyx, the Greek word for night, and mother of a great number of horrible things that brought suffering to humans. Eris is best known for the episode which gave rise to the Trojan War.
Because she represented strife and discord, she was the only one of the Gods and Goddesses not to be invited to the marriage feast of Peleus and Thetis. She went anyway, but when she got there she was not allowed in the door. She had brought with her a golden apple that had the words "To the Fairest" written on it, and in an angry fit, she threw it into the crowd at the wedding reception. The three Goddesses who claimed the distinction of being "the fairest" were Aphrodite, Hera and Athena.
It was decided that an honest mortal on earth should judge this contest. Paris was chosen, and when he picked Aphrodite as the fairest, she gave him the most beautiful woman in the world as a reward. That was Helen of Troy, who was already married to Menelaus. When Paris claimed Helen and carried her away with him, he put into motion the actions that culminated in the Trojan War.
(Homer, THE ILIAD, Book IV; Hesiod, THEOGONY; Stapleton; p. 103)
[Editor's Note: The character of Eris has an interesting interpretation in the field of psychology. It is a common psychological observation that the practice of repressing difficult or troubling emotions will, if done severely or for a long enough time, backfire and cause problems -- worse problems than if they had been allowed to surface in conscious awareness in the first place. The parallel to Eris is obvious. Many people "don't invite" uncomfortable emotions into their own conscious awareness for the same reason Eris was not invited to the wedding party.
If Eris had been invited to the wedding feast she probably wouldn't have caused the trouble that she did cause as a result of being shut out.
Along those same lines, repressed emotions will usually break loose and cause a much bigger problem then if their existence had been acknowledged in the first place. Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung were well aware of the rich repository of insight contained in the Greek myths. Especially in the case of Jung, the psychological theories that made up his world view reflects the value he placed on mythology as an invaluable part of the human experience.]