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Apple of Discord
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An apple of discord is a reference to the Golden Apple of Discord which, according to Greek mythology, the goddess Eris (Gr. ????, "Strife") said that she would give "to the fairest" at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, sparking a vanity-fueled dispute between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite that eventually led to the Trojan War (for the complete story, see The Judgement of Paris).

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An apple of discord is a reference to the Golden Apple of Discord which, according to Greek mythology, the goddess Eris (Gr. ????, "Strife") said that she would give "to the fairest" at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, sparking a vanity-fueled dispute between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite that eventually led to the Trojan War (for the complete story, see The Judgement of Paris). Thus, "apple of discord" became a euphemism for the core, kernel, or crux of an argument, or for a small matter that could lead to a bigger dispute.
Derivative uses
Because of this, the Roman goddess corresponding to the Greek Eris was named "Discordia". Also, in German and in Dutch, the words are used a lot more often colloquially than in English, though in German the colloquial form is not Apfel der Zwietracht (lit. "Apple of Discord") but Zankapfel ("Quarrel-apple") and rarely Erisapfel - the Dutch is Twistappel ("Strife-apple").
In the Eixample district of Barcelona there is a block nicknamed in Spanish, la manzana de la discordia, manzana meaning both "apple" and "city block".
It was so named because it features three different interpretations of Modernisme architecture: Antoni Gaudí's Casa Batlló, Lluís Domčnech i Montaner's Casa Lleó Morera and Josep Puig i Cadafalch's Casa Amatller.
Kalliste(i) / Kallisti
Etymology
?a???st?, "kalliste(i)", was inscribed on the Golden Apple of Discord by Eris, meaning "for the fairest" or "to the most beautiful" in ancient Greek. The word ?a???st?, "kalliste(i)", is the dative singular of the feminine superlative of ?a???, beautiful). In Latin it is pulcherrimae.
Instead of kalliste(i), in some literature the word kallisti from the modern Greek language language is incorrectly used instead. One example is the second novel of the The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
Since the wedding of Peleus and Thetis was held on Mount Pelion in Magnesia, the inscription would have been in the local Cumae alphabet. Nestor's Cup provides a close example.
Discordianism
The word Kallisti has become a principal symbol of Discordianism, a modern religion. In non-philological texts (such as Discordian ones) the word is usually spelled as ?a???st?. Most versions of Principia Discordia actually spell it as ?a????t?, but this is definitely incorrect; in the afterword of the 1979 Loompanics edition of Principia, Gregory Hill says that was because on the IBM typewriter he used, not all Greek letters coincided with Latin ones, and he didn't know enough of the letters to spot the mistake.
Other uses
- Kallisti (?a???st?) is also an ancient name of Santorini.
See also
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