Prince Paris of Troy named Aphrodite as the fairest of the gods and, in gratitude, acquired Helen as his wife. Prior to this he had grown up in the wilderness together with a nymph, Oinone. In a fictitious letter, the Roman poet Ovid portrays her despair at her lover’s deceit. He reminds him of their life in Arcadia where he would carve poems for her in the bark of trees, a detail that the artist has portrayed here.