(g.) Aphrodite
(l.) Venus, ie. Venereal
Cytherea (Island of Cythera), Cyprogenes (Island of Cyprus)
Philommedes ("laughter loving") or Philomeides ("genital loving")
Associated with Magna Mater (eastern fertility goddess), ie. Innana, Ishtar, Astarte, Cybele
Domain: See Epithets. Cyprus, Cythera, Near East
Genealogy:
Aphrodite Urania ("celestial") Castration of Uranus by Cronos, genitals falling into the sea.
Aphrodite Pendemos ("common"/"profane") Child of Zeus and Dione ("she-zeus")
Claim to Fame: Goddess of lust, romance, procreation of mammals, beauty and passion.
A female Ares, passion without the bloodshed.
Iconography: Earliest depictions of her are of a polished cone. Attendants are Eros ("erotic"), the 3
Gratiae/charites ("graces") personifications of femininity, and the 3 Horai ("hours"/"seasons")
daughters of Zeus and Themis.
Literature: Hesiod's Theogony, Homer's Iliad, Ovid's Metamorphosis, Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.
Myth
I. Priapus (bastard child of Aphrodite): A fertility daimon (demon, lesser god), Priapus is most often depicted as a small hunchbacked, ithyphallic ("erect penis") gnomelike figure. Used as an apotropaic bringer of luck commonly featured in gardens.II. Pygmalion (King of Cyprus): Because the Cyprian women refuse to acknowledge her divnity, Venus drives them all to prostitution. Disgusted by their behaviour, Pygmalion carves an ivory statue of a nude women and subsequently falls in love with it. His prayer for it to become his wife is granted by Aphrodite, and the statue becomes flesh and blood (later versions named Galatea).
III. Myrrha: Child of Cinyras, the grandson of Pygmalion and Galatea, Myrrha is punished for her mothers hubristic claim that she is more beautiful than Venus, and falls in love with her own father. Suicidal, Myrrha's nurse arranges a secret meeting between father and child. Naturally, their identities are revealed to one another, and Cinyras attempts to strangle his own daughter, Myrrha is spared by the gods by being transformed into a Myrrh tree, whose resinous tears are collected as precious material.
IV. Adonis (adon, "lord"): The epitome of masculinity, symbol of a dying vegetative beloved.
1. The incestuous child of Myrrha and her father, Adonis is stolen by Aphrodite at birth and given
to Persephone to rear. When Persephone refuses to return him, Zeus interferes and arbitrates that
Adonis shall receive 1/3 of the year with each goddess, and the last third wherever he wants.
He decides to spend 2/3 of the year above ground, with 1/3 with Persephone, symbolic of the
portion of the vegetative cycle reserved for fallow. He is later killed by a boar.
2. Adonis is just another paramour of Aphrodite, who falls in love with him at first sight while he
is out hunting. He chooses to ignore her warnings of injury, and he is gored in the groin by a wild
boar. From the blood that drips on the earth, an Anemone ("wind" flower) sprouts, symbolizing
the fragile beauty of moral human life.
Scenes of Adonis are often depicted on Sarcophagi, representing the idea of a rebirth within death and giving meaning to burial. The Ritual of Adonia honours the fertility goddess and a dying vegetation god through ritual wailing and singing, and effigies of dead youth, mourning those who die too young. The Gardens of Adonis, seeds planted in shallow soil that spring up quickly and die also carry this sentiment.
V. Anchises: Zeus attempts to shorten Aphrodite's leash by claiming that "no man can sleep with the divine and retain their manhood", so Aphrodite must disguise herself as a mortal to seduce her prey. Anchises unwittingly sleeps with her, only to wake up and realize his emasculation.
The Trojan hero and founder of Rome, Aeneas, is the result of their tryst.
