Aphrodite at a Glance name | Aphrodite role | goddess of love and beauty symbols | sceptre, myrtle, dove
Aphrodite in Greek Mythology As the Greek goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite holds great power over both mortals and immortals. While several legends of Aphrodite emphasize themes of love and desire, some of most compelling myths deal with the consequences that the goddess herself suffers as a result of being the victim of love. The story of Aphrodite and her interlude with the human Adonis makes for an interesting study of the double-edged sword that passion can be. In this myth, the vulnerability of the goddess is poignant. This vulnerability points to the fact that in Greek mythology even the gods could suffer and were certainly not immune to the pains and passions that we, as humans, experience.
Birth of Aphrodite There are a couple of versions of the birth of Aphrodite, which, although they differ, are not necessarily contradictory. According to Homer (Iliad, Book V, 370), the goddess is simply the daughter of Zeus and Dione (a name that is merely the feminine form of Zeus in Greek). However, the poet Hesiod (Theogony, 188-198) provides a much more elaborate explanation for her birth: he claims that the name Aphrodite is derived from aphros or foam, and thus the goddess was born of this substance. The tale states that the Titan Kronos castrated his father Ouranos, and then cast the severed genitals into the sea. From the foam that gathered around the member, Aphrodite emerged, fully formed. Hesiod's description, however gruesome it may seem, does have the advantage of attaching a certain meaning to the birth of the goddess, which I leave to the reader to ascertain. At any rate, this version also lends a poetic quality to Aphrodite's creation, in that as Anadyomene ("she who emerges"), she was depicted by countless artists.
Legends of Aphrodite As we have seen, Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love and desire. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that there are abundant examples of Aphrodite's intimate relationships with both gods and men. Perhaps the most notorious of these legends is of her affair with the war god Ares. According to the myth, Aphrodite was married to the god of smiths, Hephaistos. However, the golden goddess apparently tended to abandon poor Hephaistos as soon as his burly back was turned, for on many occasions she was to be found in the arms of her lover (one consequence of this illicit affair is included in the Odyssey…. As a result of these romantic interludes, Aphrodite bore three children to Ares: Deimos ("terror"), Phobos ("fear"), and a daughter named Harmonia ("concord"). In addition, the goddess of love also engaged in other fruitful unions with male deities, including flings with Dionysos and Hermes. It was even suggested in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite that there were only three deities who could resist the passions that Aphrodite aroused, and they were Athena, Artemis, and Hestia. Note that all three were goddesses, and all were also virgins by choice. With the exception of these goddesses, however, anyone foolish enough to ignore Aphrodite was courting disaster, as the following myth will demonstrate. According to one legend, Aphrodite used her powers to punish Eos, the goddess of the dawn. You see, Eos made the mistake of engaging in a tryst with Ares. The result of this unfortunate choice on the part of poor Eos was that the jealous Aphrodite punished the dawn goddess with an insatiable appetite for love. This punishment had a profound effect on Eos, for she was compelled to take a series of lovers, including Cephalus, Tithonus, and Orion (Eos seemed to prefer abducting her paramours, much to their dismay). The outcome of these unions was often disastrous to the man involved, and so Aphrodite's revenge was complete. http://www.loggia.com/myth/aphrodite.html
Aphrodite (ăfrudī'tē), in Greek religion and mythology, goddess of fertility, love, and beauty. Homer designated her the child of Zeus and Dione. Hesiod's account of her birth is more popular: she supposedly rose from the foam of the sea where Uranus' genitals had fallen after he had been mutilated by Kronos. Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus. She loved Ares, by whom she bore Harmonia and, in some myths, Eros and Anteros. She was the mother of Hermaphroditus by Hermes and of Priapus by Dionysus. Zeus caused her to love the shepherd Anchises, by whom she bore Aeneas. Adonis, in whose legend Aphrodite appears as a goddess of fertility, also won her favors. It was to Aphrodite that Paris awarded the apple of discord, which caused the dispute leading ultimately to the Trojan War. Worshiped throughout Greece, she was the goddess of love, marriage, and family life; she was also worshiped as a war goddess, as at Sparta, and as a sea goddess and patroness of sailors. Aphrodite had important cults at Cythera on Crete, at Paphos and Amathas on Cyprus, at Corinth, and at Mt. Eryx in Sicily. Probably of Eastern origin, she was similar in many of her attributes to the ancient Middle Eastern goddesses Astarte and Ishtar. The Romans identified Aphrodite with Venus.
Venus, in Roman religion and mythology, goddess of vegetation. Later, she became identified (3d cent. B.C.) with the Greek Aphrodite. In imperial times she was worshiped as Venus Genetrix, mother of Aeneas; Venus Felix, the bringer of good fortune; Venus Victrix, bringer of victory; and Venus Verticordia, protector of feminine chastity. The most famous representations of Aphrodite or Venus in sculpture are the Venus of Milo or Melos (Louvre); the Venus of Medici or Medicean Aphrodite (Uffizi); the Venus of Capua (national museum, Naples); and the Capitoline Venus (Capitoline Mus., Rome). The Venus of Milo is a Greek statue in marble, generally dated to the 2d or 1st cent. B.C. Found (1820) on the island of Melos, it was taken by the French ambassador to Turkey and was eventually presented by Louis XVIII to the Louvre. The Venus of Medici belongs to the 3d cent. B.C. It is probably derived from Praxiteles' Aphrodite of Cnidus, which was destroyed.
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Adonis and Aphrodite in Myth
Aphrodite, playing one day with her boy Eros, wounded her bosom with one of his arrows. She pushed him away, but the wound was deeper than she thought. Before it healed she beheld Adonis, and was captivated with him. She no longer took any interest in her favorite resorts - Paphos, and Cnidos, and Amanthos, rich in metals. She absented herself even from heaven [Olympus], for Adonis was dearer to her than heaven. Him she followed and bore him company. She who used to love to recline in the shade, with no care but to cultivate her charms, now rambles through the woods and over the hills, dressed like the huntress Artemis; and calls her dogs, and chases hares and stags, or other game that it is safe to hunt, but keeps clear of the wolves and bears, reeking with the slaughter of the herd. She charged Adonis, too, to beware of such dangerous animals. "Be brave towards the timid," said she; "courage against the courageous is not safe. Beware how you expose yourself to danger and put my happiness to risk. Attack not the beasts that Nature has armed with weapons. I do not value your glory so high as to consent to purchase it by such exposure. Your youth, and the beauty that charms Aphrodite, will not touch the hearts of lions and bristly boars. Think of their terrible claws and prodigious strength! I hate the whole race of them. Do you ask me why?" Then she told him the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes, who were changed into lions for their ingratitude to her.
Having given him this warning, she mounted her chariot drawn by swans, and drove away through the air. But Adonis was too noble to heed such counsels. The dogs had roused a wild boar from his lair, and the youth threw his spear and wounded the animal with a sidelong stroke. The beast drew out the weapon with his jaws, and rushed after Adonis, who turned and ran; but the boar overtook him, and buried his tusks in his side, and stretched him dying upon the plain. Aphrodite, in her swan-drawn chariot, had not yet reached Cyprus, when she heard coming up through mid-air the groans of her beloved, and turned her white-winged coursers back to earth. As she drew near and saw from on high his lifeless body bathed in blood, she alighted and, bending over it, beat her breast and tore her hair. Reproaching the Fates, she said, "Yet theirs shall be but a partial triumph; memorials of my grief shall endure, and the spectacle of your death, my Adonis, and of my lamentations shall be annually renewed. Your blood shall be changed into a flower; that consolation none can envy me." Thus speaking, she sprinkled nectar on the blood; and as they mingled, bubbles rose as in a pool on which raindrops fall, and in an hour's time there sprang up a flower of bloody hue like that of the pomegranate. But it is short-lived. It is said that the wind blows the blossoms open, and afterwards blows the petals away; so it is called Anemone, or Wind Flower, from the cause which assists equally in its production and its decay. from Bulfinch's Mythology
You need to find evidence for this allusion in the novel. List your evidence (quotations) followed by commentary/analysis of its significance. Be sure to cite correctly. Evidence Commentary