- Pandemos redirects here. For the genus of metalmark
butterflies, see Pandemos (butterfly).
Aphrodite (Greek: Ἀφροδίτη; Latin:
Venus) (IPA:
English: /ˌæfɹəˈdaɪti/,
Ancient Greek: /apʰɾo'di:tɛ:/,
Modern Greek: /afɾo'ðiti/) is the
classical Greek goddess of love, lust, and beauty. She was also called
Kypris and Cytherea after the two places which claimed her birth. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus. Myrtle, dove, sparrow, and swan are sacred to her.
Origins
The Greek Goddess Aphrodite has numerous equivalents: Inanna (Sumerian counterpart), Ishtar (Babylon), Astarte
(Syro-Palestinian), Turan (Etruscan),
Nepthys (Egyptian) and Venus (Roman). She has parallels to Indo-European dawn goddesses such as
Ushas or Aurora.
The name Άφροδίτη was connected by popular etymology with
Άφρός (Aphros) "foam", interpreting it as "risen from the foam" and embodying it in an etiological myth that was already known to Hesiod[1]. It has reflexes in Messapic and
Etruscan (whence April), which were probably borrowed from Greek. Though
Herodotus was aware of the Phoenician origins of
Aphrodite,[2] linguistic attempts to derive the name
Aphrodite from Semitic Aštoret, via undocumented Hittite transmission, remain inconclusive. A suggestion by
Hammarström[3], rejected by Hjalmar Frisk, connects the name with πρύτανις, a loan into Greek from
a cognate of Etruscan (e)pruni, "lord" or similar. An etymology from Indo-European abhor "very" + dhei "to
shine" is offered by Mallory and Adams.[4].
Worship
The epithet Aphrodite Acidalia was occasionally added to her name, after the spring she used to bathe in, located in
Boeotia (Virgil I, 720). She was also called Kypris or
Cytherea after her alleged birth-places in Cyprus and Cythera, respectively. The island of Cythera was a center of her cult. She was associated with Hesperia and frequently accompanied by the Oreads, nymphs of the mountains.
Aphrodite had a festival of her own, the Aphrodisiac (also referred to as Aphrodisia), which was celebrated all
over Greece but particularly in Athens and Corinth. At the
temple of Aphrodite on the summit of Acrocorinth (before the Roman destruction of the city in 146 BCE) intercourse with her
priestesses was considered a method of worshiping Aphrodite. This temple was not rebuilt when the city was reestablished under
Roman rule in 44 BCE, but it is likely that the fertility rituals continued in the main city near the agora.
Aphrodite was associated with, and often depicted with the sea, dolphins, doves, swans, pomegranates, apples, myrtle,
rose and lime trees, clams, and pearls
Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Pandemos
By the late 5th century BCE, philosophers might separate Aphrodite into two separate goddesses, not individuated in cult:
Aphrodite Urania, born from the foam after Cronus castrated Uranus, and Aphrodite Pandemos, the common Aphrodite
"of all the folk", born from Zeus and Dione.[5] Among the neo-Platonists and eventually
their Christian interpreters, Aphrodite Urania figures as the celestial Aphrodite, representing the love of body and soul, while
Aphrodite Pandemos is associated with mere physical love.
Thus, according to Plato[6] Aphrodite is two goddesses, one older the other younger. The older, Urania, is the daughter of
Uranus; the younger is named Pandemos, and is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Pandemos is the common Aphrodite. The speech of
Pausanias distinguishes two manifestations of Aphrodite, represented by the two
stories: Aphrodite Ourania ("heavenly" Aphrodite), and Aphrodite Pandemos ("Common" Aphrodite).
Ritual prostitution
A universal aspect of the cult of Aphrodite and her precedents that
Thomas Bulfinch's much-reprinted The Age of Fable; or Stories of Gods and Heroes
(1855 etc.) elided[7] is the practice of ritual prostitution in her shrines and temples. The euphemism in Greek is hierodule,
"sacred servant". The practice was an inherent part of the rituals owed to Aphrodite's Near Eastern forebears, Sumerian
Inanna and Akkadian Ishtar, whose temple harlots were the "women
of Ishtar", ishtaritum.[8] The practice has been
documented in Babylon, Syria and Palestine, in Phoenician cities and the Tyrian colony
Carthage, and for Hellenic Aphrodite in Cyprus, the center of
her cult, Cythera, Corinth and in Sicily (Marcovich 1996:49).
Aphrodite is everywhere the patroness of the hetaira and courtesan. In Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor, hierodules served in the temple of
Artemis.
Petra tou Romiou ("The rock of the Greek"), Aphrodite's legendary birthplace in
Paphos,
Cyprus.
Birth, rising from the sea
-
"Foam-arisen" Aphrodite was born of the sea foam near Paphos, Cyprus after Cronus cut off Uranus' testicles and threw them behind him into the
sea. Hesiod's Theogony described that the genitals "were carried over the sea a long time, and
white foam arose from the immortal flesh; with it a girl grew" to become Aphrodite. This fully grown up myth of Venus (the Roman
name for Aphrodite), Venus Anadyomene[9] ("Venus Rising From the Sea") was one of the iconic representations of Aphrodite,
made famous in a much-admired painting by Apelles, now lost, but described in Pliny the Elder Natural History.
Thus Aphrodite is of an older generation than Zeus. Iliad
(Book V) expresses another version of her origin, by which she was considered a daughter of Dione,
who was the original oracular goddess ("Dione" being simply "the goddess, the feminine form of Δíος, "Dios", the genitive of Zeus) at Dodona. In Homer, Aphrodite, venturing into battle to
protect her son, Aeneas, is wounded by Diomedes and returns to
her mother, to sink down at her knee and be comforted. "Dione" seems to be an equivalent of Rhea, the Earth Mother, whom Homer has relocated to Olympus,
and refers back to a hypothesized original Proto-Indo-European pantheon, with the
chief male god (Di-) represented by the sky and thunder, and the chief female god (feminine form of Di-) represented as the earth
or fertile soil. Aphrodite herself was sometimes referred to as "Dione". Once the worship of Zeus had usurped the oak-grove
oracle at Dodona, some poets made him out to be the father of Aphrodite.
Aphrodite's chief center of worship remained at Paphos, on the south-western coast of Cyprus, where the goddess of desire had
long been worshipped as Ishtar and Ashtaroth. It is said that
she first tentatively came ashore at Cytherea, a stopping place for trade and culture between
Crete and the Peloponesus. Thus perhaps we have hints of the
track of Aphrodite's original cult from the Levant to mainland Greece.
Alternatively, Aphrodite was a daughter of Thalassa (for she was born of the
Sea) and Zeus.
Adulthood
Aphrodite had no childhood: in every image and each reference she is born adult, nubile, and infinitely desirable. Aphrodite,
in many of the late anecdotal myths involving her, is characterized as vain, ill-tempered and easily offended. Though she is one
of the few gods of the Greek Pantheon to be actually married, she is
frequently unfaithful to her husband. Hephaestus is one of the most even-tempered of the
Hellenic deities; in the narrative embedded in the Odyssey Aphrodite seems to prefer Ares,
the volatile god of war. In Homer's Iliad she surges into battle to
save her son, Aeneas, but abandons Ares (in fact, drops him as she flies through the air) when
she herself is hurt (Ares does much the same thing). She is one of a few characters who played a major part in the original cause
of the Trojan War itself: not only did she offer Helen of
Sparta to Paris, but the abduction was accomplished when Paris, seeing Helen for the
first time, was inflamed with desire to have her—which is Aphrodite's realm. Her domain may involve love, but it does not involve
romance; rather, it tends more towards lust, the human
irrational longing[citation needed].
Marriage with Hephaestus
Due to her immense beauty Zeus was frightened that she would be the cause of violence between the other gods. He married her
off to Hephaestus, the dour, humorless god of smithing.
In another version of this story, Hera, Hephaestus' mother, had cast him off Olympus; deeming him ugly and deformed. His
revenge was to trap her in a magic throne, and then to demand Aphrodite's hand in return for Hera's release.
Hephaestus was overjoyed at being married to the goddess of beauty and forged her beautiful jewelry, including the cestus, a
girdle that made her even more irresistible to men.
Her unhappiness with her marriage caused Aphrodite to seek out companionship from others, most frequently Ares, but also Adonis, Anchises and more.
Hephaestus once cleverly caught Ares and Aphrodite in bed with finely wrought chains, and brought all the other Olympian gods
together to mock the pair (however, the "goddesses stayed at home, all of them for shame.")
Hephaestus would not free them until Poseidon promised Hephaestus that Ares would pay
reparations, but both escaped as soon as the chains were lifted and their promise was
not kept.
Aphrodite and Psyche
-
Aphrodite was jealous of the beauty of a mortal woman named Psyche. She asked
Eros to use his golden arrows to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest man on
earth. Eros agreed but then fell in love with Psyche on his own, or by accidentally pricking himself with a golden arrow.
Meanwhile, Psyche's parents were anxious that their daughter remained unmarried. They consulted an oracle who told them she was destined for no mortal lover, but a monster that lived on top of a particular
mountain. Psyche was resigned to her fate and climbed to the top of the mountain. There, Zephyrus, the west wind, gently floated her downwards. She entered a cave on the appointed mountain, surprised to
find it full of jewelry and finery. Eros visited her every night in the cave and they made passionate love; he demanded only that
she never light any lamps because he did not want her to know who he was (having wings made him distinctive). Her two sisters,
jealous of Psyche, convinced her to do so one night and she lit a lamp, recognizing him instantly. A drop of hot lamp oil fell on
Eros' chest and he awoke, then fled.
When Psyche told her two jealous elder sisters what had happened, they rejoiced secretly and each separately walked to the top
of the mountain and did as Psyche described her entry to the cave, hoping Eros would pick them instead. Zephyrus did not pick
them and they fell to their deaths at the base of the mountain.
Psyche searched for her lover across much of Greece, finally stumbling into a temple to Demeter, where the floor was covered with piles of mixed grains. She started sorting the grains into organized
piles and, when she finished, Demeter spoke to her, telling her that the best way to find Eros was to find his mother, Aphrodite,
and earn her blessing. Psyche found a temple to Aphrodite and entered it. Aphrodite assigned her a similar task to Demeter's
temple, but gave her an impossible deadline to finish it by. Eros intervened, for he still loved her, and caused some ants to
organize the grains for her. Aphrodite was outraged at her success and told her to go to a field where golden sheep grazed and
get some golden wool. Psyche went to the field and saw the sheep but was stopped by a river-god, whose river she had to cross to
enter the field. He told her the sheep were mean and vicious and would kill her, but if she waited until noontime, the sheep
would go into the shade on the other side of the field and sleep; she could pick the wool that stuck to the branches and bark of
the trees. Psyche did so and Aphrodite was even more outraged at her survival and success. Finally, Aphrodite claimed that the
stress of caring for her son, depressed and ill as a result of Psyche's unfaithfulness, had caused her to lose some of her
beauty. Psyche was to go to Hades and ask Persephone, the
queen of the underworld, for a bit of her beauty in a black box that Aphrodite gave to Psyche. Psyche walked to a tower, deciding
that the quickest way to the underworld would be to die. A voice stopped her at the last moment and told her a route that would
allow her to enter and return still living, as well as telling her how to pass Cerberus,
Charon and the other dangers of the route. She pacified Cerberus, the three-headed
dog, with a sweet honey-cake and paid Charon an obolus to take her into Hades. On the way there,
she saw hands reaching out of the water. A voice told her to toss a honey cake to them. Once there, Persephone said she would be
glad to do Aphrodite a favor. She once more paid Charon, threw the cake out to the hands, and gave one to Cerberus.
Psyche left the underworld and decided to open the box and take a little bit of the beauty for herself, thinking that if she
did so Eros would surely love her. Inside was a "Stygian sleep" which overtook her. Eros, who had forgiven her, flew to her body and wiped the sleep from her eyes,
then begged Zeus and Aphrodite for their consent to his wedding of Psyche. They agreed and Zeus made her immortal. Aphrodite
danced at the wedding of Eros and Psyche and their subsequent child was named Pleasure, or (in the Roman mythology)
Volupta.
National Archaeological Museum of Athens
Adonis
Aphrodite was Adonis' lover and a surrogate mother to him. Cinyras, the King of Cyprus, had an intoxicatingly beautiful daughter named
Myrrha. When Myrrha's mother committs Hubris against Aphrodite by
claiming her daughter is more beautiful than the famed goddess, Myrrha is punished with a neverending lust for her own father.
Cinyras is repulsed by this, but Myrrha disguises herself as a prostitute, and secretly sleeps with her father at night.
Eventually, Myrrha becomes pregnant and is discovered by Cinyras. In a rage, he chases her out of the house with a knife. Myrrha
flees from him, praying to the gods for mercy as she runs. The gods hear her plea, and change her into a Myrrh tree so her father
cannot kill her. Eventually, Cinyras takes his own life in an attempt to restore the family's honor.
Myrrha gives birth to a baby boy named Adonis. Aphrodite is happening by the Myrrh tree when she sees the baby, and takes pity
on him. She places Adonis in a box, and takes him down to Hades so that Persephone can care for him. Adonis grows into a strikingly handsome young man, and Aphrodite eventually
returns for him. Persephone, however, is loathe to give him up, and wishes Adonis would stay with her in the underworld. The two
goddess begin such a quarrel that Zeus is forced to intercede. He decrees that Adonis will spend a third of the year with
Aphrodite, a third of the year with Persephone, and a third of the year with whomever he wishes. Adonis, of course, chooses
Aphrodite.
Adonis begins his year on the earth with Aphrodite. One of his greatest passions is hunting, and although Aphrodite is not
naturally a hunter, she takes up the sport just so she can be with Adonis. They spend every waking hour with one another, and
Aphrodite is enraptured with him. However, her anxiety begins to grow over her neglected duties, and she is forced to leave him
for a short time. Before she leaves, she gives Adonis one warning: do not attack an animal who shows no fear. Adonis agrees to
her advice, but, secretly doubting her skills as a huntress, quickly forgets her warning.
Not long after Aphrodite leaves, Adonis comes across an enormous wild boar, much larger than any he has ever seen. It is
suggested that the boar is the god Ares, one of Aphrodite's lovers made jealous through her constant doting on Adonis. Although
boars are dangerous and will charge a hunter if provoked, Adonis disregards Aphrodite's warning and pursues the giant creature.
Soon, however, Adonis is the one being pursued; he is no match for the giant boar. In the attack, Adonis is castrated by the
boar, and dies from a loss of blood. Aphrodite rushes back to his side, but she is too late to save him and can only mourn over
his body. Whereever Adonis' blood falls, Aphrodite causes anemones to grow in his memory. She vows that on the anniversary of his
death, every year there will be a festival held in his honor.
On his death, Adonis goes back to the underworld, and Persephone is delighted to see him again. Eventually, Aphrodite realizes
that he is there, and rushes back to retrive him. Again, she and Persephone bicker over who is allowed to keep Adonis until Zeus
intervenes. This time, he says that Adonis must spend six months with Aphrodite and six months with Persephone, the way it should
have been in the first place.
Adonis, as a Dying God Archetype, represents the cycle of vegetation. His birth is like the birth of new plants; his
maturation like the ripening of the plant. Once the crop is harvested, it dies--like Adonis returning to the underworld. The new
seeds are then placed again in the ground, where they grow into new life, like Adonis returning to the earth to be with
Aphrodite.
The Judgement of Paris
-
The gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and
Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles). Only the goddess
Eris (Discord) was not invited, but she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the words "to the fairest," which she threw among the goddesses. Aphrodite,
Hera and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the
rightful owner of the apple. The goddesses chose to place the matter before Zeus, who later put the
choice into the hands of Paris. Hera tried to bribe Paris with Asia Minor, while Athena offered wisdom, fame and glory in battle, but Aphrodite whispered to Paris that if he
were to choose her as the fairest he would have the most beautiful mortal woman in the world as a wife, and he accordingly chose
her. This woman was Helen. The other goddesses were enraged by this and through Helen's abduction
by Paris they brought about the Trojan War.
Pygmalion and Galatea
Pygmalion was a sculptor who had never found a woman worthy of his love.
Aphrodite took pity on him and decided to show him the wonders of love. One day, Pygmalion was inspired by a dream of Aphrodite
to make a woman out of ivory resembling her image, and he called her Galatea. He fell in love with the statue and decided he could not live without her. He prayed to
Aphrodite, who carried out the final phase of her plan and brought the exquisite sculpture to life. Pygmalion loved Galatea and
they were soon married.
Another version of this myth tells that the women of the village in which Pygmalion lived grew angry that he had not married.
They all asked Aphrodite to force him to marry. Aphrodite accepted and went that very night to Pygmalion, and asked him to pick a
woman to marry. She told him that if he did not pick one, she would do so for him. Not wanting to be married, he begged her for
more time, asking that he be allowed to make a sculpture of Aphrodite before he had to choose his bride. Flattered, she
accepted.
Pygmalion spent a lot of time making small clay sculptures of the Goddess, claiming it was needed so he could pick the right
pose. As he started making the actual sculpture he was shocked to discover he actually wanted to finish, even though he knew he
would have to marry someone when he finished. The reason he wanted to finish it was that he had fallen in love with the
sculpture. The more he worked on it, the more it changed, until it no longer resembled Aphrodite at all.
At the very moment Pygmalion stepped away from the finished sculpture Aphrodite appeared and told him to choose his bride.
Pygmalion chose the statue. Aphrodite told him that could not be, and asked him again to pick a bride. Pygmalion put his arms
around the statue, and asked Aphrodite to turn him into a statue so he could be with her. Aphrodite took pity on him and brought
the statue to life instead.
Aphrodite riding a swan: Attic white-ground red-figured
kylix, ca. 460,
found at Kameiros (Rhodes)
Other stories
In one version of the story of Hippolytus, Aphrodite was the catalyst for his
death. He scorned the worship of Aphrodite for Artemis and, in revenge, Aphrodite caused his
step-mother, Phaedra, to fall in love with him, knowing Hippolytus would reject her.
In the most popular version of the story, the play Hippolytus by
Euripides, Phaedra seeks revenge against
Hippolytus by killing herself and, in her suicide note, telling Theseus, her husband and Hippolytus' father, that Hippolytus had raped her. Hippolytus was oath-bound not to
mention Phaedra's love for him and nobly refused to defend himself despite the
consequences. Theseus then cursed his son, a curse that Poseidon was bound to fulfil and so Hipploytus was laid low by a bull from the sea that caused his chariot-team
to panic and wreck his vehicle. This is, interestingly enough not quite how Aphrodite envisaged his death in the play, as
in the prologue she says she expects Hippolytus to submit to lust with Phaedra and
for Theseus to catch the pair in the act. Hippolytus forgives his father before he dies and Artemis reveals the truth to Theseus before vowing to kill one Aphrodite loves (Adonis) for revenge.
Glaucus of Corinth angered Aphrodite and she made her horses angry during the funeral games
of King Pelias. They tore him apart. His ghost supposedly frightened horses during the
Isthmian Games.
Aphrodite was often accompanied by the Charites.
Aphrodite was one of the goddesses to be mocked by Momus, which resulted in his expulsion from
Olympus.
In book III of Homer's Iliad, Aphrodite saves
Paris, when he is about to be killed by Menelaos.
Aphrodite was very protective of her son, Aeneas, who fought in the Trojan War. Diomedes almost killed Aeneas in battle but Aphrodite saved
him. Diomedes wounded Aphrodite and she dropped her son, fleeing to Mt. Olympus. Aeneas
was then enveloped in a cloud by Apollo, who took him to Pergamos, a sacred spot in Troy. Artemis
healed Aeneas there.
She turned Abas to stone for his pride.
She turned Anaxarete to stone for reacting so dispassionately to Iphis' pleas to love him, even after his suicide.
Aphrodite helps Hippomenes to win a footrace against Atalanta to win Atalanta's hand in marriage, giving him three golden apples to distract her with. However, when
the couple fails to thank Aphrodite, she has them turned into bears.
Consorts and children
Surnames and titles
- Acidalia, of the Acidalia spring
- Anadyomene (Ἀναδυομένη), the emerging as in Aphrodite
Anadyomene, a painting by Apelles
- Cytherea (Κυθήρεια), of Cythera
- Despina (Δέσποινα), the mistress
- Kypris (Κύπρις), of Cyprus
- Hetaira (Ἑταίρα), the courtesan
- Aphrodite Porne (Πόρνη), the prostitute, Goddess of lust[10]
- Kalligloutos (Καλλίγλουτος), of the beautiful thighs
- Morpho (Μορφώ), the shapely, she of the various shapes
- Ambologera, she who postpones old age
- Aphrodite en kepois (Ἀφροδίτη ἐν Κήποις), of the gardens
- Genetyllis, of motherhood
- Epitragidia, she upon the buck (young male goat)
- Enoplios (Ἐνόπλιος), the armed one
- Melaina (Μέλαινα), the black one (similar to Epitymbidia and Melainis)
- Melainis (Μελαινίς), the young black one (similar to Epitymbidia and Melaina)
- Skotia (Σκοτία), the dark
- Anosia (Ἀνόσια), the unholy
- Androphonos (Ἀνδροφόνος), the killer of men
- Tymborychos (Τυμβωρύχος), the gravedigger
- Epitymbidia, she upon the graves (similar to Melaina and Melainis)
- Basilis (Βασιλίς), the queen
- Persephaessa (Περσεφάεσσα), the queen of the underworld
- Praxis (Πράξις), of (sexual) action
- Kallipygos (Καλλίπυγος), of the beautiful buttocks
- Pandemos (Πάνδημος), common to all, a form worshipped near the agora in Athens
- Urania (Οὐράνια), the heavenly one
Aphrodite in popular culture
- Aphrodite was used as an archetype for the character Santa by contemporary artist Tori
Amos in her 2007 album American Doll Posse.
Amos created five personalities for the album, each representing a different Greek god or goddess.
- Tori Amos makes references to women such as Marilyn Monroe who have "channeled Venus"
in their very being.
- Aphrodite appeared as a recurring character in the television series Xena:
Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary
Journeys. She was played by actress Alexandra Tydings.
- In the computer game Zeus: Master of Olympus, Aphrodite is one of the gods
to whom the player can build a temple. When applied to for help, she makes the city too appealing for anyone to wish to leave,
thus preventing shortages of labor force. Her presence in the city will protect it from attacks by Dionysus, Hephaestus, Hermes, or
Ares.
- C.S. Lewis wrote a novel called 'Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold which tells an adapted version of the Aphrodite and
Psyche myth, told from Aphrodite's (who is renamed in the book) perspective.
See also
Notes
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony, 176ff.
- ^ Herodotus, Histories, I.105 and .131. The traditional resistance of
nineteenth-century Hellenists to Eastern sources of Greek culture is expressed by A.
Enmann, Kypros und der Ursprung des Aphroditekultes (1881), among others; the series of waves of resistance in favour of a
"pure, classical Greece in splendid isolation" (Burkert) is discussed by Walter Burkert in his introduction to The
Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (1992), especially in pp 1-6.
- ^ Glotta 11, 21 5f.
- ^ Mallory, J.P. and D.Q. Adams. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture.
London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishing, 1997.
- ^ E.g. Plato, Symposium 181a-d.
- ^ Plato, Symposium
180e.
- ^ "Our work is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the
philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made
by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation." Bulfinch's obituary in the
Boston Evening Standard noted that the contents were "expurgated of all that would be offensive".
- ^ Miroslav Marcovich, "From Ishtar to Aphrodite" Journal of Aesthetic
Education 30.2, Special Issue: Distinguished Humanities Lectures II (Summer 1996) p 49.
- ^ Αναδυόμενη (Anadyómenē), "rising up".
- ^ David R. Kinsley, The Goddesses' Mirror: Visions of the Divine from East
and West p.207, 1989, SUNY Press, ISBN 0887068359
References
- C. Kerényi (1951). The Gods of the Greeks.
- Walter Burkert (1985). Greek Religion (Harvard University Press), especially sectionIII.2.7 "Aphrodite"
External links
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