Venus de Milo

Aphrodite

The Romans called her Venus (hence the famous armless statue known as the Venus de Milo) (Source)

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty and fertility. She encompasses all levels of love: higher love and ideals, the social bonding that is the core of functioning civilisation and the intimacy of erotic passion.

Her later representation as Venus stripped her of all but the erotic–under the Romans, her fortunes fell as the fortunes of Mars rose, in parallel with the ascendancy of patriarchy.

she was known primarily as a goddess of love and fertility and even occasionally presided over marriage. Although prostitutes considered Aphrodite their patron, her public cult was generally solemn and even austere. (Source)

Venus of Willendorf, a prehistoric fertility statue

Aphrodite the goddess was independent and unruly in the pantheon. Far from being simply the other half of a man, she asserted her independence courageously. Married early to Hephaestus, the crippled goldsmith of the gods, she had children with a number of other gods, most notably Ares, Hermes and Dionysus.

The Goddess of Love and Beauty had a long love affair with Ares which lasted for the duration of her marriage to Hephaistos and beyond. She bore him four divine sons and a daughter: Eros, Anteros, Deimos, Phobos and Harmonia. (theoi)

Aphrodite loved Ares, and once, as she lay with him, Helius, who sees all, told Hephaestus about the lovers. Hephaestus wove a superfine gold net and trapped them, then hauled them

Detail from “Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli

to Olympus to expose their crime. There is some dispute over whether the resulting laughter of the gods was directed at Aphrodite and Ares or at Hephaestus.

Aphrodite bore Ares three children, Deimos (Fear), Phobos (Panic) and Harmony. She bore Hermaphroditus and Priapus to Hermes.

Aphrodite wore a girdle as an erotic ornament, and would give it to her mortal lovers. This enchanted garment acted as a chain, ensnaring the lover and blinding him to all but her beauty.

She has the reputation of beginning a rash of abductions of mortal men when she ravished Phaethon, “in the tender flower of glorious youth”. The other abductor, taking her cue from Aphrodite, was Eos, goddess of dawn. The two eventually fell out when Eos fell in love with Ares, and jealous Aphrodite condemned her to being in a perpetual state of love.

Aphrodite. 45cm marble

Aphrodite’s strength and weakness lay in her view of the world as a web of relationship. Zeus punished her by causing her to fall in love with the mortal Anchises.

From this affair, she gave birth to Aeneas, one of the heroes of the Trojan War. She herself helped to cause the war through the statecraft of sexual allure when when she promised Paris the most beautiful mortal woman in the world–Helen of Troy.

When Adonis was born from a myrrh-tree he was so beautiful that Aphrodite kidnapped him and hid him in a chest, which she gave to Persephone for safekeeping.

When Persephone saw the beauty of the child, she refused to return him. Zeus was forced to intervene, and judged that Adonis should divide the year into three parts: the first he could spend on his own, the second he must spend with Aphrodite and the third with Persephone. Adonis then elected to spend his own third of the year with Aphrodite.

Venus In Astrology

Astrologically, Venus represents the feminine, the co-operative, the spirit of social interaction. She is at once sensuous and just, relishing beauty and luxury while seeking harmonious balance. The implications of these different imperatives are reflected in her rulership of both sensuous Taurus and balanced Libra. In women the values of Venus are easy to express. In men, they are often suppressed to favour the assertive Mars, and must be contacted later in life.

Last updated on August 17, 2017 at 3:39 pm. Word Count: 669