Aphrodite

Oh, Maya said.

Well, I prayed to Aphrodite for help in passing the course, and the temple priestess told me I'd have to make a sacrifice to the goddess, in a way.

A sacrifice? Forrester gulped.

You mean Not the first sacrifice, she laughed.

Forrester did the only thing he could do.

He bowed again, even lower than before.

Come in, William Forrester, said the High Priestess of Venus, Aphrodite, the veritable primate of Venus for New York herself, in a voice that managed to be all at once regal, pleasant, and seductive.

Forrester, already in, could think of nothing to say.

Also called Astarte in Phoenicia.

Also called Aphrodite in Greece.

The ancient spirit of sexual immorality.

The spirit that destroys marriage and family.

The charm of eyes of bride beloved and fair is crowned with victory, and dwells on high among the powers that rule, equal with holiest laws.

For Aphrodite, she whom none subdues, sports in her might and majesty divine.

I, even I, am borne beyond the appointed laws.

I look on this and cannot stay the fountain of my tears.

No one will vote against you, Eryximachus, said Socrates.

How can I oppose your motion, who prefers to understand nothing but matters of love? Nor, I presume, will Agathon and Pausanias; and there can be no doubt of Aristophanes, whose whole concern is with Dionysus and Aphrodite, nor will any one disagree of those whom I see around me.

The proposal, as I am aware, may seem rather hard upon us whose place is last; but we shall be contented if we hear some good speeches first.

Let Phaedrus begin the praise of love, and good luck to him! All the company expressed their assent, and desired him to do as Socrates bade him.

But since there are more loves than one, we should have begun by determining which of them was to be the theme of our praises.

I will amend this defect, and first of all I will tell you which love is deserving of praise, and then try to hymn the praiseworthy one in a manner worthy of him.

For we all know that love is inseparable from Aphrodite, and if there were only one Aphrodite there would be only one love.

But as there are two goddesses, there must be two loves.

One of them, who had great gray eyes and was called Athena, lifted him to her shoulder to look at the golden helmet she wore and laughed because he said he wanted one like it and a shield and spear like hers.

Then the fairest of them all, whose name was Aphrodite, took the little boy upon her lap and whispered coaxingly that she would give him better playthings than shields or spears if he would come and live with her in her garden of roses that bloomed all the year round.

But Poseidon, that stern-faced god who sat beside her, shook back his dark hair and said, "O queen of love, have you not a boy of your own to play with? Come with me, little prince, for I will love you with a truer love than this fair goddess, and you shall have a gift that will please you better than her roses when you come to be a man." The child looked into Poseidon's eyes, which were deep blue like the sea, and felt that he liked this friendly god the best of all.

He climbed upon his knee and rested his little head on the sea god's shoulder and, being already drowsy, fell sound asleep.

The king looked hastily towards the couch where Poseidon had sat, half fearing that he might have carried off the child after all.

But there lay his little son, curled up among the embroidered cushions and smiling in his sleep.

One small hand held a rosebud Aphrodite had given him from her bosom, and in the other lay a strange blossom, white as the sea foam.

Poseidon also had a garden, and this was one of the flowers that grew there under the waves.

Having made his vows and prayers, he went down to the sea on the sixth day of the month of Munichion, on which day even now the Athenians still send their maidens to the Delphinium to propitiate the god.

And it is reported that the god at Delphi commanded him in an oracle to make Aphrodite his guide and invite her to attend him on his journey, and that as he sacrificed the usual she-goat to her by the seashore, it became a he-goat, tragos, all at once, for which reason the goddess has the surname Epitragia.

When he reached Crete on his voyage, most historians and poets tell us that he got from Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him, the famous thread, and that having been instructed by her how to make his way through the intricacies of the labyrinth, he slew the Minotaur and sailed off with Ariadne and the youths.

And Pherecedes says that Theseus also stayed in the bottoms of the Cretan ships, thus depriving them of the power to pursue.

The women of the island accordingly took Ariadne into their care, and tried to comfort her in the discouragement caused by her loneliness, brought her forged letters purporting to have been written to her by Theseus, ministered to her aid during the pangs of travail, and gave her burial when she died before her child was born.

Paeon says further that Theseus came back, and was greatly afflicted, and left a sum of money with the people of the island, enjoining them to sacrifice to Ariadne, and caused two little statuettes to be set up in her honor, one of silver and one of bronze.

He says also that at the sacrifice in her honor on the second day of the month Gorpaeus, one of their young men lies down and imitates the cries and gestures of women in travail, and that they call the grove in which they show her tomb the grove of Ariadne Aphrodite.

Some of the Naxians also have a story of their own, that there were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, one of whom they say was married to Dionysus in Naxos, and bore him Staphylus and his brother, and the other of a later time, having been carried off by Theseus and then abandoned by him, came to Naxos, accompanied by a nurse named Corsini, whose tomb they show, and that this Ariadne also died there, and has honors paid her unlike those of the former, for the festival of the first Ariadne is celebrated with mirth and revels, but the sacrifices performed in honor of the second are attended with sorrow and mourning.

She was a woman of wonderful presence.

As Hippomenes looked upon her, he knew that she was Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and of love.

Hippomenes, said the immortal goddess, the gods are mindful of you who are sprung from one of the gods, and I am mindful of you because of your own worth.

I have come to help you in your race with Atalanta, for I would not have you slain, nor would I have that maiden go unwed.

I have brought them to you, Hippomenes.

Keep them in your girdle, and in the race you will find out what to do with them, I think.

So Aphrodite said, and then she vanished, leaving a fragrance in the air and the three shining apples in the hands of Hippomenes.

Long he looked upon their brightness.

For now the meeting of the many brings to birth and death, and now whatever grew from out their sundering flies apart and dies, and this long interchange shall never end.

whiles into one do all through love unite whiles two through hate of strife and in so far as the one will want to grow from many and the many again spring from primeval scattering of the one so far have they a birth and mortal date and in so far as the long interchange ends not so far forever established gods around the circle of the world they move but come but hear my words for knowledge gains make strong thy soul for as before i spake naming the utter goal of these my words i will report a twofold truth now grows the one from many into being now even from the one disparting come the many fire water earth and awful heights of air and shut from them apart the deadly strife in equipoise and love within their midst in all her being in length and breadth the same behold her now with mind and sit not there with eyes astonished for tis she inborn abides established in the limbs of men through her they cherish thoughts of love through her perfect the works of concord calling her by name delight or aphrodite she speeds revolving in the elements but this no mortal man hath ever learned hear now the undelusive course of proof behold those elements own equal strength and equal origin each rules its task and unto each its primal mode and each prevailing conquers with revolving time and more than these there is no birth nor end for they were wasted ever and evermore they were no longer and the great all were then how to be plenished and from what far coast and how besides might they to ruin come since nothing lives that empty is of them no these are all and as they course along through one another now this now that is born and so forever down eternity eighteen love nineteen firm clasping lovingness twenty the world-wide warfare of the eternal tool well in the paths of human beings limbs is shown whiles into one do they through love unite and mortal members take the bodily form and life doth flower at the prime again dissevered by the hates perverse they wander far and wide and up and down the surf-swept beaches and rarer shores of life so too with thicket tree and gleaming fish housed in the crystal walls of waters wide and so with beasts that couch on mountain slopes and water fowls that skim along the blue sea twenty one but come and to my words forsaid look well if their white witness anywhere forgot art that behoves the elemental forms behold the sun the warm the bright diffused behold the eternal stars forever steeped in liquid heat and glowing radiance see also the rain obscure and cold and dark and how the earth streams forth the green and firm and all through wrath are split to shapes diverse and each through love draws near and yearns for each for from these elements hath budded all that was or is or evermore shall be all trees and men and women beasts and birds and fishes nourished in deep waters ay the long-lived gods in honour excellent for these are all and as they course along through one another they take new faces all by varied mingling and enduring change twenty two for amber sun and earth and heaven and sea is friendly with its every part that springs far driven and scattered in the mortal world so too these things are most apt to mix and like and love by aphrodite's haste but hostile chiefly are those things which most from one another differ both in birth and in their mixing and their moulded forms and want to mingle miserable and lone after the counsels of their father hate twenty three and even as artists men who know their craft through wits of cunning paint with streak and hue bright temple tablets and will seize in hand the oozy poisons pied and red and gold mixing harmonious now more now less from which they fashion forms innumerable peopling a fresh world with trees and men and women beasts and birds and fishes nourished in deep waters ay and long-lived gods in honours excellent just so and let no guile deceive thy breast even so the spring of mortal things lestwise of all the hosts born visible to man o guard this knowledge well for thou hast heard in this my song the goddess and her tale twenty four to join together divers peaks of thought and not complete one road that has no turn twenty five what must be said may it be said twice o'er twenty six in turn they conquer as the cycles roll and wane the one to other still and wax the one to other in turn by olden fate for these are all as they course along through one another they become both men and multitudinous tribes of hairy beasts whilst in fair order through love united all whilst rent asunder by hate of strife till they when grown into the one and all once more once more go under and succumb and in so far as is the one still won't.

to grow from the many and the many again spring from my primeval scattering of the one so far have they a birth and mortal date and in so far as this long exchange ends not so far forever established gods around the circle of the world they move twenty seven their views are not the swift limbs of the sun nor there the strength of shaggy earth nor sea but in the strong recesses of harmony established firm abides the rounded sphere exultant in surrounding solitude twenty seven a nor faction nor fight unseemingly in its limbs twenty eight the sphere on every side the boundless same exultant in surrounding solitude twenty nine for from its back there swing no branching arms it hath no feet nor knees alert nor form or life-producing member a sphere it was and like unto itself thirty yet after mighty strife had waxen great within the members of the sphere and rose to her own honours as the times arrived which unto each in turn to strife to love should come by amplest oath and all decree thirty one for one by one did quake the limbs of god thirty two the joint binds two thirty three but as when rennet of the fig-tree juice curdles the white milk and will bind it fast thirty four cementing meal with water thirty five i will now make return to paths of festal song laid down before draining each flowing thought from flowing thought when down the vortex to the last abyss had founded hate and lovingness had reached the eddying centre of the mass behold around her into oneness gathered all yet not a sudden but only as willingly each from its several regions joined with each and from their mingling hence abhorred abroad the multitudinous tribes of mortal things yet much unmixing among the mixed remained as much as hate still held its scales aloft for not all blameless did hate yield and stand out yonder on the circle's outmost bounds but partial wise yet within he stayed part wise was he already from the members gone and ever the more sculled away and fled then ever the more and nearer inward pressed the gentle-minded the divine desire of blameless lovingness thence grew apace these mortal things erstwhile long wont to be immortal and the erstwhile pure and sheer were mixed exchanging highways of new life and from thy mingling fenced abhorred abroad the multitudinous tribes of mortal things knit in all forms and wonderful to see thirty six and as they came together hate began to take his stand far on the outer verge thirty seven and earth through earth her figure magnifies and air through air thirty eight come i will name the like primeval four whence rose to sight all things we now behold earth many billowed sea and the moist air and aether the titan who binds the globe about thirty nine if earth's black deeps were endless and all four were the white ether as four soothsome tongues have idly prided in the babbling mouths of those whose little of the all have seen forty king darting helios and selene mild forty one but the sun's fires together gathered move attendant around the mighty space of heaven forty two and the sun's beams the moon in passing under covers are and darkness a bleak tract of earth as large as the breath of her the silver-eyed forty three a sunbeam striking on the moon's broad disk forty four towards olympus back he darts his beams with fearless face forty five round earth revolves a disk of alien light forty six even as revolves a chariot's nave which round the outmost forty seven for toward the sacred circle of her lord she gazes face to face forty eight but earth makes night for beams of sinking sun forty nine of night the lonely with her sightless eyes fifty iris from the sea brings wind and mighty rain fifty one and fire sprang upward with a rendering speed fifty two and many a fire there burns beneath the ground fifty three for sometimes so upon its course is met and ofttimes otherwise fifty four in earth sang ether with deep-stretching roots fifty five earth sweat the sea fifty six the salt grew solid smit by beams of sun fifty seven there budded many a head without a neck and arms were roaming shoulderless and bare and eyes that wanted foreheads drifted by fifty eight in isolation wandered every limb hither and thither sea and union meet fifty nine but now as god with god was mingled more these members fell together where they met and many a birth besides was then begot in the long line of ever varied life sixty creatures of countless hands and trailing feet sixty one many were born with twofold brow and breast some with a face of man on bovine stock some with man's form beneath a bovine head mixed shapes of being with shadowed secret parts sometimes like men and sometimes woman growths sixty two but come now hear how twas the sundered fire led into life the gems erst whelmed in night of men and women the pitied and bewailed for tis a tale that sees and knows its mark first rose mere lumps of earth with rude impress that had their shares of water and of warm these then by fire in inward zeal to reach its kindled fire in heaven were shot aloft obeyed not yet had they revealed a form of lovely limbs nor yet a human cry nor secret member common to the male sixty three but separate is the birth of human limbs for tis in part in man's sixty four love long in comes reminding him who sees sixty five into clean wombs the seeds are poured and when therein they meet with god the birth is girls and boys when contr'wise they meet with warm sixty six into the cloven meads of aphrodite sixty seven for bellies with warmer wombs become mothers of boys and therefore men are dark more stalwart and more shaggy sixty eight on the tenth day in the month the eighth the blood becomes white pus sixty nine twice bearing seventy sheep skin seventy one and if belief lack pith and thou still doubt how from the mingling of the elements the earth and water the ether and the sun so many forms and hues of mortal things could thus have been as one have come to be each framed and knit by aphrodite's power seventy two as the tall trees and fish in brine floods seventy three as after watering earth with rain zealous to heat her then did give earth o'er to speed of fire that then she might grow firm seventy four leading the songless shoals of spawning fish seventy five of beasts inside compact with outside loose which in the palms of aphrodite shaped got this their sponginess seventy six tis thus with conchs upon the heavy chines of ocean dwellers aye of shell-fish wreathed of stony-hided turtles where thou mark'st the earthen crust outside the softer parts seventy seven through seventy eight trees bore perennial fruit perennial fronds laden with fruit the whole revolving year since fed forever by a fruitful air seventy nine thus first tall olives lay their yellow eggs eighty wherefore pomegranates slow in ripening bee and apples grow so plentiful in juice eighty one wine is but water fermented in the wood and issues from the rind eighty two from the same stuff on sturdy limbs grow hair leaves scales of fish and birds thick-feathered plumes eighty three stiff hairs keen piercing bristle on the chines of hedgehogs eighty four as when a man about to sally forth prepares a light and kindles him a blaze of flaming fire against the wintry night in horny lantern shielding from all winds though it protect from breath of flowing winds it beams darts outward as more fine and thin and with untiring rays lights up the sky just so the fire primeval once lay hid in the round pupil of the eye enclosed in films and gauzy veils which through and through were pierced with poles divinely fashioned and thus kept off the watery deeps around whilst fire burst outward as more fine and thin 85.

The gentle flame of eye did chance to get only a little of the earthen part.

86.

90.

Thus sweet seized sweet, bitter on bitter flew, sour sprung from sour, and upon hot rode hot.

91. water to wine is more nearly allied but will not mix with oil ninety two as when one mixes with copper tin ninety three with flax is mixed the silvery elder's seed ninety four and the black colour of the river's deeps come all from shade and one may see the same in hollow caves ninety five as in the palms of cripers shaped they first began to grow together ninety six kind earth for her broad-breasted melting pots of the eight parts got two of lucid nestes and of her past years four thence came white bones divinely joined by glue of harmony ninety seven the backbone ninety eight and after earth within the perfect ports of aphrodite anchored lay she met almost in equal parts hypostasis red and rain and ether they are all splendorous although the parts of the earth were sometimes less sometimes a little more than theirs from these there came our blood and all the shapes of flesh ninety nine a bell a fleshy twig one hundred and thus does all breathe in and out in all over the body's surface bloodless tubes of flesh are stretched and at their outlets rifts innumerable along the outmost rind are bored and so the blood remains within for air however is cut a passage free and when from here the thin blood backward streams the air comes rushing in with roaring swell but when again it forward leaps the air in turn breathes out as when a little girl plays with a water-clock of gleaming bronze as long as ever the opening of the pipe is by her pretty fingers stopped and closed and thusway plunged within the yielding mass of silvery water can the wet no more get in the vessel but the air's own weight that falls inside against the countless holes keeps it in check until the child at last uncovers and sets free the thickened air when of a truth the water's destined bulk gets in as air gives away even so it is when in the belly of the brazen clock the water lies and the girl's finger-tip shuts the pipe and tube the air that from without comes pressing forward holds the water back about the passages of the gurgling neck as the child keeps possession of the top until her hand will loosen will amain quite contrariwise to way and wise before pours out and under the water's destined bulk as air drops down and in even so it is with the thin blood that through our membranes drives when hurrying back it streams to inward then amain a flow of air comes rushing on but when again it forward leaps the air in turn breathes out along the self same way one hundred and one sniffing with nostrils mites from wild beasts limbs left by their feet along the tender grass one o two and thus got all things share of breath and smells one o three thus all things think their thought by will of chance one o four and in so far the lightest at their fall do strike together one o five in the blood streams back leaping unto it the heart is nourished where prevails the power that men call thought for lo the blood that stirs about the heart is man's controlling thought one o six for unto men their thrift of reason grows according to the body's thrift and state one o seven for as these commingled all things are even through these men think rejoice or grieve one o eight as far as mortals change by day so far by night their thinking changes one o nine for tis through earth that earth we do behold through ether divine ether luminous through water water through fire devouring fire and love through love and hate through doleful hate one ten for if reliant on a spirit firm with inclination and endeavour pure thou wilt behold them all these things shall be for ever thine for service and besides therefore full many another shalt thou gain for of themselves into that core they grow of each man's nature where his essence lies but if for others thou wilt look and reach such empty treasures myriad and vile as men be after which for evermore blunt souls in keen desire o then shall these most swiftly leave thee as the seasons roll for all their yearning is a quick return unto thy own primaeval stock for know all things have fixed intent and share of thought one eleven and thou shalt master every drug that e'er was made defenced against sickness and old age for thee alone all this i will fulfil and thou shalt calm the might of tireless winds that burst on earth and ruined seed lands aye shall thou arouse the blasts and watch them take thy vengeance wild and shrill for that before thou cowardest them thou shalt change black rain to drought at seasons good for men and the long drought of summer shalt thou change to torrents nourishing the mountain trees as down the stream from ether and thou shalt from hades beckon the might of perished men one twelve ye friends who in the mightiest city dwell along the yellow arqueous hard by the acropolis ye stewards of good works the strangest refuge venerable and kind all hail old friends but unto ye i walk as god immortal now no more as man on all sides honored fittingly and well crowned both with fillets and with flowering wreaths when with my throngs of men and women i come to thriving cities i am sought by prayers and thousands follow me that they may ask the path to weal and vantage craving some from oracles while others seek to hear a healing word gainst many a foul disease that all too long hath pierced with grievous pains one thirteen yet why urge more as some forsooth i wrought some big affair do i not far excel the mortals around me doomed to many deaths one fourteen o friends i know indeed in these words which i speak that very truth abides but greatly troubles unto men always hath been the emulous struggle of belief to reach their bosoms one fifteen there is a word of fate an old decree and everlasting of the gods made fast with amplest oaths that whosoever of those four spirits with their lot of age-long life do foul their limbs with slaughter in offence or swear forsworn as failing of their pledge shall wander thrice ten thousand weary years far from the blest and be born through time in various shapes of mortal kind which change ever and ever troublous paths of life for now air hunts them onward to the sea now the wild sea disgorges them on land now earth will spew them towards beams of radiant sun whence he will toss them back to whirling air each gets from other what they all abhor and in that brood i too am numbered now a fugitive and vagabond from heaven as one obedient unto raving strife one sixteen carries a boy's intolerable fate one seventeen for i was once already boy and girl thicket and bird and mute fish in the waves one eighteen i wept and wailed beholding the strange place one nineteen from what large honor and what height of bliss am i here fallen to move with mortal kind one twenty and then we came unto a roofed cave one twenty one a joyless land where slaughter and grudge and troops of doom besides where shriveled diseases and obscene decays and labors burdened with the water's jars do wander down the dismal meads of bane one twenty two there were earth mother there the far-peering virgin of the sun and bloody quarrel and grave-eyed harmony and there was fair and foul and speed and late black-haired confusion and sweet maiden sure one twenty three growth and decay and sleep and roused from sleep action and rest and glory many crowned and filth and silence and prevailing voice one twenty four o mortal kind o ye poor sons of grief from such contentions and such sighing sprung one twenty five for from the living he the dead did make their forms exchanging one twenty six all things doth nature change enwrapping souls in unfamiliar tunics of the flesh one twenty seven the worthiest dwellings of the souls of men when tis their lot to live in forms of brutes are twenty lions those great beasts that sleep crouched on the black earth up the mountain side but when in forms of beautiful plumed trees they live the bays are worthiest for souls one twenty eight nor unto them was any heirs god nor caedomius nor zeus the king of gods nor cronos nor pisodium them but only crispus queen whom they with holy gifts were wont to appease with costly unguents of rich fragrancy with gentle sacrifices of taintless with redolent fumes of frankincense of old pouring libations out upon the ground of yellow honey not then with unmixed blood of many bulls was ever an altar stained but among men to a sacrilege most vile to reave of life and eat the godly limbs one twenty nine was one among them there a supreme man of vastest knowledge gainer of large wealth of understanding and chief master wise of divers works of skill and wisdom all for whensoever he sought with scope and reach of understanding then twas his view readily each and every thing that e'er in ten or twenty human ages one thirty all things were tame and gentle towards men all beasts and birds and friendship's flame blew fair one thirty one for since o musa and dion that couldst deign to give for these our paltry human cares a gateway to thy soul o now much more calliope of the beautiful dear voice be near me now beseeching whilst i speak excelling thoughts about the blessed gods one thirty two o well with them who hath secured his wealth of thoughts divine o wretched he whose care is shadowy speculation of the gods one thirty three we may not bring it near us with our eyes we may not grasp it with our human hands where neither hands nor eyes whose highways twain whereby belief drops into minds of men one thirty four for tis adorned with never a manlike head for from its back there swing no branching arms it hath no feet nor knees alert no form of tufted secret member but it lives one holy mind ineffable alone and with swift thoughts darts through the universe one thirty five but the wide law of all extends throughout broad ruling either and the vast white sky one thirty six will ye not cease from this great din of slaughter will ye not see and think as ye are how ye rend one another unbeknown one thirty seven the father lifteth for the stroke of death his own dear son with changed form and slits his throat for sacrifice with prayers a blinded fool but the poor victims press imploring their destroyers yet not one but still is deaf to pietous moan and wail each slits the throat and in his halls prepares a horrible repast thus too the son seizes the father children the mother sees and reave of life and death their own dear flesh one thirty eight drawing the soul as water with a bronze one thirty nine ah woe is me that never a pitiless day destroyed me long ago ere yet my lips did meditate this feeding's monstrous crime one forty withhold your hands from leaves of phoebus tree one forty one ye wretched o ye altogether wretched your hands from beans withhold one forty two neither roofed halls of ages holding zeus delight nor dire hecates vengeance house one forty three scooping from fountains five with lasting bronze one forty four o fast from evil doing one forty five since wielded by your evil doings huge ne'er shall ye free your life from heavy pains one forty six and seers at last and singers of high hymns physicians sages and chiefs all earth-born men shall they become whence germinate the gods their excellent in honours 147.

But where is the-

But Aphrodite shows up, too, at one point, and is against-

Yes

... kind of both of, both, you know, the triple goddess and Demeter, right? She's, she's kind of doing-

Let's, let's...

Yeah, let's do that.

So basically, um, he's visited then, back at the brothel, he's visited by Aphrodite, um, and they, they make love.

Um, and h- she, like, does something to him where...