myth lecture

1. APHRODITE
We will examine Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual desire. We will
concentrate on the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, which tells the
story of Aphrodite’s affair with the mortal Anchises. We will look at
the implications of this myth for our understanding of the Greek
view of sexuality and for the appropriate interactions between
humans and gods.
We will ten consider how the Roman view of passion, as seen in
Ovid, differed from the view presented in the Homeric Hymn and in
Sappho.
Finally, we will use Aphrodite to discuss some of the characteristics
of gods that are anthropomorphized natural forces.

2. OUR LAST KEY DEITY IS
APHRODITE, THE GODDESS OF
SEXUAL PASSION AND DESIRE.
According to Theogony, Aphrodite was born from the foam that appeared
around the severed genitals of Ouranos when Chronos tossed them into the sea.
In the Iliad, she is the daughter of Zeus and a goddess named Dione.
In either case, she is usually depicted as among the younger Olympians, in the
same generation as Athena and Artemis, rather that Hestia, Hera and Demeter.
As the goddess of sexual desire, she is extremely powerful.
She can and does subdue even Zeus to her will.
The only beings she cannot touch are the three virgin goddesses, Hestia,
Artemis and Athena.
She is the goddess of sexual passion, not love or companionship.

3. Aphrodite appears in many works of literature. However,
for understanding of her essential nature, once again a
Homeric Hymn is our starting point.
The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite tells the story of her
sexual encounter with the human Anchises.
This affair is attested to elsewhere in literature, because it
resulted in a son, Aeneas, the title character of Virgil’s
epic The Aeneid.
Aphrodite’s maternal relation to Aeneas also appears in
the Iliad.
The Homeric Hymn, however, concentrates on the
relationship between Aphrodite and Anchises; the birth
of Aeneas is predicted but is not the focus of the work.

4. The Homeric Hymn begins by stating that Zeus was angry at
Aphrodite for causing him and other gods to become sexually
involved with humans; therefore, he decided to give her a
taste of her own medicine.
Zeus’s reaction implies that sexual involvement with humans
is beneath the gods’ dignity, something that they regret
afterward.
Another implication involves the separate spheres of influence
of the gods and Zeus’s relationship to them.
Usually, one god either cannot or does not trespass on
another god’s sphere of influence. Aphrodite does not cause
earthquakes; Poseidon does not inspire people with sexual
passion, and so on.
This respect for the boundaries of one another’s spheres
probably stems from the fact that these gods embody the
emotions and activities they govern. Aphrodite, in a sense, is
sexual passion.
However, Zeus is able to inflict Aphrodite with her own
essence.

5. Zeus inspires Aphrodite with passion for the young Trojan prince Anchises, whom she seduces. Anchises recognizes
that she is a goddess and asks her for appropriate and proper blessings, but he believes her when she says she is
human and agrees to go to bed with her immediately.
Anchises’s words embody the maxims of Delphi; he remembers his own status and is careful not to ask for excessive
blessings. His adherence to these maxims does not protect him; Aphrodite lies to him to get her way.
After the two have sex, Aphrodite reveals herself to Anchises and admits that she is a goddess. Anchises is terrified
and begs for mercy.

6. Anchises’s statement that men who have sex with goddesses are never left unharmed has several
implications for our understanding of the narrative and of Greek society.
Gods and mortals can interbreed; their offspring are human but usually exceptional.
Although mating with a god often has disastrous consequences for a woman, these consequences are not
inevitable, and some women who mate with gods live normal lives afterward.
Anchises articulates the idea that men who mate with goddesses have committed a great transgression.

7. The reason for this imbalance has to do with views of sexuality and gender
roles and with the nature of the relationship between gods and humans.
Sex is seen in Greek culture as a process of domination. The male penetrator
dominates his partner.
Because Greek culture was strongly patriarchal and women were supposed to
be subservient, this paradigm of sexuality was considered appropriate for
male-female relationships. During sex, the man was dominant and the woman
submissive, which was “how it should be.”
When sex occurs between a god and human, the gender of each partner
becomes very important.
If a male god has sex with a mortal woman, there is no imbalance; a more
powerful being (god, male) is dominating a less powerful one (human, female).
When the male is human and the female is a goddess, the relationship is
contradictory, because a less powerful human is dominating a more powerful
goddess.

8. Furthermore, when a god or human mate, a child always
results.
Again, if the female is the human, this causes no discomfort to
the gods. her child is still human but greater, more beautiful,
more excellent than would otherwise have been the case.
For a goddess to bear a human child to a mortal father is
disgraceful, even (one senses form Aphrodite's words)
disgusting.
Aphrodite's attempt to reassure Anchises falls flat, because she
tells him about Tithonos.
Tithonos was the lover of the dawn goddess Eos, who wanted to
keep him forever.
Eos gave Tithonos eternal life but forgot eternal youth.
Thus, Tithonos grows older forever, until finally Eos shuts him
away into a room and only his voice is left.
This story is a chilling example of a recurring theme in Greek
myth--humans may desire immortality, but it is not appropriate
for us. Aphrodite and Anchises

9. The Hymn does not
tell us whether
Anchises was harmed.
Other sources tell us
that Anchises revealed
who his son’s mother
was and was lamed as
a result.
Aphrodite’s other
human lover, the
beautiful youth
Adonis, died as a result
of their affair.

10. WE CAN ISOLATE THE FOLLOWING
CHARACTERISTICS OF SEXUAL PASSION AS
DELINEATED IN THE HOMERIC HYMN TO
APHRODITE:
Sexual passion is seen as an external force, imposed on humans (or gods, or animals).
Passion is, by its nature, transitory.
You may feel passion for one person today, but another person next year or next week or even
tomorrow.
Sexual passion is not, in itself, emotionally significant; this if far different from our own
conception.
Sappho’s one extant complete poem asks for help from Aphrodite a compelling image of
sexuality as an outside force.
Later authors give an emotional significance to sexual passion that is absent in the earlier
works.
Ovid’s story of Pyramus and Thisbe, a pair of suicidal lovers, is a good example.
Aphrodite remains a capricious goddess of passion rather than one of devoted, long-lasting love.

11. APHRODITE IS AN EXCELLENT GODDESS THROUGH WHOM
TO CONTEMPLATE SOME OF THE IMPLICATIONS OF GODS
WHO ARE PERSONIFICATIONS OF NATURE FORCES.
With this type of god, “belief” is not a matter of debate the way it
is in a monotheistic religion.
To ask, “Do you believe in Aphrodite?” is, on one level, as absurd
as asking, “Do you believe that sexual attraction exists?”
The question of whether personification is an appropriate way to
represent these forces remains, and some classical authors
would answer that it is not.
Aphrodite also illustrates the irrelevance of expecting
compassion, mercy, or pity from personified natural forces.
Inappropriate sexual desire can devastate and destroy innocent
lives, just as Aphrodite does.
We can see similar phenomenon in Dionysos; misuse of wine can
destroy, and it is useless to ask the wine to feel pity.
The personification of these natural forces carries with it a
certain contradiction; as sentient beings, the gods should be able
to act compassionately, but as natural forces, they cannot.