2/28 The Loves of Aphrodite

Lecture Story

Who was Atalanta?

• warrior woman who got exposed as a child and grew up to adulthood in Arcadia

• grew up running, hunting, and living an outdoor life

• became famous because not only is she beautiful but she was incredible at hunting

• open to the idea of getting married, but has to be a man who can put up with her

  • if a man can beat her in a running race, he can marry her

  • if she beats the men, she can shoot them

• finally, a man named Hippomenes really wants to marry her, so he prayed to Aphrodite to help him win the race

• Aphrodite helps by giving him three golden apples

  • when the race started, he threw an apple mid-race and she stopped to look down

  • then he threw the second apple, and she stops to pick it up fascinated

  • he threw the last apple, and she picked it up again, and then he won the race

• they married and have an extremely happy marriage

Origin and relationships

what is the concept, generational flip? why does it happen?

when a family tree is altered or another origin of myth develops to turn an older god/goddess into a younger one (vice versa)

this happens to match the personality of the god/goddess

Origin and relationships

what are the two origin stories of Aphrodite that represents the generational flip?

• before the Olympians

  • Aphrodite was born when the castration of Ouranos’ penis created a foam in the ocean

  • this version makes her much older than the Olympians, and she was depicted as violent, and represent destabilizing power

• daughter of Zeus

  • through generational flip, people imagine her as a daughter of Zeus

  • here, she is much younger than the Olympians, and she is affectionate and helpful

Origin and relationships

Who is another character who also has a generational flip?

Eros

• beginning of time → the force of sexual desire

• son of Aphrodite → fixed age of a child with wings, and does the bids of Aphrodite (Roman version of Eros)

Origin and relationships

Who were her divine partners (who did she marry first and what happened?)

• married to Hephaestus but was not a happy marriage

• she cheated on Hephaestus with Ares. she thought he was handsome but hated him because he represented the horribleness of war

• Helios, the god of sun, tells Hephaestus

• Hephaestus lays a trap to catch them in the act

  • he catches them in bed with a net made of metal that was impossible to get out of

  • to us, we found this story sad and pitiful, but the Greeks found this funny

  • Hephaestus felt defeated that the gods were just laughing that he ended up releasing them with no punishment

Images of Aphrodite

what were her representations?

• adult (unlike Artemis)

• nudity → represented naked in artworks

• a lot of erotic statues

Images of Aphrodite

who was Pygmalion?

• he was a sculptor who created such a beautiful statue of a woman that he rejects every real woman

• he prays to Aphrodite to make the statue real

  • she makes it real, and how the statue feels is a mythic gap

Areas of Influence

what are her three areas of influence?

• goddess of anodos (rising)

  • birth → came out of the waves from the foam

    • sea → becomes peaceful and calm, unlike Poseidon who brings sea storms

    • sky → beautiful clear sky, unlike Zeus who brings storms

    • doves → greek form of the goddess

• goddess of kosmesis (adornment)

  • beautifying yourself (ex, you pray to her if you wanted to get a haircut)

  • mirrors are associated with her because they are part of the process of kosmesis

• goddess of mixis (mixing → means having sex because mixing w each other)

  • Atalanta and Hippomenes

  • doubleness → goddess of sexual competence, but also sexual dysfunction

Adonis and Adonia

who is Smyrna or Myrrha and what is her story?

• a young woman who wants to remain independent, but the forces of divinity and humanity makes that impossible

• Smyrna doesn’t want to have sex or get married, which made Aphrodite offended and she curses her with the worst possible love: sexual attraction to her own father

• Smyrna has a nurse who can help make this happen (either because she is enslaved and has no choice but to help, or because she knows this is so bizarre that it has to be Aphrodite’s curse)

• the nurse tells that father that she is arranging a prostitute and has sex with Smyrna many times in the darkness

• one night, the lamp was lit and the father sees he has been having sex with his daughter and is horrified

• he wants to kill himself and her

Adonis and Adonia

what happened to Smyrna after?

• she ran away and the gods pitied her that they turned her into a myrrh tree

• she is pregnant, and gives birth from the tree

• out comes a young beautiful baby named Adonis

Adonis and Adonia

what happens to Adonis as a baby?

• Aphrodite wants to keep this baby for herself because she can somehow tell he will grow up to be beautiful

• she puts the baby in a box

• to keep the box safe, she gives it to the underworld, and Persephone opens the box and decides she wants to keep this baby for herself

Adonis and Adonia

how does Adonis spend his time growing up? what does this represent?

• zeus said Adonis can spend 1/3 of his time with Persephone, another 1/3 with Aphrodite, and the last 1/3 however he wants

• he finds Aphrodite so beautiful that he spends his free 1/3 with her, thus spending 2/3 with her

• this thirds system correlates with death/life part of the year, and represents agriculture

Adonis and Adonia

how does Adonis die? what happened to him after?

• he dies while hunting a big pig

• Aphrodite lays him down on a bed of lettuce

  • this is because lettuce had the same value as an oyster

Adonis and Adonia

what is adonia?

• a woman-only festival

• during the summer

• happens on rooftops

• ‘gardens of Adonis’ → 8-day growth

Adonis and Adonia

what happens during Adonia?

• strange rituals

  • pots where eight days before Adonia, a seed of lettuce is planted in them

  • the seed grows for eight days

  • during the festival, women use ladders to climb to their rooftops where they put the pots up to the sun and they watch the lettuce die/shrivel up

Adonis and Adonia

what is the meaning of this ritual?

• scholarly theories

  • fertility → commemorates ongoing fertility

  • pleasure → all agricultual rituals in greece celebrate productivity and work, so when these women grow lettuce just to kill it, they are celebrating pleasure (there should be a balance of both types of rituals)

  • female power → the whole point is to celebrate the power women have over men → Aphrodite putting a male in a box, Eos putting Tithonos in a small jar → thinks the seed shriveling is a penis that cannot get up