As we have seen, Hesiod describes the birth of Aphrodite after the castration of Uranus and derives her name from the Greek word for foam, aphros. Hesiod also links the goddess closely with Cythera and Cyprus; the latter was especially associated with her worship, in its city of Paphos particularly. Thus Aphrodite is called both Cytherea and Cypris. Another version of her birth gives her parents as Zeus and Dione. Dione is little more than a name to us, but a curious one, since it is the feminine form of the name Zeus (which in another form is Dios). This double tradition of Aphrodite's birth suggested a basic duality in her character or the existence of two separate goddesses of love: Aphrodite Urania or Celestial Aphrodite sprung from Uranus alone, ethereal and sublime; Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite of all the people or common Aphrodite) sprung from Zeus and Dione and essentially physical in nature. In Plato's Symposium, one of the speakers, Pausanias, elaborates upon this distinction and claims that Aphrodite Urania, the older of the two, is stronger, more intelligent, and spiritual, whereas Aphrodite Pandemos, born from both sexes, is more base, and aimed primarily at physical satisfaction. It is important to understand that the Aphrodite that sprang from Uranus (despite her sexuality in Hesiod's account) becomes for philosophy and religion the celestial goddess of pure and spiritual love and the antithesis of Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus and Dione, the goddess of physical attraction and procreation.

This distinction between sacred and profane love is one of the most potent archetypes in the history of civilization. In general Aphrodite is the goddess of beauty, love, and marriage. Her worship was universal in the ancient world, but its facets were many and varied. At Corinth, for example, temple harlots were kept in Aphrodite's honor; at Athens this same goddess was the staid and respectable deity of marriage and married love (one could presumably forget or deny the Aphrodite who betrayed her husband Hephaestus in Homer's story). The gamut of the conceptions of the goddess of love is reflected in painting and sculpture as well as in literature. Archaic idols are grotesque in their exaggeration of her sexual attributes as with other fertility goddesses. In early Greek art she is rendered as a beautiful woman, usually clothed. By the fourth century she is portrayed in the nude (or nearly so), the idealization of womanhood in all her femininity; the sculptor Praxiteles was mainly responsible for establishing the type-sensuous in its soft curves and voluptuousness. (His mistress, the courtesan Phryne, was said to be his model and some claim that Aphrodite herself asked: "Where did Praxiteles see me naked?") As so often in the ancient world, once a master had captured a universal conception, it was repeated endlessly with or without significant variations. Everyone knows the Venus di Milo or one of the many other extant copies, although Praxiteles' originals have not survived. The Graces (Charites) and the Seasons (Horae), whose birth and nature have already been mentioned, are often associated with Aphrodite as decorative and appropriate attendants. The goddess herself possessed a magic girdle having special powers of enticement that were irresistible. In the Iliad Hera borrows it with great effect upon her husband, Zeus. The more elemental and physical aspects of Aphrodite's nature are seen in the offspring attributed to her; her union with Hermes produced Hermaphroditus, whose story is told elsewhere. Priapus is another son of Aphrodite; the father is variously named. He may be Hermes again, or Dionysus, Pan, Adonis, or even Zeus. Priapus is a fertility-god, generally depicted as deformed and bearing a huge and erect phallus. He is found in gardens and at the doors of houses. He is part scarecrow, part bringer of luck, and part guardian against thieves; therefore he has something in common with his father, Hermes. He resembles Dionysus and Pan (two of his reputed fathers), and sometimes is confused with them or their retinues. Whatever the origins of Priapus in terms of sincere and primitive reverence for the male powers of generation, stories about him usually came to be comic and obscene. In the jaded society of later antiquity his worship meant little more than a cult of sophisticated pornography.

There are many stories that illustrate the mighty power of Aphrodite; the following one has provided a potent theme in subsequent literature. Ovid tells how Aphrodite (Venus in his version) was enraged with the women of Cyprus because they dared to deny her divinity; the goddess in her wrath caused them to be the first women to prostitute themselves, and as they lost all their sense of shame it was easy to turn them into stone. Ovid goes on to relate the story of Pygmalion and the result of his disgust for these women (Metamorphoses 10. 243-97). Pygmalion saw these women leading a life of sin and was repelled by the many vices that nature had implanted in the feminine mind. And so he lived alone without a wife for a long time doing without a woman to share his bed. Meanwhile he fashioned happily a statue of ivory, white as snow, and gave it a beauty surpassing that of any woman born; and he fell in love with what he had made. It looked like a real maiden who you would believe was alive and willing to move, had not modesty prevented her. To such an extent art concealed art; Pygmalion wondered at the body he had fashioned and the flames of passion burned in his breast. He often ran his hands over his creation to test whether it was real flesh and blood or ivory. And he would not go so far as to admit that it was ivory. He gave it kisses and thought that they were returned; he spoke to it and held it and believed that his fingers sank into the limbs that he touched and was afraid that a bruise might appear as he pressed her close. Sometimes he enticed her with blandishments, at other times he brought her gifts that please a girl: shells and smooth pebbles, little birds, flowers of a thousand colors, lilies, painted balls, and drops of amber, the tears wept by Phaethon's sisters who had been changed into trees. He also clothed her limbs with garments, put rings on her fingers, draped long necklaces around her neck, dangled jewelry from her ears, hung adornments on her breast. All was becoming but she looked no less beautiful naked. He placed her on his bed with covers dyed in Tyrian purple and laid her down, to rest her head on soft pillows of feathers as if she could feel them.

The most celebrated feast day of Venus in the whole of Cyprus arrived; heifers, their crooked horns adorned with gold, were slaughtered by the blow of the axe on their snowy necks and incense smoked. When he had made his offering at the altar, Pygmalion stood and timidly prayed: "If you gods are able to grant everything, I desire for my wife . . . " He did not dare to say "my ivory maiden." Golden Venus herself was present at her festival and understood what his prayers meant. As an omen of her kindly will a tongue of flame burned bright and flared up in the air. When he returned home Pygmalion grasped the image of his girl and lay beside her on the bed and showered her with kisses. She seemed to be warm. He touched her with his lips again and felt her breasts with his hands. At his touch the ivory grew soft, and its rigidity gave way to the pressure of his fingers; it yielded just as Hymettan wax when melted in the sun is fashioned into many shapes by the working of the hands and made pliable. He is stunned but dubious of his joy and fearful he is wrong. In his love he touches this answer to his prayers. It was a body; the veins throbbed as he felt them with his thumb. Then in truth Pygmalion was full of prayers in which he gave thanks to Venus. At last he presses his lips on lips that are real and the maiden feels the kisses she is given and as she raises her eyes to meet his she sees both her lover and the sky. The goddess is present at the marriage that she has made, and now when the crescent moon had become full nine times Pygmalion's wife gave birth to Paphos, and from him the place got its name. Galatea is the name given to Pygmalion's beloved in later modem versions of the tale. Many of Aphrodite's characteristics are Oriental in tone, and specific links can be found that are clearly Phrygian, Syrian, and Semitic in origin. In the most famous of her myths she is confused with the great Phoenician goddess, Astarte; they have in common as their love a young and handsome youth named by the Greeks Adonis.

Perhaps the best-known version of the story of Aphrodite and Adonis is told by Ovid. Paphos (the son of Pygmalion and Galatea) had a son, Cinyras. Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyras, fell desperately in love with her own father. Tormented by her sense of shame and guilt, the poor girl was on the point of suicide, but she was rescued just in time by her faithful nurse, who eventually wrenched the secret from her. Although the old woman was horrified by what she learned, she preferred to help satisfy the girl's passion rather than to see her die. It was arranged that the daughter should go to the bed of her father without his knowing her identity, and their incestuous relations continued for some time until Cinyras in dismay found out with whom he had been sleeping. In terror Myrrha fled from the wrath of her father. As he pursued her she prayed for deliverance and was changed into a myrrh tree which continually drips with her tears. Myrrha had become pregnant by her father and from the tree was born a beautiful son named Adonis, who grew up to be a most handsome youth and keen hunter. At the sight of him Aphrodite fell desperately in love. She warned Adonis against the dangers of the hunt, telling him to be especially wary of any wild beasts that would not turn and flee but stood firm. Ovid's story continues as follows (Metamorphoses 10. 708-39): These were the warnings of Venus and she rode away through the air in her chariot yoked with swans. But Adonis' courageous nature stood in the way of her admonitions. By chance his dogs followed the clear tracks of a wild boar and frightened it from its hiding place. As it was ready to come out of the woods, the son of Cinyras hit a glancing blow on its side. With its crooked snout the savage beast immediately dislodged the blood-stained spear and made for the frightened youth as he fled for safety. The boar buried its tusk deep within his groin and brought him down on the yellow sand, dying. As Venus was being borne through the air in her light chariot on the wings of swans (she had not yet reached Cyprus), she heard the groans of the dying boy from afar and turned the course of her white birds toward them. When she saw from the air above his lifeless body lying in his own blood, she rushed down, and rent her bosom and her hair and beat her breast with hands not meant to do such violence. She complained against the Fates, crying: "But still everything will not be subject to your decrees; a memorial of my grief for you, Adonis, will abide forever.

The scene of your death will be re-created annually with the ritual of my grief performed. But your blood will be transformed into a flower. 0 Persephone, you were allowed at one time to change the limbs of the maiden Mentha into the fragrant mint-will I be begrudged then the transformation of my hero, the son of Cinyras?" With these words she sprinkled fragrant nectar on his blood which, at the touch of the drops, began to swell just like a gleaming bubble in the rain. In no longer than an hour's time a flower sprang from the blood, red as the thick skin of the fruit of the pomegranate that hides the seeds within. Yet the flower is of brief enjoyment for the winds (which give it its name, anemone) blow upon it; with difficulty it clings to life and falls under the blasts and buffeting. Ovid's story predicts the rites associated with the worship of Adonis involving ceremonial wailing and the singing of dirges over the effigy of the dead youth. Obviously we have here once again a rendition of a recurrent theme: the Great Mother and her lover, who dies as vegetation dies and comes back to life again. Another version of the myth makes this even clearer. When Adonis was an infant, Aphrodite put him in a chest and gave it to Persephone to keep. Persephone looked inside and once she saw the beauty of the boy she refused to give him back. Zeus settled the quarrel that ensued by deciding that Adonis would stay with Persephone below one part of the year and with Aphrodite in the upper world for the other part. It is possible to detect similarities between Easter celebrations of the dead and risen Christ in various parts of the world and those in honor of the dead and risen Adonis. Christianity, too, absorbed and transformed the ancient conception of the sorrowing goddess with her lover dying in her arms to that of the sad Virgin holding in her lap her beloved Son. Parallels to the figures of Aphrodite and Adonis may be found in the Assyrio-Babylonian myth of Ishtar and Tammuz and more readily and obviously in the Phrygian story of Cybele and Attis. The Oriental touches are apparent in the myth of the Great Mother and her lover. Cybele was sprung from the earth, originally a bisexual deity but then reduced to a female. From the severed organ an almond tree arose. Nana, the daughter of the god of the river Sangarios, picked a blossom from the tree and put it in her bosom; the blossom disappeared, and Nana found herself pregnant.

A son, Attis, was born and exposed, but a he-goat attended him. Attis grew up to be a handsome youth, and Cybele fell in love with him; however, he loved another, and Cybele in her jealousy drove him mad. In his madness Attis castrated himself and died. Cybele repented and obtained Zeus' promise that the body of Attis would never decay. In her worship Cybele was followed by a retinue of devotees who worked themselves into a frenzy of devotion that could lead to self-mutilation. The orgiastic nature of her ritual is suggested by the frantic music that accompanied her: the beating of drums, the clashing of cymbals, and the blaring of horns. The myth explains why her priests (called Galli) were eunuchs. It is also easy to see how the din that attended Cybele could be confused with the ritual connected with another mother-goddess, Rhea, whose attendants long ago hid the cries of the infant Zeus from his father, Cronus, by the clash of their music. Attis, then, like Adonis is another resurrection-god, and their personalities become merged in the tradition. Like Adonis, Attis may die not through his self-inflicted wounds but by the tusk of a boar. Furthermore Attis, like Adonis, comes back to life with the rebirth of vegetation. We have evidence of springtime ceremonies at which the public mourned and rejoiced for the death and rebirth of Attis.

We can ascertain, too, the nature of the secret and mystic rites that were also a part of his worship. Frazer provides a compelling reconstruction. Our information as to the nature of these mysteries and the date of their celebration is unfortunately very scanty, but they seem to have included a sacramental meal and a baptism of blood. In the sacrament the novice became a partaker of the mysteries by eating out of a drum and drinking out of a cymbal, two instruments of music which figured prominently in the thrilling orchestra of Attis. The fast which accompanied the mourning for the dead god may perhaps haoe been designed to prepare the body of the communicant for the reception of the blessed sacrament by purging it of all that could defile by contact the sacred elements. In the baptism the devotee, crowned with gold and wreathed with fillets, descended into a pit, the mouth of which was covered with a wooden grating. A bull, adorned with garlands of flowers, its forehead glittering with gold leaf, was then driven on to the grating and there stabbed to death with a consecrated spear. Its hot reeking blood poured in torrents through the apertures, and was receioed with devout eagerness by the worshipper on every part of his person and garments, till he emerged from the pit, drenched, dripping, and scarlet from head to foot, to receive the homage, nay the adoration of his fellows as one who had been born again to eternal lije and had washed away his sins in the blood of the bull. For some time afterwards the fiction of a new birth was kept up by dieting him on milk like a newborn babe. The regeneration of the worshiper took place at the same time as the regeneration of his god, namely at the vernal equinox.