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Lecture 19

Aphrodite

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  • Golden goddess of love
  • aphrodisia(c)
  • Eros (love), Himeros (yearning)
  • Homer, Hesiod,

        Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite,

        Sappho

  • Etymology of her name: (pre-Greek)
  • Near Eastern connections: Similarities with Phoenician goddess of love Ishtar-Astarte

 

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  • Aphrodite Urania

"heavenly, celestial"

castration of Uranus

intellectual love

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  • Aphrodite Pandemos

"of all people"

Zeus=Dione

common or vulgar love

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  • Castration of Uranus

    Cythera(Cytherea), Cyprus (Cypris)

  • Zeus and Dione (she-Zeus)

Botticelli, "Venus on the half-shell"

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VENUS OF MORGANTINA

(previously at the GETTY MUSEUM)

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Capitoline Venus

Aphrodite of Cnidus

Hellenistic variant

British Museum

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Botticelli, "Primavera” c. 1477

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Rubens: c. 1638-40

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Mantegna's Parnassus: Ares and Aphrodite , the 9 muses dancing below and Hephaestus gestures at his unfaithful wife (right).

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  • "regulation husband”?
  • the institution of marriage

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Rubens, Venus and Adonis, 1630s

  • Ovid, Met. 10.519ff.
  • Myrrha
  • Contest with Persephone
  • Cybele and Attis

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Near Eastern mother goddess, often associated with an inferior male consort

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Federico Barrocci,Aeneas' Flight from Troy with Anchises, Ascanius and Creusa

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  • Athena, Artemis and Hestia: virgin goddesses, not subject to her influence
  • Aphrodite's magic girdle
  • Helen (Iliad)

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The artist's eternal search 

for perfection

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Son of Aphrodite, god of gardens

 

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Priapism