APHRODITE PAGE TWO
(continued from page one here)

The Three Fates assigned to Aphrodite one divine duty only - to make love. Tough work, but someone's got to do it!

According to the writer Hesiod, however, one day the goddess of war, wisdom and the crafts, Athena, caught Aphrodite secretly at work on a loom, weaving some colorful cloth.

Athena complained that Aphrodite had infringed on her own duties and threatened to abandon them altogether. Aphrodite proceeded to apologize profusely to Athena and has never done any work since.

Opposite Aphrodite high on Mount Olympus sat the god of War, Ares, and the two had an ongoing notorious love affair that scandalized all of Olympus. Ares and Aphrodite were always holding hands and giggling in the corners of the palace, which made her husband Hephaestus very jealous.

One night the two lovers stayed a little longer in bed and when Helios, the Sun God rose and saw them, he proceeded to tell Hephaestus.

The jealous husband then fashioned an invisible bronze hunting net and captured the two lovebirds, but when he assembled the Olympians to render judgment, they wanted nothing to do with punishing them.

Zeus even told Hephaestus that he was stupid to make such a golden girdle for his wife, and that he shouldn't be surprised that men could not resist her. How true!

Aphrodite had three children by Ares - Phobus, Deimus and Harmonia. She pretended these were her husband's and presented them as such to Hephaestus.

Aphrodite wasn't very faithful to her husband, to say the least. Some of her other lovers included Dionysus, god of wine, the messenger god Hermes, and the King of the Sea, Poseidon.

Two of her more famous mortal lovers were Adonis and Anchises (see below). Aphrodite "thanked" Hermes for not taking her husband's side when she was caught with Ares by spending the night with him. The result was Hermaphroditus, a double-sexed being.

Equally grateful to Poseidon for siding with her, Aphrodite bore him two sons, Rhodus and Herophilus. But Hephaestus was so in love with his wife that he chose to overlook her numerous indiscretions. She was the goddess of Love, after all!

Aphrodite's union with Dionysus produced Priapus, a horribly ugly child with enormous genitals. This revolting and obscene appearance was a punishment from Hera, wife to Zeus, who disapproved of Aphrodite's promiscuous ways.

Both Aphrodite and the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone, loved a handsome young mortal named Adonis. The two goddesses created such a stir that Zeus was asked to decide Adonis' fate.

Zeus ruled that Adonis could spend one-third of the year with Aphrodite, one-third with Persephone, and the other third was his to do as he wished. Needless to say, Adonis chose to spend his own time with Aphrodite, until he was gored to death by a wild boar.

Some say it was Ares, the jilted lover, who killed Adonis in the form of a boar. Indeed, that was the case. Ares had witnessed Aphrodite's love for Adonis and felt extreme jealousy. How come she never loved him so passionately, he thought to himself.

So the jealous lover used his godly powers to transform himself into a ferocious wild boar. Adonis, never one to shy away from a challenging hunt, took the bait and pursued the disguised god into the forest.

Event though the handsome man put up a fierce fight, his spear had no effect on the god/boar. The beast took the opportunity to gore Adonis, killing the handsome man instantly.

A crimson flower sprang up where each drop of his blood had stained the earth. It is said that every year the Greek maidens mourned for him and each spring they rejoiced when his flower, the blood-red anemone, the windflower, was seen blooming again.

Anchises, King of the Dardanians, another one of her mortal lovers, bragged about his conquest of Aphrodite in a tavern while buzzed on cheap wine, causing Zeus, the king of the Olympian gods, to strike him with one of his patented thunderbolts for his impudence.

Aphrodite intervened and deflected the bolt with her magic girdle into the feet of Anchises. He lived, but was so weakened by the shock that he never stood upright again.

They had a famous son named Aeneas, who fought in the Trojan War and later moved on to Italy. The Romans believed many of their eminent families descended from Aeneas.

APHRODITE CONCLUDES ON PAGE THREE
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