Aphrodite goddess of sea foam. Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, born from sea foam
There are two versions of the origin of the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite (among the Romans, Venus). According to one, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, according to another, earlier and most common, Aphrodite was born from the blood of Uranus castrated by Cronus. This blood fell into the sea and formed a snow-white foam, so the goddess of love is also called "foam-born." It happened near the island of Cythera, but the wind carried the foam to the island of Cyprus, on the shore of which Aphrodite appeared.
Like other Olympian gods, Aphrodite was very proud. She severely punished those who did not show her respect. But those who served her faithfully, she bestowed in every possible way. She responded to the prayer of Pygmalion, the Cypriot king, who lived alone on the island and hated women, because he considered them all corrupt.
Pygmalion was also a sculptor. Once, from ivory, he carved a life-size figure of a girl, from which he could not take his eyes off. She was alive. The sculptor admired her for hours and did not notice how he fell in love with the work he created. He began to make gifts to the statue: necklaces, bracelets, rings, bought her luxurious outfits and dressed her himself. He whispered sweet words into her ear. The sculpture did not respond to his confessions. Pygmalion was in despair, he wanted her to come to life.
The time has come to celebrate the days of Aphrodite in Cyprus. Everyone tried to make something pleasant for the goddess of love, brought her different jewelry as a gift. Pygmalion also decided to make a sacrifice. He slaughtered a white heifer with gilded horns and offered her to the altar.
Oh, almighty goddess of love Aphrodite! he exclaimed. “I suffer from love. Help me revive the girl I carved from ivory. For me, there is no one better than her.
Pygmalion talked for a long time about his love for the statue, and then, saddened that he did not hear an answer, he went home. He came to the workshop where his statue stood. Imagine his surprise when, touching her hand, he noticed that it was warm. Moreover, she answered his shake. He looked into her eyes and saw a gleam in them. He smiled, and the sculpture smiled back at him. He spoke and she answered him!
Pygmalion did not believe his eyes - his sculpture came to life. Pygmalion was happy. He named the revived statue Galatea and soon married her. Over time, they had a son, who was named Paphos.
A completely opposite story happened with Narcissus, the son of the river god Cephis and a nymph. Narcissus showed no respect for Aphrodite. This young man, beautiful in appearance, but cold inside, did not love anyone. He rejected the love of beautiful nymphs, only considered himself worthy of love. Aphrodite wanted to punish the selfish. Once, when he crouched down by the stream to drink water, he saw his reflection. He couldn't tear himself away from it. A strong love for himself flared up in his heart. Narcissus did not know that this was punishment from Aphrodite.
Narcissus forgot about food, drink, just looked at himself and admired himself. He had less and less strength left, he could not tear himself away from the stream, and life gradually left him. He died without leaving the spot. The nymphs wanted to bury the beautiful young man, but did not find his body. And in the place where he died, white fragrant flowers grew, they were called daffodils.
But the goddess of love, who so cruelly punished Narcissus, herself knew the torments of love. She fell in love with Adonis, the son of the king of Cyprus. No mortal was equal to him in beauty. For the sake of Adonis, she forgot the sky itself. She stopped dressing beautifully and did not undead herself, as before. She spent all her time with young Adonis. With him she hunted in the mountains and forests of Cyprus for hares, shy deer and chamois, but she avoided a powerful boar, bear or wolf. And Adonis asked she to stay away from these predators. The goddess rarely left the royal son, and leaving him, each time she prayed to remember her requests.
But one day, while hunting in Cyprus in the absence of Aphrodite, Adonis forgot about her request. His dogs drove a terrible boar out of the thicket into a clearing, and Adonis threw his hunting dart at him. But the beast was only wounded. The enraged wounded boar rushed at the young hunter. The unfortunate man did not have time to escape. The boar with its fangs inflicted a deep wound on the young man, he fell to the ground. Aphrodite heard the moans of a dying man and full of inexpressible grief, she went to the mountains of Cyprus to look for the body of her beloved youth. Sharp stones and thorns of thorns wounded the delicate legs of the goddess, drops of her blood fell to the ground, and from this blood then lush roses grew everywhere, scarlet, like the blood of Aphrodite. Finally she found the body of Adonis. The goddess wept bitterly over the beautiful young man who died early. But the sobs of the dead cannot be resurrected.
In memory of her favorite, Aphrodite mixed his blood with divine nectar and turned it into a flower red like blood. Briefly, like the life of a young man, the time of its flowering, the wind quickly blows away the faded petals. This flower is called Adonis.
I remember a few years ago, when Yair Lapid was still entertaining, not news, his program included a joke of humor from one of the noteworthy wits of Israeli TV.
The joke was about what is the most beautiful and the most disgusting.
The most beautiful thing is imagine: a clear sky, a blue sea, a cheerful sun, gorgeous beach, and a completely naked Pamela Anderson emerges from the water. And sea moisture, and foam falls from her bodies ...
And the most disgusting (ahi magil)? The same thing: the sea, the sky, the sun, the beach, but it comes out of the water ... then followed the name of the most famous Russian-speaking member of the Knesset.
The joke itself is MAGILE, but... that's not the point.
The beautiful nude coming out of the water is one of the most ancient archetypes. No wonder Aphrodite was called foam-born - Αφροδίτη Αναδυομένη .
Name options: Aphrodite Anadyomene, Venus Anadyomene, Birth of Venus, Venus Marina.
Very interesting is the myth cited by Hesiod about the appearance of the goddess of love from the blood and sperm of castrated Uranus, which fell into the sea.
Leading the night, Uranus appeared, and he lay down
Around Gaia, burning with love desire, and everywhere
Spread around. Suddenly left hand
The son stretched out from the ambush, and with his right, grabbing a huge
A sharp-toothed sickle, cut off a cute parent quickly
Member of the childbearing and threw back his strong swing.
And not fruitlessly from the Crown hands he flew mighty:
No matter how many drops of blood spilled onto the ground from a member,
All their land accepted. And when the years turned
She gave birth to powerful Erinnias and great Giants
With long spears in mighty hands, in shining armor,
Also the nymphs that we call Melias on earth.
The father's penis, cut off with a sharp iron,
It was worn by the sea for a long time, and the white foam
Whipped around from the imperishable member. And the girl in the foam
In that one was born ... "
Hesiod, Theogony
Aphrodite Anadyomene - "surfacing, emerging from the sea" - the most popular constant epithet of the goddess and her most famous incarnation. This is an image visual arts starting with the famous but not preserved painting of Apelles, repeated many times by the masters of subsequent eras.
The most famous depiction of the birth of Anadyomene is a painting by the Italian painter of the Tuscan school, Sandro Botticelli.
"Sandro Botticelli "The Birth of Venus""
It is believed that the model for Venus was Simonetta Vespucci, the beloved of Giuliano Medici, the younger brother of the Florentine ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent.
But this plot was popular before the Renaissance and much later.
One way or another, but the fact that the most beautiful can come out of the water in the foam of the sea is known. And the worst thing too: where all sorts of reptiles, monsters, etc. come from. in myths...
There may be a combination ... There, to see the beautiful in the ugly, as the French decadents could do. Here Rimbaud has such a poem “Venus Anadyomene”, which, according to contemporaries, was a reaction to the ten-verses of François Coppé, who represented the ugliness of the century, according to Rimbaud, licked and the poems of Albert Glatigny, who was a wandering comedian and died young from consumption.
In this poem, which in the opinion of many became a turning point in aesthetics, Rimbo literally eradicates the "literary" ideas about the beautiful and desirable, and the decadent Venus, reduced to the caricature image of a prostitute, becomes the object of love desire. And at the same time, there is a frank evidence of the monstrous beauty rising from the old bath, a very wretched, very cheap prostitute.
Venus Anadyomene
Comme d'un cercueil vert en fer blanc, une tête
De femme a cheveux bruns fortement pommadés
D'une vieille baignoire émerge, lente et bête,
Avec des deficits assez mal ravaudés;
Puis le col gras et gris, les larges omoplates
Qui sailent; le dos court qui rentre et qui ressort;
Puis les rondeurs des reins semblent prendre l'essor;
La graisse sous la peau paraît en feuilles plates:
L'échine est un peu rouge, et le tout sent un goût
Horrible étrangement; on remarque surtout
Des singularités qu’il faut voir à la loupe…
Les reins portent deux mots gravés: CLARA VENUS;
-Et tout ce corps remue et tend sa large croupe
Belle hideusement d'un ulcère à l'anus.
Aphrodite, Greek, Latin Venus is the goddess of love and beauty, the most beautiful of the goddesses of ancient myths.
Its origin is not entirely clear. According to Homer, Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and the rain goddess Dione; according to Hesiod, Aphrodite was born from sea foam, fertilized by the sky god Uranus, and emerged from the sea on the island of Cyprus (hence one of her nicknames: Cyprida).
One way or another, but in any case, thanks to her beauty and all sorts of charms, Aphrodite became one of the most powerful goddesses, before which neither gods nor people could resist.
In addition, she had a whole detachment of helpers and assistants: the goddesses of female charm and beauty - the haritas, the goddesses of the seasons - the mountains, the goddess of persuasion (and flattery) Peyto, the god of passionate attraction Himer, the god of love attraction Pot, the god of marriage Hymen and the young god love Eros, from whose arrows there is no escape.
Since love plays a huge role in the lives of gods and people, Aphrodite has always been in high esteem. Those who showed respect for her and did not skimp on sacrifices could count on her goodwill. True, she was a rather fickle deity, and the happiness she bestowed was often fleeting. Sometimes she made genuine miracles that only love can do. For example, the Cypriot sculptor Pygmalion was revived by Aphrodite marble statue the woman he fell in love with. Aphrodite protected her favorites wherever she could, but she also knew how to hate, because hatred is the sister of love. So, the timid young man Narcissus, to whom the jealous nymphs reported that he neglects their charms, Aphrodite made him fall in love with himself and take his own life.
Oddly enough, Aphrodite herself was not very lucky in love, since she did not manage to keep any of her lovers; She was not happy in marriage either. Zeus gave her the most unprepossessing of all gods, the lame, always sweaty blacksmith god Hephaestus, as her husband. To console herself, Aphrodite became close to the god of war Ares and bore him five children: Eros, Anteroth, Deimos, Phobos and Harmony, then with the god of wine Dionysus (she gave birth to his son Priapus), and also, among others, with the god of trade Hermes. She even consoled herself with a mere mortal, the Dardanian king Anchises, from whom Aeneas was born to her.
In the world of myths, life has always been rich in events, and Aphrodite often took the most active part in them; but her benevolence towards the Trojan prince Paris had the most far-reaching consequences. In gratitude for the fact that Paris called Aphrodite more beautiful than Hera and Athena, she promised him the most beautiful of mortal women as his wife. She turned out to be Helen - the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, and Aphrodite helped Paris kidnap her and take her to Troy. Thus began the Trojan War, which you can read about in the articles Menelaus, Agamemnon and many others. Naturally, in this story, Aphrodite helped the Trojans, but the war was not her part. For example, as soon as she was scratched by the spear of the Achaean leader Diomedes, she ran away crying from the battlefield. As a result of a ten-year war, in which all the heroes of that time and almost all the gods participated, Paris died, and Troy was wiped off the face of the earth.
Aphrodite was clearly a goddess of Asia Minor origin and, apparently, goes back to the Phoenician-Syrian goddess Astarte, and she, in turn, to the Assyrian-Babylonian goddess of love Ishtar. The Greeks adopted this cult already in ancient times, most likely through the islands of Cyprus and Cythera, where Aphrodite was worshiped especially zealously. Hence such nicknames of the goddess as Cyprida, Paphia, the Paphos goddess - from the city of Paphos in Cyprus, where there was one of the most magnificent temples of Aphrodite (see also the article "Pygmalion"), from Cythera (Cythera) - Kythera. Myrtle, rose, apple, poppy, doves, dolphin, swallow and linden were dedicated to her, as well as many magnificent temples - not only in Paphos, but also in Knida, Corinth, Alabanda, on the island of Kos and in other places. From Greek colonies V Southern Italy her cult spread to Rome, where she was identified with the ancient Italic goddess of spring, Venus. The largest of the Roman temples of Aphrodite-Venus were the temples at the Forum of Caesar (the temple of Venus the Ancestor) and at the Via Sacre ( sacred road) to the Roman Forum (temple of Venus and Roma). The cult of Aphrodite fell into decline only after the victory of Christianity. However, thanks to poets, sculptors, artists and astronomers, her name has survived to this day.
Beauty and love attract artists of all times, so Aphrodite was depicted, perhaps, more often than all other characters of ancient myths, including in vase paintings, frescoes of Pompeii; unfortunately, about the fresco "Aphrodite emerging from the waves", created in the end. 4th c. BC e. Apelles for the temple of Asclepius on Kos, we know only from the words of ancient authors who call it "unsurpassed". The most famous of the reliefs is the so-called Aphrodite of Ludovisi, a Greek work of the 460s. BC e. (Rome, National Museum in Thermae).
The statues of Aphrodite are among the masterpieces of ancient plastic art. This is primarily "Aphrodite of Cnidus", created, probably by Praxiteles for the Cnidus temple in the 350s. BC e. (copies of it are in the Vatican Museums, in the Louvre in Paris, in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and in other collections), "Aphrodite of Cyrene" - a Roman copy of a Hellenistic statue of the 2-1 centuries. BC e. (Rome, National Museum at Thermae), "Capitolian Aphrodite" - a Roman copy of a Hellenistic statue of ser. 3 in. BC e. (Rome, Capitoline Museums), "Venus of Medicea" - a Roman copy of the statue of Cleomenes of the 2nd century. BC e. (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) and others. The finds of several Greek statues, which ancient authors do not mention at all, testify to the highest level of skill of Greek sculptors who sculpted Aphrodite, for example, “Aphrodite from Sol” (2nd century BC, Cyprus Museum in Nicosia) or the famous "Aphrodite of Melos" (late 2nd century BC, found in 1820, Paris, Louvre).
Artists of the new time were fond of Aphrodite no less than ancient ones: their paintings and sculptures are almost impossible to count. Among the most famous paintings are: "The Birth of Venus" and "Venus and Mars" by Botticelli (1483-1484 and 1483, Florence, Uffizi Gallery, and London, National Gallery), "Sleeping Venus" by Giorgione, completed after 1510 by Titian ( Dresden Gallery), Venus and Cupid by Cranach the Elder (c. 1526, Rome, Villa Borghese), Venus and Cupid by Palms the Elder (1517, Bucharest, National Gallery), Sleeping Venus and Venus and the Lute Player (Dresden gallery), The Birth of Venus, Triumph of Venus and Venus and Mars by Rubens (London, National Gallery, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Genoa, Palazzo Bianco), Sleeping Venus by Reni (after 1605) and Poussin (1630, both paintings in the Dresden Gallery), Venus with a Mirror by Velázquez (c. 1657, London, National Gallery), Boucher's Toilet of Venus and Venus Comforting Cupid (1746, Stockholm, National Museum, and 1751 , Washington, National Gallery). Of contemporary works, we can name at least “Aphrodite” by R. Dufy (c. 1930, Prague, National Gallery), “Venus with a Lantern” by Pavlovich-Barilli (1938, Belgrade, Museum of Modern Art), “Sleeping Venus” by Delvaux (1944, London , National Gallery) and the engraving "The Birth of Venus" by M. Shvabinsky (1930).
From the field of plastics it is necessary to mention at least G.R. Paolina Borghese as Venus" (1807, Rome, Villa Borghese), "Aphrodite" by B. Thorvaldsen (c. 1835, Copenhagen, Thorvaldsen Museum), "Venus the Victorious" by O. Renoir (1914), "Venus with a Pearl Necklace" A. Maillol (1918, in the London Tate Gallery), "Venus" by M. Marini (1940, USA, private collection). In the collection of the Prague National Gallery- “Venus” by Khoreyts (1914) and “Venus of Fertile Fields” by Obrovsky (1930); the sculpture "Venus emerging from the waves" was created in 1930 by V. Makovsky. In this regard, it is interesting to note that famous statue JV Myslbek "Music" (1892-1912) is a creative reworking of an antique sample. As it turned out from his creative heritage, he created it on the basis of a thorough study of the Venus of the Esquiline (1st century BC). Of course, composers also sang Aphrodite. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Vranitsky wrote the program symphony "Aphrodite", at the beginning of the 20th century. the orchestral "Hymn to Venus" was created by Manyar, Orff wrote in 1950-1951. stage concert "Triumph of Aphrodite".
Of the many poetic works dedicated to Aphrodite, the oldest, apparently, are the three "Hymns to Aphrodite", which tradition ascribes to Homer. In poetry, Aphrodite is often referred to as Cythera (Kythera), the Queen of Paphos, Paphia:
"Run, hide from the eyes,
Cythera is a weak queen! .. "
- A. S. Pushkin, "Liberty" (1817);
"At the Paphos queen
Let's ask for a fresh wreath ... "
- A. S. Pushkin, "Krivtsov" (1817);
“As a faithful son of the pathos faith…”
- A. S. Pushkin, "To Shcherbinin" (1819). Here the pathos faith is love.
