Chaos ( Ancient Greek : χάος , romanized : Kháos ) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in ancient near eastern cosmology and early Greek cosmology . It can also refer to an early state of the cosmos constituted of nothing but undifferentiated and indistinguishable matter .
143-570: Greek kháos ( χάος ) means ' emptiness , vast void, chasm , abyss ', related to the verbs kháskō ( χάσκω ) and khaínō ( χαίνω ) 'gape, be wide open', from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂n- , cognate to Old English geanian , 'to gape', whence English yawn . It may also mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss, or infinite darkness . Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 6th century BC) interprets chaos as water, like something formless that can be differentiated. Chaoskampf ( German: [ˈkaːɔsˌkampf] ; lit. '
286-526: A Chaoskampf may be found in the Enuma Elish (the only ancient near eastern text to place a cosmic battle in the context of a creation narrative), but not in the Baal Cycle or Psalm 74 where a theomachy ensues between Baal / Yahweh and the sea serpent Yam / Leviathan without being followed by creation. The notion of Chaoskampf may be further distinguished from a divine battle between
429-541: A strophion ( στρόφιον ) known as the kestos himas ( κεστὸς ἱμάς ), a saltire-shaped undergarment (usually translated as the girdle of Aphrodite ), which accentuated her breasts and made her even more irresistible to men. Such strophia were commonly used in depictions of the Near Eastern goddesses Ishtar and Atargatis . Aphrodite is almost always accompanied by Eros , the god of lust and sexual desire. In his Theogony , Hesiod describes Eros as one of
572-595: A Semitic deity, may have been influenced by the Indo-European dawn goddess. Both Aphrodite and Eos were known for their erotic beauty and aggressive sexuality and both had relationships with mortal lovers. Both goddesses were associated with the colors red, white, and gold. Michael Janda etymologizes Aphrodite's name as an epithet of Eos meaning "she who rises from the foam [of the ocean]" and points to Hesiod's Theogony account of Aphrodite's birth as an archaic reflex of Indo-European myth. Aphrodite rising out of
715-670: A suicide note to Theseus telling him that she killed herself because Hippolytus attempted to rape her. Theseus prays to Poseidon to kill Hippolytus for his transgression. Poseidon sends a wild bull to scare Hippolytus's horses as he is riding by the sea in his chariot, causing the horses to bolt and smash the chariot against the cliffs, dragging Hippolytus to a bloody death across the rocky shoreline. The play concludes with Artemis vowing to kill Aphrodite's own mortal beloved (presumably Adonis) in revenge. Glaucus of Corinth angered Aphrodite by refusing to let his horses for chariot racing mate, since doing so would hinder their speed. During
858-517: A "spiritual emptiness" and their thinking became marked by a "lazy passivity" due to the "absence of will from the life of thought". In modern Europe, Steiner claimed that people would "allow their thoughts to take possession of them", and these thoughts were increasingly filled with abstraction and "pure, natural scientific thinking". The educated middle classes began to think in a way that was "devoid of spirit", with their minds becoming "dimmer and darker", and increasing empty of spirit. Louis Dupré ,
1001-525: A Greek folk tale , originally independent of the Odyssey . In a much later interpolated detail, Ares put the young soldier Alectryon by the door to warn of Helios's arrival but Alectryon fell asleep on guard duty. Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus; Ares in rage turned Alectryon into a rooster , which unfailingly crows to announce the sunrise. After exposing them, Hephaestus asks Zeus for his wedding gifts and dowry to be returned to him; by
1144-579: A Near Eastern origin argued that Aphrodite originated as an aspect of the Greek dawn goddess Eos and that she was therefore ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess * H a éusōs (properly Greek Eos , Latin Aurora , Sanskrit Ushas ). Most modern scholars have now rejected the notion of a purely Indo-European Aphrodite, but it is possible that Aphrodite, originally
1287-614: A child, the failure of a business" shock them into reassessing their sense of meaning. Spiritual emptiness has been associated with juvenile violence. In John C. Thomas' 1999 book How Juvenile Violence Begins: Spiritual Emptiness , he argues that youth in impoverished indigenous communities who feel empty may turn to fighting and aggressive crime to fill their sense of meaninglessness. In Cornell University professor James Garbarino 's 1999 book Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them , he argues that "neglect, shame, spiritual emptiness, alienation, anger and access to guns are
1430-460: A cock. In Plato 's Timaeus , the main work of Platonic cosmology, the concept of chaos finds its equivalent in the Greek expression chôra , which is interpreted, for instance, as shapeless space ( chôra ) in which material traces ( ichnê ) of the elements are in disordered motion (Timaeus 53a–b). However, the Platonic chôra is not a variation of the atomistic interpretation of the origin of
1573-455: A different aspect of the same goddess or used by a different local cult. Thus she was also known as Cytherea ( Lady of Cythera ) and Cypris ( Lady of Cyprus ), because both locations claimed to be the place of her birth. Sappho 's Ode to Aphrodite is one of the earliest poems dedicated to the goddess and survives from the Archaic period nearly complete. In Greek mythology , Aphrodite
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#17327823891261716-399: A divine and perpetual substance less definite than the common elements ( water , air , fire , and earth ) as they were understood to the early Greek philosophers. Everything is generated from apeiron , and must return there according to necessity. A conception of the nature of the world was that the earth below its surface stretches down indefinitely and has its roots on or above Tartarus ,
1859-650: A festival on the anniversary of his death. In one version of the story, Aphrodite injured herself on a thorn from a rose bush and the rose, which had previously been white, was stained red by her blood. According to Lucian 's On the Syrian Goddess , each year during the festival of Adonis, the Adonis River in Lebanon (now known as the Abraham River ) ran red with blood. The myth of Adonis
2002-615: A few of the elements common to violent boys". A professor of human development, Garbarino claims that violent boys have an "alienation from positive role models" and "a spiritual emptiness that spawns despair". These youth are seduced by the violent fantasy of the US gun culture, which provides negative role models of tough, aggressive men who use power to get what they want. He claims that boys can be helped by giving them "a sense of purpose" and "spiritual anchors" that can "anchor boys in empathy and socially engaged moral thinking". Spiritual emptiness
2145-551: A fine, near invisible net. The next time Ares and Aphrodite had sex together, the net trapped them both. Hephaestus brought all the gods into the bedchamber to laugh at the captured adulterers, but Apollo , Hermes , and Poseidon had sympathy for Ares and Poseidon agreed to pay Hephaestus for Ares's release. Aphrodite returned to her temple in Cyprus, where she was attended by the Charites . This narrative probably originated as
2288-637: A god and the enemy of his people. Parallel concepts appear in the Middle East and North Africa, such as the abstract conflict of ideas in the Egyptian duality of Maat and Isfet or the battle of Horus and Set , or the more concrete parallel of the battle of Ra with the chaos serpent Apophis . Hesiod and the Pre-Socratics use the Greek term in the context of cosmogony . Hesiod's Chaos has been interpreted as either "the gaping void above
2431-401: A handsome mortal shepherd who lived in the foothills beneath Mount Ida near the city of Troy . Aphrodite appears to Anchises in the form of a tall, beautiful, mortal virgin while he is alone in his home. Anchises sees her dressed in bright clothing and gleaming jewelry, with her breasts shining with divine radiance. He asks her if she is Aphrodite and promises to build her an altar on top of
2574-533: A highly contrived etymology, deriving Aphrodite from the compound habrodíaitos ( ἁβροδίαιτος ), "she who lives delicately", from habrós and díaita . The alteration from b to ph is explained as a "familiar" characteristic of Greek "obvious from the Macedonians ". In the Cypriot syllabary , a syllabic script used on the island of Cyprus from the eleventh until the fourth centuries BC, Aphrodite's name
2717-411: A hobby or recreational activity to regain their interest in life. In Austria philosopher/educator Rudolf Steiner 's (1861–1925) thinking, spiritual emptiness was a major problem in the educated European middle class. In his 1919 lectures he argued that European culture became "empty of spirit" and "ignorant of the needs, the conditions, that are essential for the life of the spirit". People experienced
2860-620: A new order emerges and a primordial state as a merging of opposites, such as heaven and earth, which must be separated by a creator deity in an act of cosmogony . In both cases, chaos referring to a notion of a primordial state contains the cosmos in potentia but needs to be formed by a demiurge before the world can begin its existence. The use of chaos in the derived sense of "complete disorder or confusion" first appears in Elizabethan Early Modern English , originally implying satirical exaggeration. " Chaos " in
3003-399: A professor of philosophy at Yale University, argues that the "spiritual emptiness of our time is a symptom of its religious poverty". He claims that "many people never experience any emptiness: they are too busy to feel much absence of any kind"; they only realize their spiritual emptiness if "painful personal experiences -- the death of a loved one, the collapse of a marriage, the alienation of
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#17327823891263146-434: A public display of grief. In Hesiod's Works and Days , Zeus orders Aphrodite to make Pandora , the first woman, physically beautiful and sexually attractive, so that she may become "an evil men will love to embrace". Aphrodite "spills grace" over Pandora's head and equips her with "painful desire and knee-weakening anguish", thus making her the perfect vessel for evil to enter the world. Aphrodite's attendants, Peitho,
3289-416: A regular schedule of work and social activities. Other solutions which have been proposed to reduce a sense of emptiness are getting a pet or trying Animal-Assisted Therapy ; getting involved in spirituality such as meditation or religious rituals and service; volunteering to fill time and bring social contact; doing social interactions , such as community activities, clubs, or outings; or finding
3432-418: A sense of emptiness is associated with social alienation of the individual. This sense of alienation may be suppressed while working, due to the routine nature of work tasks, but during leisure hours or during the weekend, people may feel a sense of "existential vacuum" and emptiness. In political philosophy, emptiness is associated with nihilism . Literary critic Georg Lukács (born in 1885) argued against
3575-479: A state of emptiness, the "still mind of the sage is the mirror of heaven and earth, the glass of all things", a state of "vacancy, stillness, placidity, tastelessness, quietude, silence, and non-action" which is the "perfection of the Tao and its characteristics, the "mirror of the universe" and the "pure mind". Aphrodite Aphrodite ( / ˌ æ f r ə ˈ d aɪ t iː / , AF -rə- DY -tee )
3718-567: A temple to Aphrodite Hathor at Philae . Statuettes of Aphrodite for personal devotion became common in Egypt starting in the early Ptolemaic times and extending until long after Egypt became a Roman province . The ancient Romans identified Aphrodite with their goddess Venus , who was originally a goddess of agricultural fertility, vegetation, and springtime. According to the Roman historian Livy , Aphrodite and Venus were officially identified in
3861-463: A variety of quick-growing plants, such as lettuce and fennel , or even quick-sprouting grains such as wheat and barley . The women would then climb ladders to the roofs of their houses, where they would place the gardens out under the heat of the summer sun. The plants would sprout in the sunlight but wither quickly in the heat. Then the women would mourn and lament loudly over the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in
4004-426: A visual sense or a moral sense are appreciated in genres such as film noir . As well, travellers and artists are often intrigued by and attracted to vast empty spaces, such as open deserts, barren wastelands or salt flats, and the open sea. In visual arts emptiness and absence were recognized as phenomena that characterize not only particular works of art (e.g. Yves Klein ) but also as a more general tendency within
4147-547: Is Philommeidḗs ( φιλομμειδής ), which means "smile-loving", but is sometimes mistranslated as "laughter-loving". This epithet occurs throughout both of the Homeric epics and the First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite . Hesiod references it once in his Theogony in the context of Aphrodite's birth, but interprets it as "genital-loving" rather than "smile-loving". Monica Cyrino notes that the epithet may relate to
4290-400: Is a key principle of design. He claims that it has become an obsessive quality that is the "driving force in contemporary American taste". Muschamp states that "along with the commercial interests that exploit this interest, it is the major factor now shaping attitudes toward public spaces, urban spaces, and even suburban sprawl." Films that depict nothingness, shadows and vagueness, either in
4433-460: Is able to stop one addiction, such as compulsive sex, they often just trade it in for another addictive behaviour, such as gambling or overeating. A number of novelists and filmmakers have depicted emptiness. The concept of "emptiness" was important to a "good deal of 19th–20th century Western imaginative literature". Novelist Franz Kafka depicted a meaningless bizarre world in The Trial and
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4576-490: Is also part of a natural process of grief , as resulting death of a loved one, or other significant changes. The particular meanings of "emptiness" vary with the particular context and the religious or cultural tradition in which it is used. While Christianity and Western sociologists and psychologists view a state of emptiness as a negative, unwanted condition, in some Eastern philosophies such as Buddhist philosophy and Taoism , emptiness ( Śūnyatā ) represents seeing through
4719-468: Is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman goddess counterpart Venus , desire, sex , fertility , prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles , roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte , a cognate of
4862-403: Is associated with spiritual love, and Pandemos with physical love (desire). A representation of Ourania with her foot resting on a tortoise came to be seen as emblematic of discretion in conjugal love; it was the subject of a chryselephantine sculpture by Phidias for Elis , known only from a parenthetical comment by the geographer Pausanias . One of Aphrodite's most common literary epithets
5005-591: Is associated with the festival of the Adonia , which was celebrated by Greek women every year in midsummer. The festival, which was evidently already celebrated in Lesbos by Sappho's time, seems to have first become popular in Athens in the mid-fifth century BC. At the start of the festival, the women would plant a "garden of Adonis", a small garden planted inside a small basket or a shallow piece of broken pottery containing
5148-509: Is attested in the forms 𐠀𐠡𐠦𐠭𐠃𐠂 (a-po-ro-ta-o-i, read right-to-left), 𐠀𐠡𐠦𐠯𐠭𐠂 (a-po-ro-ti-ta-i, samewise), and finally 𐠀𐠡𐠦𐠯𐠪𐠈 (a-po-ro-ti-si-jo, " Aphrodisian ", "related to Aphrodite", in the context of a month). The cult of Aphrodite in Greece was imported from, or at least influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia , which, in turn, was influenced by
5291-402: Is based on Ellis' 1994 collection of short stories of the same name . The film, which is set amidst the decadence of the early 1980s, depicts an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, alcohol, and drugs. Contemporary architecture critic Herbert Muschamp argues that " horror vacui " (which is Latin for "fear of emptiness")
5434-432: Is generally accepted to be of non-Greek (probably Semitic ) origin, but its exact derivation cannot be determined with confidence. Scholars in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, accepting Hesiod's "foam" etymology as genuine, analyzed the second part of Aphrodite's name as * -odítē "wanderer" or as * -dítē "bright". More recently, Michael Janda, also accepting Hesiod's etymology, has argued in favor of
5577-611: Is obscured by the darkness of delusion conceive of an essence of things and then generate attachment and hostility with regard to them. In an interview, the Dalai Lama stated that tantric meditation can be used for "heightening your own realization of emptiness or mind of enlightenment ". In Buddhist philosophy , attaining a realization of emptiness of inherent existence is key to the permanent cessation of suffering , i.e. liberation . Even while an ordinary being, if upon hearing of emptiness great joy arises within again and again,
5720-444: Is often connected with addiction, especially by Christian-influenced addiction organizations and counsellors. Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous , argued that one of the impacts of alcoholism was causing a spiritual emptiness in heavy drinkers. In Abraham J. Twerski's 1997 book Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception , he argues that when people feel spiritually empty, they often turn to addictive behaviors to fill
5863-437: Is often seen as Aphrodite's son, but this is actually a comparatively late innovation. A scholion on Theocritus 's Idylls remarks that the sixth-century BC poet Sappho had described Eros as the son of Aphrodite and Uranus, but the first surviving reference to Eros as Aphrodite's son comes from Apollonius of Rhodes 's Argonautica , written in the third century BC, which makes him the son of Aphrodite and Ares. Later,
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6006-528: Is one of a peaceful existence between Abzu and Tiamat and chaos only ensues when Tiamat enters combat with Marduk . Today, the Chaoskampf concept is plagued by a lack of consistent definition and use of the term across many studies. Nicolas Wyatt defines the Chaoskampf category as follows: The Chaoskampf myth is a category of divine combat narratives with cosmogonic overtones, though at times turned secondarily to other purposes, in which
6149-693: Is probably derived from the ancient Sumerian legend of Inanna and Dumuzid . The Greek name Ἄδωνις ( Adōnis , Greek pronunciation: [ádɔːnis] ) is derived from the Canaanite word ʼadōn , meaning "lord". The earliest known Greek reference to Adonis comes from a fragment of a poem by the Lesbian poet Sappho ( c. 630 – c. 570 BC ), in which a chorus of young girls asks Aphrodite what they can do to mourn Adonis's death. Aphrodite replies that they must beat their breasts and tear their tunics. Later references flesh out
6292-514: Is the younger of the two goddesses: the common Aphrodite, born from the union of Zeus and Dione, and the inspiration of heterosexual desire and sexual promiscuity, the "lesser" of the two loves. Paphian (Παφία), was one of her epithets, after the Paphos in Cyprus where she had emerged from the sea at her birth. Among the Neoplatonists and, later, their Christian interpreters, Ourania
6435-482: Is thus brought within the framework of an explicitly physical investigation. It has now outgrown the mythological understanding to a great extent and, in Aristotle's work, serves above all to challenge the atomists who assert the existence of empty space." For Ovid , (43 BC – 17/18 AD), in his Metamorphoses , Chaos was an unformed mass, where all the elements were jumbled up together in a "shapeless heap". Before
6578-570: Is unmarried and the wife of Hephaestus is Aglaea , the youngest of the three Charites . In Book Eight of the Odyssey , however, the blind singer Demodocus describes Aphrodite as the wife of Hephaestus and tells how she committed adultery with Ares during the Trojan War . The sun-god Helios saw Aphrodite and Ares having sex in Hephaestus's bed and warned Hephaestus, who fashioned
6721-461: The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus tells how, when the women of the island of Lemnos refused to sacrifice to Aphrodite, the goddess cursed them to stink horribly so that their husbands would never have sex with them. Instead, their husbands started having sex with their Thracian slave-girls . In anger, the women of Lemnos murdered the entire male population of the island, as well as all
6864-496: The Church of Aphrodite , Wicca , and Hellenism . Hesiod derives the name Aphrodite from aphrós ( ἀφρός ) "sea-foam", interpreting the name as "risen from the foam", but most modern scholars regard this as a spurious folk etymology . Early-modern scholars of classical mythology attempted to argue that Aphrodite's name was of Greek or Indo-European origin, but these efforts have mostly been abandoned. Aphrodite's name
7007-593: The East Semitic goddess Ishtar , whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna . Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera , Cyprus , Corinth , and Athens . Her main festival was the Aphrodisia , which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia , Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes , an association which led early scholars to propose
7150-559: The Garden of the Hesperides and instructed him to toss them in front of Atalanta as he raced her. Hippomenes obeyed Aphrodite's order and Atalanta, seeing the beautiful, golden fruits, bent down to pick up each one, allowing Hippomenes to outrun her. In the version of the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses , Hippomenes forgets to repay Aphrodite for her aid, so she causes the couple to become inflamed with lust while they are staying at
7293-512: The Paracelsian notion of chaos. The g in gas is due to the Dutch pronunciation of this letter as a spirant , also employed to pronounce Greek χ . The term chaos has been adopted in modern comparative mythology and religious studies as referring to the primordial state before creation, strictly combining two separate notions of primordial waters or a primordial darkness from which
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#17327823891267436-633: The Theogony , Hesiod describes Dione as an Oceanid , but Apollodorus makes her the thirteenth Titan , child of Gaia and Uranus. Aphrodite is consistently portrayed as a nubile, infinitely desirable adult, having had no childhood. She is often depicted nude. In the Iliad , Aphrodite is the apparently unmarried consort of Ares , the god of war, and the wife of Hephaestus is a different goddess named Charis . Likewise, in Hesiod's Theogony , Aphrodite
7579-530: The Vedic deity Ushas . Modern scholars, due to the believed Near Eastern origins of Aphrodite's worship, have since proposed Semitic origins for the name. Some scholars, such as Fritz Hommel , have suggested that Aphrodite's name is a hellenized pronunciation of the name " Astarte "; other scholars, however, reject this as being linguistically untenable. Martin West reconstructs a Cyprian Canaanite form of
7722-486: The existentialist French authors sketched a world cut off from purpose or reason in Jean-Paul Sartre 's La Nausée and Albert Camus ' L'étranger . Existentialism influenced 20th century poet T.S. Eliot , whose poem " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock " describes an "anti-hero or alienated soul, running away from or confronting the emptiness of his or her existence". Professor Gordon Bigelow argues that
7865-530: The gnomi ", i.e., the element of the gnomes , through which these spirits move unobstructed as fish do through water, or birds through air. An alchemical treatise by Heinrich Khunrath , printed in Frankfurt in 1708, was entitled Chaos . The 1708 introduction states that the treatise was written in 1597 in Magdeburg, in the author's 23rd year of practicing alchemy. The treatise purports to quote Paracelsus on
8008-477: The light which first existed to come into being. Her desire appears as a likeness with incomprehensible greatness that covers the heavenly universe, diminishing its inner darkness while a shadow appears on the outside which causes Chaos to be formed. From Chaos, every deity including the Demiurge is born. The Greco-Roman tradition of prima materia , notably including the 5th- and 6th-century Orphic cosmogony,
8151-442: The "highest yoga tantra initiation"; realizing the emptiness of inherent existence of the mind is the "fundamental innate mind of clear light, which is the subtlest level of the mind", where all "energy and mental processes are withdrawn or dissolved", so that all that appears to the mind is "pure emptiness". As well, emptiness is "linked to the creative Void, meaning that it is a state of complete receptivity and perfect enlightenment",
8294-580: The "mirror of the universe" and the "pure mind". The Tao Te Ching claims that emptiness is related to the "Tao, the Great Principle, the Creator and Sustainer of everything in the universe". It is argued that it is the "state of mind of the Taoist disciple who follows the Tao", who has successfully emptied the mind "of all wishes and ideas not fitted with the Tao's Movement". For a person who attains
8437-487: The "spiritual emptiness and moral inadequacy of capitalism", and argued in favour of communism as an "entirely new type of civilization, one that promised a fresh start and an opportunity to lead a meaningful and purposeful life." The concept of "emptiness" was important to a "certain type of existentialist philosophy and some forms of the Death of God movement". Existentialism, the "philosophic movement that gives voice to
8580-561: The Charites, and the Horae, adorn Pandora with gold and jewelry. According to one myth, Aphrodite aided Hippomenes , a noble youth who wished to marry Atalanta , a maiden who was renowned throughout the land for her beauty, but who refused to marry any man unless he could outrun her in a footrace . Atalanta was an exceedingly swift runner and she beheaded all of the men who lost to her. Aphrodite gave Hippomenes three golden apples from
8723-593: The Earth created when Earth and Sky are separated from their primordial unity" or "the gaping space below the Earth on which Earth rests". Passages in Hesiod's Theogony suggest that Chaos was located below Earth but above Tartarus . Primal Chaos was sometimes said to be the true foundation of reality, particularly by philosophers such as Heraclitus . In Hesiod 's Theogony , Chaos was the first thing to exist: "at first Chaos came to be" (or was), but next (possibly out of Chaos) came Gaia , Tartarus , and Eros (elsewhere
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#17327823891268866-622: The Old Testament, especially several Psalms , some passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Book of Job are relevant. One locus of focus has been with respect to the term abyss / tohu wa-bohu in Genesis 1:2 . The term may refer to a state of non-being before creation or to a formless state. In the Book of Genesis , the spirit of God is moving upon the face of the waters, displacing
9009-525: The Romans, who saw Venus as a mother goddess, seized on this idea of Eros as Aphrodite's son and popularized it, making it the predominant portrayal in works on mythology until the present day. Aphrodite's main attendants were the three Charites , whom Hesiod identifies as the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome and names as Aglaea ("Splendor"), Euphrosyne ("Good Cheer"), and Thalia ("Abundance"). The Charites had been worshipped as goddesses in Greece since
9152-519: The Thracian slaves. When Jason and his crew of Argonauts arrived on Lemnos, they mated with the sex-starved women under Aphrodite's approval and repopulated the island. From then on, the women of Lemnos never disrespected Aphrodite again. In Euripides 's tragedy Hippolytus , which was first performed at the City Dionysia in 428 BC, Theseus's son Hippolytus worships only Artemis ,
9295-458: The battle against chaos ' ), also described as a "combat myth", is generally used to refer to a widespread mythological motif involving battle between a culture hero deity with a chaos monster, often in the form of a sea serpent or dragon . The term was first used with respect to the destruction of the chaos dragon Tiamat in the Enūma Eliš , although it has been observed that the primeval state
9438-456: The beginning of Greek history, long before Aphrodite was introduced to the pantheon. Aphrodite's other set of attendants was the three Horae (the "Hours"), whom Hesiod identifies as the daughters of Zeus and Themis and names as Eunomia ("Good Order"), Dike ("Justice"), and Eirene ("Peace"). Aphrodite was also sometimes accompanied by Harmonia , her daughter by Ares, and Hebe , the daughter of Zeus and Hera. The fertility god Priapus
9581-471: The chariot race at the funeral games of King Pelias , Aphrodite drove his horses mad and they tore him apart. Polyphonte was a young woman who chose a virginal life with Artemis instead of marriage and children, as favoured by Aphrodite. Aphrodite cursed her, causing her to have children by a bear. The resulting bear-like offspring Agrius and Oreius were wild cannibals who incurred the hatred of Zeus for attacking traveling strangers. Ultimately, Ares (who
9724-413: The city. Arsinoe II introduced the cult of Adonis to Alexandria and many of the women there partook in it. The Tessarakonteres , a gigantic catamaran galley designed by Archimedes for Ptolemy IV Philopator , had a circular temple to Aphrodite on it with a marble statue of the goddess herself. In the second century BC, Ptolemy VIII Physcon and his wives Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III dedicated
9867-472: The concept of " sacred prostitution " in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous. A major goddess in the Greek pantheon, Aphrodite featured prominently in ancient Greek literature . In Hesiod 's Theogony , Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam ( ἀφρός , aphrós ) produced by Uranus 's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into
10010-752: The cult of the Mesopotamian goddess known as "Ishtar" to the East Semitic peoples and as " Inanna " to the Sumerians . Pausanias states that the first to establish a cult of Aphrodite were the Assyrians , followed by the Paphians of Cyprus and then the Phoenicians at Ascalon . The Phoenicians, in turn, taught her worship to the people of Cythera . Aphrodite took on Inanna-Ishtar's associations with sexuality and procreation. Furthermore, she
10153-460: The dwellers in Olympus. We [birds] are the offspring of Eros; there are a thousand proofs to show it. We have wings and we lend assistance to lovers. How many handsome youths, who had sworn to remain insensible, have opened their thighs because of our power and have yielded themselves to their lovers when almost at the end of their youth, being led away by the gift of a quail, a waterfowl, a goose, or
10296-512: The earlier state of the universe that is likened to a "watery chaos" upon which there is choshek (which translated from the Hebrew is darkness/confusion). Some scholars, however, reject the association between biblical creation and notions of chaos from Babylonian and other (such as Chinese) myths. The basis is that the terms themselves in Genesis 1:2 are not semantically related to chaos, and that
10439-526: The entire cosmos exists in a state of chaos in Babylonian, Chinese, and other myths, whereas at most this can be said of the earth in Genesis. The presence of Chaoskampf in the biblical tradition is now contentious. The Septuagint makes no use of χάος in the context of creation, instead using the term for גיא , "cleft, gorge, chasm", in Micah 1:6 and Zachariah 14:4. The Vulgate , however, renders
10582-424: The existentialist theme of "spiritual barrenness is commonplace in literature of the 20th century", which in addition to Eliot includes Ernest Hemingway , Faulkner, Steinbeck and Anderson. Film adaptations of a number of existentialist novels capture the bleak sense of emptiness espoused by Sartre and Camus. This theme of emptiness has also been used in modern screenplays. Mark Romanek 's 1985 film Static tells
10725-404: The eyes moisten with tears of great joy, and the hairs of the body stand on end, such a person has the seed of the mind of a complete Buddha; He is a vessel for teachings on thatness , and ultimate truth should be taught to him. After that, good qualities will grow in him. The Dalai Lama argues that tantric yoga trainees need to realize the emptiness of inherent existence before they can go on to
10868-457: The face of the waters" (Gen. 1:2), Chaos was further identified with the classical element of Water . Ramon Llull (1232–1315) wrote a Liber Chaos , in which he identifies Chaos as the primal form or matter created by God. Swiss alchemist Paracelsus (1493–1541) uses chaos synonymously with "classical element" (because the primeval chaos is imagined as a formless congestion of all elements). Paracelsus thus identifies Earth as "the chaos of
11011-422: The fact that, in many artistic depictions of Aphrodite, she is shown smiling. Other epithets of her include Mechanitis meaning skilled in inventing and Automata because, according to Servius , she was the source of spontaneous love. Common literary epithets of Aphrodite are Cypris and Cythereia , which derive from her associations with the islands of Cyprus and Cythera respectively. On Cyprus, Aphrodite
11154-448: The four original primeval forces born at the beginning of time, but, after the birth of Aphrodite from the sea foam, he is joined by Himeros and, together, they become Aphrodite's constant companions. In early Greek art, Eros and Himeros are both shown as idealized handsome youths with wings. The Greek lyric poets regarded the power of Eros and Himeros as dangerous, compulsive, and impossible for anyone to resist. In modern times, Eros
11297-471: The goddess of virginity, and refuses to engage in any form of sexual contact. Aphrodite is infuriated by his prideful behavior and, in the prologue to the play, she declares that, by honoring only Artemis and refusing to venerate her, Hippolytus has directly challenged her authority. Aphrodite therefore causes Hippolytus's stepmother, Phaedra , to fall in love with him, knowing Hippolytus will reject her. After being rejected, Phaedra commits suicide and leaves
11440-405: The goddess of virginity. Aphrodite tells Anchises that she is still a virgin and begs him to take her to his parents. Anchises immediately becomes overcome with mad lust for Aphrodite and swears that he will have sex with her. Anchises takes Aphrodite, with her eyes cast downwards, to his bed, which is covered in the furs of lions and bears. He then strips her naked and makes love to her. After
11583-475: The goddess to claim that Ourania and Pandemos are, in fact, separate goddesses. He asserts that Aphrodite Ourania is the celestial Aphrodite, born from the sea foam after Cronus castrated Uranus, and the older of the two goddesses. According to the Symposium , Aphrodite Ourania is the inspiration of male homosexual desire , specifically the ephebic eros , and pederasty . Aphrodite Pandemos , by contrast,
11726-425: The hero god vanquishes a power or powers opposed to him, which generally dwell in, or are identified with, the sea, and are presented as chaotic, dissolutory forces. It may also be used to refer to a dualistic battle between two gods; in that context, an alternative term that has been proposed is theomachy whereas Chaoskampf may be restrained to refer to cosmic battles in the context of creation. For example,
11869-414: The history of modern art and aesthetics . Following Davor Džalto 's argument on the modern concept of art, the gradual elimination of particular elements that traditionally characterized visual arts , which results in emptiness, is the most important phenomenon within the history and theory of art over the past two hundred years. The Buddhist term emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā ) refers specifically to
12012-419: The idea that everything is dependently originated , including the causes and conditions themselves, and even the principle of causality itself. It is not nihilism , nor is it meditating on nothingness. Instead, it refers to the absence (emptiness) of inherent existence. Buddhapalita says: What is the reality of things just as it is? It is the absence of essence. Unskilled persons whose eye of intelligence
12155-521: The illusion of independent self-nature. In the West, feeling "empty" is often viewed as a negative condition. Psychologist Clive Hazell, for example, attributes feelings of emptiness to problematic family backgrounds with abusive relationships and mistreatment. He claims that some people who are facing a sense of emptiness try to resolve their painful feelings by becoming addicted to a drug or obsessive activity (be it compulsive sex, gambling or work) or engaging in "frenzied action" or violence. In sociology,
12298-400: The inner void. In contrast to having an empty stomach, which is a clear feeling, having spiritual emptiness is hard to identify, so it fills humans with a "vague unrest". While people may try to resolve this emptiness by obsessively having sex, overeating, or taking drugs or alcohol, these addictions only give temporary satisfaction. When a person facing a crisis due to feeling spiritually empty
12441-631: The islands of Cyprus , Cythera , and Sicily . Aphrodite's Mesopotamian precursor Inanna-Ishtar was also closely associated with prostitution. Scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries believed that the cult of Aphrodite may have involved ritual prostitution , an assumption based on ambiguous passages in certain ancient texts, particularly a fragment of a skolion by the Boeotian poet Pindar , which mentions prostitutes in Corinth in association with Aphrodite. Modern scholars now dismiss
12584-400: The lama is claiming that what is thought to be real—our thoughts and feelings about people and things—"exists by being merely labeled". He argues that meditators who attain knowledge of a state of emptiness are able to realize that their thoughts are merely illusions from labelling by the mind. In Taoism , attaining a state of emptiness is viewed as a state of stillness and placidity which is
12727-518: The later legends of Hermaphroditus . Aphrodite's main festival, the Aphrodisia , was celebrated across Greece, but particularly in Athens and Corinth . In Athens, the Aphrodisia was celebrated on the fourth day of the month of Hekatombaion in honor of Aphrodite's role in the unification of Attica. During this festival, the priests of Aphrodite would purify the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos on
12870-493: The latter of these interpretations and claims the story of a birth from the foam as an Indo-European mytheme . Similarly, Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak proposes an Indo-European compound *abʰor- "very" and *dʰei- "to shine", also referring to Eos , and Daniel Kölligan has interpreted Aphrodite's name as "shining up from the mist/foam". Other scholars have argued that these hypotheses are unlikely, since Aphrodite's attributes are entirely different from those of both Eos and
13013-555: The lovemaking is complete, Aphrodite reveals her true divine form. Anchises is terrified, but Aphrodite consoles him and promises that she will bear him a son. She prophesies that their son will be the demigod Aeneas , who will be raised by the nymphs of the wilderness for five years before going to Troy to become a nobleman like his father. The story of Aeneas's conception is also mentioned in Hesiod's Theogony and in Book II of Homer's Iliad . The myth of Aphrodite and Adonis
13156-429: The lower part of the underworld. In a phrase of Xenophanes , "The upper limit of the earth borders on air, near our feet. The lower limit reaches down to the "apeiron" (i.e. the unlimited)." The sources and limits of the earth, the sea, the sky, Tartarus , and all things are located in a great windy-gap, which seems to be infinite, and is a later specification of "chaos". In Aristophanes 's comedy Birds , first there
13299-527: The merging of the "ego with its own essence", which Buddhists call the "clear light". In Ven. Thubten Chodron's 2005 interview with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the lama noted that "ordinary beings who haven't realized emptiness don't see things as similar to illusions", and one does not "realize that things are merely labeled by mind and exist by mere name". He argues that "when we meditate on emptiness, we drop an atom bomb on this [sense of a] truly existent I" and to realize that "what appears true...isn't true". By this,
13442-451: The most famous story, Zeus hastily married Aphrodite to Hephaestus in order to prevent the other gods from fighting over her. In another version of the myth, Hephaestus gave his mother Hera a golden throne, but when she sat on it, she became trapped and he refused to let her go until she agreed to give him Aphrodite's hand in marriage. Hephaestus was overjoyed to be married to the goddess of beauty, and forged her beautiful jewelry, including
13585-641: The mother of the entire Roman nation. Julius Caesar claimed to be directly descended from Aeneas's son Iulus and became a strong proponent of the cult of Venus. This precedent was later followed by his nephew Augustus and the later emperors claiming succession from him. This syncretism greatly impacted Greek worship of Aphrodite. During the Roman era, the cults of Aphrodite in many Greek cities began to emphasize her relationship with Troy and Aeneas. They also began to adopt distinctively Roman elements, portraying Aphrodite as more maternal, more militaristic, and more concerned with administrative bureaucracy. She
13728-464: The mountain if she will bless him and his family. Aphrodite lies and tells him that she is not a goddess, but the daughter of one of the noble families of Phrygia . She claims to be able to understand the Trojan language because she had a Trojan nurse as a child and says that she found herself on the mountainside after she was snatched up by Hermes while dancing in a celebration in honor of Artemis ,
13871-459: The name Eros is used for a son of Aphrodite ). Unambiguously "born" from Chaos were Erebus and Nyx . For Hesiod, Chaos, like Tartarus, though personified enough to have borne children, was also a place, far away, underground and "gloomy", beyond which lived the Titans ; and, like the earth, the ocean, and the upper air, it was also capable of being affected by Zeus's thunderbolts. The notion of
14014-532: The name as either *ʿAprodît or *ʿAproḏît , and cautiously suggests the latter as being an epithet with the meaning "She of the Villages". Aren Wilson-Wright suggests the Phoenician form *ʾAprodīt as an elative epithet meaning "unique, excellent, sublime". A number of improbable non-Greek etymologies have also been suggested. One Semitic etymology compares Aphrodite to the Assyrian barīrītu ,
14157-666: The name of a female demon that appears in Middle Babylonian and Late Babylonian texts. Hammarström looks to Etruscan , comparing (e)prθni "lord", an Etruscan honorific loaned into Greek as πρύτανις . This would make the theonym in origin an honorific, "the lady". Most scholars reject this etymology as implausible, especially since Aphrodite's name actually appears in Etruscan in the borrowed form Apru (from Greek Aphrō , clipped form of Aphrodite ). The medieval Etymologicum Magnum ( c. 1150 ) offers
14300-648: The notion of ritual prostitution in Greece as a "historiographic myth" with no factual basis. During the Hellenistic period , the Greeks identified Aphrodite with the ancient Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Isis . Aphrodite was the patron goddess of the Lagid queens and Queen Arsinoe II was identified as her mortal incarnation. Aphrodite was worshipped in Alexandria and had numerous temples in and around
14443-522: The ocean and the earth appeared—before the skies had overspread them all— the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste. It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight; and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap. According to Hyginus : "From Mist ( Caligo ) came Chaos. From Chaos and Mist, came Night ( Nox ), Day ( Dies ), Darkness ( Erebus ), and Aether ." An Orphic tradition apparently had Chaos as
14586-472: The oldest strata of her worship and see it as an indication of her Near Eastern origins. Nineteenth-century classical scholars had a general aversion to the idea that ancient Greek religion was at all influenced by the cultures of the Near East, but, even Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker , who argued that Near Eastern influence on Greek culture was largely confined to material culture, admitted that Aphrodite
14729-649: The point that "[t]he light of the soul, by the will of the Triune God, made all earthly things appear from the primal Chaos". Martin Ruland the Younger , in his 1612 Lexicon Alchemiae , states, "A crude mixture of matter or another name for Materia Prima is Chaos , as it is in the Beginning." The term gas in chemistry was coined by Dutch chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont in the 17th century directly based on
14872-406: The sea a long time, and white foam arose from the immortal flesh; with it a girl grew." After Aphrodite was born from the sea-foam, she washed up to shore in the presence of the other gods. Hesiod's account of Aphrodite's birth following Uranus's castration is probably derived from The Song of Kumarbi , an ancient Hittite epic poem in which the god Kumarbi overthrows his father Anu , the god of
15015-466: The sea. In Homer 's Iliad , however, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione . In his Symposium , Plato asserts that these two origins actually belong to separate entities; Aphrodite Urania (a transcendent "Heavenly" Aphrodite) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to "all the people"). The epithet Aphrodite Areia (the "Warlike") reveals her contrasting nature in ancient Greek religion . Aphrodite had many other epithets, each emphasizing
15158-527: The sense of alienation and despair", comes from "man's recognition of his fundamental aloneness in an indifferent universe". People whose response to the sense of emptiness and aloneness is to give excuses live in bad faith; "people who face the emptiness and accept responsibility aim to live 'authentic' lives". Existentialists argue that "man lives in alienation from God, from nature, from other men, from his own true self." Crowded into cities, working in mindless jobs, and entertained by light mass media, we "live on
15301-541: The sky, and bites off his genitals, causing him to become pregnant and give birth to Anu's children, which include Ishtar and her brother Teshub , the Hittite storm god. In the Iliad , Aphrodite is described as the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Dione's name appears to be a feminine cognate to Dios and Dion , which are oblique forms of the name Zeus . Zeus and Dione shared a cult at Dodona in northwestern Greece. In
15444-467: The son of Chronus and Ananke . Since the classic 1895 German work Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit by Hermann Gunkel , various historians in the field of modern biblical studies have associated the theme of chaos in the earlier Babylonian cosmology (and now other cognate narratives from ancient near eastern cosmologies ) with the Genesis creation narrative . Besides Genesis, other books of
15587-617: The southwestern slope of the Acropolis with the blood of a sacrificed dove . Next, the altars would be anointed and the cult statues of Aphrodite Pandemos and Peitho would be escorted in a majestic procession to a place where they would be ritually bathed. Aphrodite was also honored in Athens as part of the Arrhephoria festival. The fourth day of every month was sacred to Aphrodite. Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite
15730-404: The spiritual emptiness of life in the US suburbs. Wes Anderson 's 2007 film The Darjeeling Limited is about three brothers who "suffer from spiritual emptiness" and then "self-medicate themselves through sex, social withdrawal, and drugs." The 2008 film The Informers is a Hollywood drama film written by Bret Easton Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki and directed by Gregor Jordan . The film
15873-410: The story with more details. According to the retelling of the story found in the poem Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17/18 AD), Adonis was the son of Myrrha , who was cursed by Aphrodite with insatiable lust for her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus , after Myrrha's mother bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than the goddess. Driven out after becoming pregnant, Myrrha
16016-641: The story, the boar was either sent by Ares, who was jealous that Aphrodite was spending so much time with Adonis, or by Artemis, who wanted revenge against Aphrodite for having killed her devoted follower Hippolytus . In another version, Apollo in fury changed himself into a boar and killed Adonis because Aphrodite had blinded his son Erymanthus when he stumbled upon Aphrodite naked as she was bathing after intercourse with Adonis. The story also provides an etiology for Aphrodite's associations with certain flowers. Reportedly, as she mourned Adonis's death, she caused anemones to grow wherever his blood fell and declared
16159-424: The surface of life", so that even "people who seemingly have 'everything' feel empty, uneasy, discontented." In cultures where a sense of emptiness is seen as a negative psychological condition, it is often associated with depression. As such, many of the same treatments are proposed: psychotherapy , group therapy, or other types of counselling. As well, people who feel empty may be advised to keep busy and maintain
16302-553: The surreal story of a struggling inventor and crucifix factory worker named Ernie who feels spiritually empty because he is saddened by his parents' death in an accident. Screenwriter Michael Tolkin's 1994 film The New Age examines "cultural hipness and spiritual emptiness", creating a "dark, ambitious, unsettling" film that depicts a fashionable LA couple who "are miserable in the midst of their sterile plenty", and whose souls are stunted by their lives of empty sex, consumption, and distractions. The 1999 film American Beauty examines
16445-456: The temple of Cybele . The couple desecrate the temple by having sex in it, leading Cybele to turn them into lions as punishment. The myth of Pygmalion is first mentioned by the third-century BC Greek writer Philostephanus of Cyrene , but is first recounted in detail in Ovid's Metamorphoses . According to Ovid, Pygmalion was an exceedingly handsome sculptor from the island of Cyprus, who
16588-428: The temporal infinity was familiar to the Greek mind from remote antiquity in the religious conception of immortality . The main object of the first efforts to explain the world remained the description of its growth, from a beginning. They believed that the world arose out from a primal unity, and that this substance was the permanent base of all its being. Anaximander claims that the origin is apeiron (the unlimited),
16731-527: The third century BC when the cult of Venus Erycina was introduced to Rome from the Greek sanctuary of Aphrodite on Mount Eryx in Sicily. After this point, Romans adopted Aphrodite's iconography and myths and applied them to Venus. Because Aphrodite was the mother of the Trojan hero Aeneas in Greek mythology and Roman tradition claimed Aeneas as the founder of Rome, Venus became venerated as Venus Genetrix ,
16874-595: The time of night, darkness, Chaos". They eventually broke the surrounding Po ("night"), and light entered the universe. Next the group created three heavens for dwelling areas together with the Earth, Sun, Moon, stars, and assistant spirits. According to the Gnostic On the Origin of the World , Chaos was not the first thing to exist. When the nature of the immortal aeons was completed, Sophia desired something like
17017-706: The time of the Trojan War , he is married to Charis / Aglaea , one of the Graces , apparently divorced from Aphrodite. Afterwards, it was generally Ares who was regarded as the husband or official consort of the goddess; on the François Vase , the two arrive at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis on the same chariot, as do Zeus with Hera and Poseidon with Amphitrite . The poets Pindar and Aeschylus refer to Ares as Aphrodite's husband. Later stories were invented to explain Aphrodite's marriage to Hephaestus. In
17160-569: The version of her birth recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony , Cronus severed Uranus' genitals and threw them behind him into the sea. The foam from his genitals gave rise to Aphrodite (hence her name, which Hesiod interprets as "foam-arisen"), while the Giants , the Erinyes (furies), and the Meliae emerged from the drops of his blood. Hesiod states that the genitals "were carried over
17303-461: The waters after Cronus defeats Uranus as a mytheme would then be directly cognate to the Rigvedic myth of Indra defeating Vrtra , liberating Ushas . Another key similarity between Aphrodite and the Indo-European dawn goddess is her close kinship to the Greek sky deity, since both of the main claimants to her paternity (Zeus and Uranus) are sky deities. Aphrodite's most common cultic epithet
17446-584: The well-defined sense of chaotic complex system is in turn derived from this usage. Emptiness Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom , social alienation , nihilism and apathy . Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia , depression , loneliness , anhedonia , despair , or other mental/emotional disorders, including schizoid personality disorder , post-traumatic stress disorder , attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , schizotypal personality disorder and borderline personality disorder . A sense of emptiness
17589-479: The whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in deep Tartarus with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light. That of the Immortals did not exist until Eros had brought together all the ingredients of the world, and from their marriage Heaven, Ocean, Earth, and the imperishable race of blessed gods sprang into being. Thus our origin is very much older than that of
17732-571: The world, as is made clear by Plato's statement that the most appropriate definition of the chôra is "a receptacle of all becoming – its wetnurse, as it were" (Timaeus 49a), notabene a receptacle for the creative act of the demiurge, the world-maker. Aristotle , in the context of his investigation of the concept of space in physics, "problematizes the interpretation of Hesiod's chaos as 'void' or 'place without anything in it'. Aristotle understands chaos as something that exists independently of bodies and without which no perceptible bodies can exist. 'Chaos'
17875-660: The year with Aphrodite, one third with Persephone, and one third with whomever he chose. Adonis chose to spend that time with Aphrodite. Then, one day, while Adonis was hunting, he was wounded by a wild boar and bled to death in Aphrodite's arms. In a semi-mocking work, the Dialogues of the Gods , the satirical author Lucian comedically relates how a frustrated Aphrodite complains to the moon goddess Selene about her son Eros making Persephone fall in love with Adonis and now she has to share him with her. In different versions of
18018-671: The χάσμα μέγα or "great gulf" between heaven and hell in Luke 16:26 as chaos magnum . This model of a primordial state of matter has been opposed by the Church Fathers from the 2nd century, who posited a creation ex nihilo by an omnipotent God . In Hawaiian folklore , a triad of deities known as the "Ku-Kaua-Kahi" (a.k.a. "Fundamental Supreme Unity") were said to have existed before and during Chaos ever since eternity, or put in Hawaiian terms, mai ka po mai , meaning "from
18161-593: Was Ourania , meaning "heavenly", but this epithet almost never occurs in literary texts, indicating a purely cultic significance. Another common name for Aphrodite was Pandemos ("For All the Folk"). In her role as Aphrodite Pandemos, Aphrodite was associated with Peithō ( Πείθω ), meaning "persuasion", and could be prayed to for aid in seduction. The character of Pausanias in Plato 's Symposium , takes differing cult-practices associated with different epithets of
18304-444: Was Chaos, Night, Erebus, and Tartarus, from Night came Eros, and from Eros and Chaos came the race of birds. At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as
18447-518: Was a place of pilgrimage in the ancient world for centuries. Other versions of her myth have her born near the island of Cythera , hence another of her names, "Cytherea". Cythera was a stopping place for trade and culture between Crete and the Peloponesus , so these stories may preserve traces of the migration of Aphrodite's cult from the Middle East to mainland Greece . According to
18590-449: Was changed into a myrrh tree, but still gave birth to Adonis. Aphrodite found the baby and took him to the underworld to be fostered by Persephone . She returned for him once he was grown and discovered him to be strikingly handsome. Persephone wanted to keep Adonis, resulting in a custody battle between the two goddesses over whom should rightly possess Adonis. Zeus settled the dispute by decreeing that Adonis would spend one third of
18733-470: Was claimed as a divine guardian by many political magistrates. Appearances of Aphrodite in Greek literature also vastly proliferated, usually showing Aphrodite in a characteristically Roman manner. Aphrodite is usually said to have been born near her chief center of worship, Paphos , on the island of Cyprus , which is why she is sometimes called "Cyprian", especially in the poetic works of Sappho . The Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia , marking her birthplace,
18876-469: Was clearly of Phoenician origin. The significant influence of Near Eastern culture on early Greek religion in general, and on the cult of Aphrodite in particular, is now widely recognized as dating to a period of orientalization during the eighth century BC, when archaic Greece was on the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire . Some early comparative mythologists opposed to the idea of
19019-579: Was horrified to see that the child had a massive, permanently erect penis , a potbelly , and a huge tongue. Aphrodite abandoned the infant to die in the wilderness, but a herdsman found him and raised him, later discovering that Priapus could use his massive penis to aid in the growth of plants. The First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite ( Hymn 5 ), which was probably composed sometime in the mid-seventh century BC, describes how Zeus once became annoyed with Aphrodite for causing deities to fall in love with mortals, so he caused her to fall in love with Anchises ,
19162-462: Was killed by a wild boar . Along with Athena and Hera , Aphrodite was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War and plays a major role throughout the Iliad . Aphrodite has been featured in Western art as a symbol of female beauty and has appeared in numerous works of Western literature . She is a major deity in modern Neopagan religions , including
19305-720: Was known as Ourania (Οὐρανία), which means "heavenly", a title corresponding to Inanna's role as the Queen of Heaven . Early artistic and literary portrayals of Aphrodite are extremely similar on Inanna-Ishtar. Like Inanna-Ishtar, Aphrodite was also a warrior goddess; the second-century AD Greek geographer Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia , which means "warlike". He also mentions that Aphrodite's most ancient cult statues in Sparta and on Cythera showed her bearing arms. Modern scholars note that Aphrodite's warrior-goddess aspects appear in
19448-469: Was married to Hephaestus , the god of fire, blacksmiths and metalworking. Aphrodite was frequently unfaithful to him and had many lovers; in the Odyssey , she is caught in the act of adultery with Ares , the god of war. In the First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite , she seduces the mortal shepherd Anchises . Aphrodite was also the surrogate mother and lover of the mortal shepherd Adonis , who
19591-555: Was merged with biblical notions ( Tehom ) in Christianity and inherited by alchemy and Renaissance magic . The cosmic egg of Orphism was taken as the raw material for the alchemical magnum opus in early Greek alchemy. The first stage of the process of producing the philosopher's stone , i.e., nigredo , was identified with chaos. Because of association with the Genesis creation narrative , where "the Spirit of God moved upon
19734-595: Was renowned throughout the ancient world for its many hetairai , who had a widespread reputation for being among the most skilled, but also the most expensive, prostitutes in the Greek world. Corinth also had a major temple to Aphrodite located on the Acrocorinth and was one of the main centers of her cult. Records of numerous dedications to Aphrodite made by successful courtesans have survived in poems and in pottery inscriptions. References to Aphrodite in association with prostitution are found in Corinth as well as on
19877-784: Was so sickened by the immorality of women that he refused to marry. He fell madly and passionately in love with the ivory cult statue he was carving of Aphrodite and longed to marry it. Because Pygmalion was extremely pious and devoted to Aphrodite, the goddess brought the statue to life. Pygmalion married the girl the statue became and they had a son named Paphos, after whom the capital of Cyprus received its name. Pseudo-Apollodorus later mentions "Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus". Aphrodite generously rewarded those who honored her, but also punished those who disrespected her, often quite brutally. A myth described in Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica and later summarized in
20020-785: Was sometimes called Eleemon ("the merciful"). In Athens, she was known as Aphrodite en kēpois (" Aphrodite of the Gardens "). At Cape Colias, a town along the Attic coast, she was venerated as Genetyllis "Mother". The Spartans worshipped her as Potnia "Mistress", Enoplios "Armed", Morpho "Shapely", Ambologera "She who Postpones Old Age". Across the Greek world, she was known under epithets such as Melainis in Corinth "Black or Dark One", Skotia "Dark One", Androphonos "Killer of Men", Anosia "Unholy", and Tymborychos "Gravedigger", all of which indicate her darker, more violent nature. A male version of Aphrodite known as Aphroditus
20163-506: Was usually considered to be Aphrodite's son by Dionysus , but he was sometimes also described as her son by Hermes, Adonis, or even Zeus. A scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes 's Argonautica states that, while Aphrodite was pregnant with Priapus, Hera envied her and applied an evil potion to her belly while she was sleeping to ensure that the child would be hideous. In another version, Hera cursed Aphrodite's unborn son because he had been fathered by Zeus. When Aphrodite gave birth, she
20306-684: Was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia , which means "warlike". This epithet stresses Aphrodite's connections to Ares, with whom she had extramarital relations. Pausanias also records that, in Sparta and on Cythera, a number of extremely ancient cult statues of Aphrodite portrayed her bearing arms. Other cult statues showed her bound in chains. Aphrodite was the patron goddess of prostitutes of all varieties, ranging from pornai (cheap street prostitutes typically owned as slaves by wealthy pimps ) to hetairai (expensive, well-educated hired companions, who were usually self-employed and sometimes provided sex to their customers). The city of Corinth
20449-480: Was worshipped in the city of Amathus on Cyprus. Aphroditus was depicted with the figure and dress of a woman, but had a beard , and was shown lifting his dress to reveal an erect phallus . This gesture was believed to be an apotropaic symbol , and was thought to convey good fortune upon the viewer. Eventually, the popularity of Aphroditus waned as the mainstream, fully feminine version of Aphrodite became more popular, but traces of his cult are preserved in
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