Aphrodite
AphroditeBorn from the severed genitals of Uranus according to Hesiod (Theogonia 188–206), or in the Homeric version (see Homer) daughter of Zeus and Dione (Iliad 5. 370–417), Aphrodite is the representative among the gods of an ambivalent female nature combining seductive charm, the need to procreate, and a capacity for deception, elements all found in the person of the first woman, Pandora (Hesiod Opera et Dies 60–8). There is no agreement on her historical origins; the Greeks themselves thought of her as coming from the east (Herodotus 1. 105, Pausanias 1. 14. 7), and in literature she is frequently given the name Cypris, ‘the Cyprian’. (See Cyprus.) The double tradition of her birth shows how the Greeks felt Aphrodite to be at the same time Greek and foreign, but also, on the level of mythology, that they perceived her as a powerful goddess whom...
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