Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings.   For this Aphrodite April Femme Fatale Friday, I am devoting a whole post to discussing the Birth of Venus!   

So, Aphrodite in Greece and Venus in Rome have much of their mythos intertwined, as we well know.   There are two different stories about the birth of Aphrodite, or Venus.   Some simply state that she was the daughter of Zeus (or in Rome, Jupiter) and Dione.   However, the most famous myth of the birth story is very different.   This is the story of being born from the Sea!   This is the story that is used as the inspiration for artworks titled Birth of Venus.

The story is strange and bloody, which is quite interestingly in keeping with a Goddess who is both associated with Love and War.   So, the story begins when Gaia entreated her son, Cronos (Saturn in Rome), to help her get his father, Ouranos (Uranus in Rome), out of the way.   This is because Gaia was forced to birth many, many children, due to the repeated sexual encounters with Ouranos.   Yet, Ouranos was fearful of one of his sons eclipsing him as the supreme God, so he forced Gaia to keep all of their children within her body.   You see, Gaia was the literal embodiment of the Earth, so her body was the whole Earth, and Ouranos was the literal embodiment of the Sky.   Now, we see that this is a repeated pattern.   Each of the supreme Gods of Greco-Roman myth would imprison his children in fear, first Ouranos, then Cronos (by swallowing his children with Rhea), and finally Zeus (by swallowing Metis when she was pregnant with Athena, hence Athena’s later birth from Zeus’s head).

Cronos was more than happy to help his mother and free himself and his siblings.   The plan was that Cronos needed to castrate Ouranos.    This happened quite easily, as Gaia released Cronos from his imprisonment just as Ouranos readied to bed Gaia yet again.   This gave Cronos the perfect opportunity to sever Ouranos’s genitals.   He then threw the genitals into the Sea.  This is how Ouranos’s seed mixed with the Sea, and over time went on to form Aphrodite!

That is how one day, Aphrodite literally rose from the Sea, walking onto the shores of Cyprus.   This is why Cyprus is a major cult site to Aphrodite, as it is known to be her birthplace!   Yes, Aphrodite Venus from her very birth was a multi-faceted Great Goddess.   She rose from the Sea as a Goddess of Love, Beauty, Sexuality, Sensuality, and Fertility.   However, she was also born from a great act of violence, showing that Love and War are often connected, and that Aphrodite is also connected to being a War Goddess.   Beyond that, it relates to Aphrodite’s place as a Queen of Heaven, for she is the daughter of Ouranos, the Sky!   It is no surprise that Aphrodite is shown in mythology to be the arbiter of extreme emotions, both of Love and of Jealousy, both of deep Care and of beginning Wars, like what happened when she gifted the love of Helen to Paris, the Prince of Troy.

I hope you have enjoyed this look at the Birth of Venus and Aphrodite.    Which is your favorite version of her birth story, the simpler one, or the one that has inspired so much art?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the painting Birth of Venus by Noël-Nicolas Coypel.   I found the art on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Noël-Nicolas_Coypel_-_Birth_of_Venus_-_WGA05593.jpg.     

LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries 

Further Reading

• Blood and Roses: A Devotional for Aphrodite and Venus by Bibliotheca Alexandrina 
• Venus Star Rising by Ariel Guttman
• Mythology by Edith Hamilton