As noted earlier, Aphrodite also figured in the legend of Pyg-
malion, king of Cyprus. Pygmalion carved a statue of his ideal wo-
man out of ivory—and the more he looked at it, the more he fell in
love with his own creation. At a festival in honor of Aphrodite, he
prayed to her for a wife like his statue. Later, as he kissed the ivory
figure, the statue came alive. Now she was Galatea, whom he mar-
ried—Aphrodite’s answer to his prayers.
The Goddess of Love and Beauty also had many amorous liaisons
with mortal men. For example, when Aphrodite saw Anchises
grazing his cattle on a mountainside, she was seized by a desire for
him (a mortal with a “body very much like a god,” as Homer de-
scribed him). Pretending to be a beautiful maiden, she stirred his
passion with her words, and seduced him.
Later, when he fell asleep, she shed her mortal disguise and
awakened her sleeping lover. She revealed that she would conceive
their son, Aeneas, who would be famous as the legendary founder
of Rome, and warned him not to reveal to anyone that she was the
mother of his son. Anchises was said to later have drunk too much
and boasted of his love affair with Aphrodite—whereupon he was
struck by lightning and crippled.
Another famous mortal lover was Adonis, a handsome, youthful
hunter. Aphrodite feared for his life and warned him to avoid fero-
cious beasts, but the thrill of the hunt and his fearlessness over-
powered her advice. One day, while out hunting, his dogs flushed
out a wild boar. Adonis wounded the animal with his spear, which
provoked the pain-maddened beast to turn on him and savagely
tear him to pieces.
After his death, Adonis was permitted to return from the under-
world to Aphrodite for part of the year (Aphrodite shared him with
Persephone). This myth cycle of death and return was the basis of
the cult of Adonis. His annual return to Aphrodite symbolized the
return of fertility.
Women were also powerfully affected by Aphrodite. Compelled
to follow Aphrodite’s dictates, unable to resist being drawn toward
whomever Aphrodite decreed, a mortal woman could find herself
in great jeopardy, as shown in the myth of Myrrha.
Goddesses in Everywoman