The Aphrodites, The Lovers & The Devil
Aphrodite on her goat with a satyr and a cupid nearby on a background of peonies.
In Hesiod’s Theogyny, the authors epithet for Aphrodite translates to “fond of genitals.”
This is because of the way she came into the world, with Uranius spread out over Earth, and her brother Zeus rushing to castrate his own father. From that severance, the Greek goddess of love sprang.
And hence comes the argument about her foam birth. It can be taken two ways, and many scholars, including William Hansen, say both can be correct. She is the foam goddess of sexuality and the foam born goddess of the sea.
Much can be said of her possessiveness and vanity, particularly in regards to her son Eros, going so far as to make his pregnant wife do all kinds of stunts to win her elusive favor. Why? Because homegirl...looked too much like Aphrodite herself. A mess.
This, of course, is Common Aphrodite, or Aphrodite Pandemos. There’s a split among the ancients about the two Aphrodites: one, the Aphrodite who tortured the future mother of her grandchild and the other who embodied the most high minded love, Aphrodite Ourania or Heavenly Aphrodite.
Honestly, the split between the Aphrodites makes it more comprehensible that Venus rules both Taurus (definitely Common Aphrodite in my book) and Libra (Heavenly Aphrodite all the way).
They both have similar qualities, but one is a reflection of her father, Uranus or Ouranos, and the other, of her mother the Earth. One goddess is of the sky, the other of the land; one a deity of high minded ideals, the other firmly rooted in the body. They both garnered equal respect, but the latter, Common Aphrodite, was much more likely to be worshiped, according to Plato’s The Symposium. In fact, she was called Aphrodite of the People.
Aphrodite wearing a robe and a hood near two children on a universe background.
This version of Venus can be seen first in The Empress (definitely Common Aphrodite), the same who works within, but does not rule, The Devil. The other Aphrodite is hard at work, under the name of her titan brother Kronos in The Devil.
We can see the split within that divide as well. Common Aphrodite was not as bright. She was was definitely foam born in a way that was only tangentially about the sea. We can see her in the erotic imagery of the Devil, and in the story of Cupid & Psyche, particularly when she made Psyche sort beans and grains by hand. (Psyche in her infinite beauty, got ants to sort them for her.) Her need for sex and control do not have built in limits.
Notably, Heavenly Aphrodite was older and wiser than Common Aphrodite. Originally her priestesses took a vow of chastity as a matter of “purity. She is intellectual and measured in her approach to love. We see her in The Lovers.
More about the acolyte cards and their long, tangled roots incoming!
Hansen, William. “Foam-Born Aphrodite and the Mythology of Transformation.” The American Journal of Philology, vol. 121, no. 1, 2000, pp. 1–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1561644. Accessed 22 Feb. 2021.
Plato, , Seth Benardete, and Allan Bloom. Plato's Symposium. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Print.
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