Some goddess of love for Valentine's Day

As Valentine's Day is coming up I thought it'd make a post about some goddess of love the goddess venus and Aphrodite.

The goddess Venus is the Roman god and she was originally the Earth and stones which makes her marriage to the Smith God more understandable. She was the goddess of fertility and gardening her symbols are the cabbage and roses and are most likely the reason why people give roses on Valentine's Day.

The Greek goddess of love Aphrodite was later incorporated into the myths around Venus as the Romans saw them as the same goddess. However Venus started out as being born from the sea and was associated with the fertility of seafaring so she was a goddess of fisherman. One of her symbols is the dove which has come to mean peace..

And then there's gods of sexual desire and attraction like Eros and Cupid.

In the Greek tradition Eros was one of the oldest gods because no other God could exist before sexual reproduction but him. His often depicted as a moody teenager. And in the story of psyche and Eros he falls in love with a mortal woman whose name mean soul and it is the origin of the psyche and psychiatric and her symbol is often used for psychiatrists. So in a very real way their story is of the heart and the soul forming a union. Their daughter Hedone meaning physical pleasure, bliss.

In contrast the Roman god Cupid is most often depicted as a baby with a bow and arrow that he shoots into the hearts of Mortals and sometimes God's. He said to be the son of Aphrodite. It is most likely a symbol of fertility and the outcome of sex and Love.

I must confess that I'm not particularly enamored with most gods of love most of the stories about them are horrible like most gods however I do really adore the story of Eros and psyche I like the idea of the heart and the Soul belonging together and that when they are united that creates pleasure.

In Most Greek and Roman mythology any sort of sexual relation ship is at best tumultuous and at worst horrific.

It is Aphrodite's gift to Paris of Zeus's already married daughter Helen that started the Trojan War.

In almost every story of Venus or Aphrodite she is creating trouble for people.

But then again that is what most of the stories about the gods are.

The gods do not give people happy uneventful long lives after all. They give live glorious interesting lives but the price you pay is never ending War or dying young.

Roger Ebert - "We are the playthings of the gods."

If they break one of us there are others to play with.