———
Venus, one of the most celebrated deities of the ancients, was the goddess of beauty, the mother of love, the queen of laughter, the mistress of the graces, and the patroness of pleasure. Some mythologists speak of more than one. Of these, however, the Venus sprung from the froth of the sea
"Where the moist Zephyrs to the favoured shore,
From Ocean's foam the lovely goddess bore,"
after the mutilated body of Uranus had been thrown there by Saturn, is the most known, and of her in particular, ancient mythologists, as well as painters, make mention. She arose from the sea near the island of Cyprus,
"Cytherea! whom the favoured earth
Of Cyprus claims, exulting in thy birth
Bright queen! adorned with every winning grace,
The smile enchanting, and the blooming face.
Goddess! o'er Cyprus fragrant groves who reigns,
And Salamis high cultivated plains."
Horace.
Hither she was wafted by Zephyr in a sea-shell, which served as a chariot, and received on the shore by the Seasons, daughters of Jupiter and Themis.
She was soon after carried to heaven, where all the gods admired her beauty, and all the goddesses became jealous of her personal charms. Jupiter even attempted to gain her affections, but Venus refused, and the god, to fulfil her destiny, gave her in marriage to Vulcan, the most ugly and deformed of the Gods. This
marriage did not prevent the goddess of love from gratifying her inclinations, and her conduct frequently tended to cast dishonour on her husband. Her love for Mars is perhaps the most notorious on account of the disgrace which accompanied it, while her great partiality for Adonis, induced her to abandon her seat in Olympus. This mortal, who was fond of the chase, was often cautioned by his mistress not to hunt wild beasts, fearful of his being killed in the attempt; this advice he however slighted, and at last received a mortal wound from a wild boar which he had speared; and great was the misery evinced by Venus at his loss.
"Over one shoulder doth she hang her head;
Dumbly she passions, frantickly she doteth,
She thinks he could not die, he is not dead;
Her voice is stopped, her joints forget to bow,
Her eyes are mad, that they have wept till now.
* * * * * *
"She looks upon his lips, and they are pale;
She takes him by the hand, that is cold;
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,
As if they heard the woeful words she told:
She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,
Where, lo! two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies."
Shakspere.
Venus, after shedding many tears at his death, changed him into a flower.
"And in his blood, that on the ground lay spilled,
A purple flower sprung up, checkered with white;
Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood,
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood."
Shakspere.
Proserpine is said to have restored him to life, on condition of his spending six months of the year with her, and six with Venus, but this is a fable meant to apply to the alternate return of summer and winter.
"There is a flower, Anemone,
The mourner's path it cheers:
Lo! Venus, bowed with agony,
By the slain huntsman bends the knee:—
It springs, a child of tears.
"Then hither, meekest flower!—here blow
With Hyacinth:—whate'er
The legend, 'tis of ruth, of woe:
Companions meet, together grow,
Twin nurslings of Despair."
Anon.
The affection also which Venus entertained for Anchises, a youth distinguished by the most exquisite beauty, again drew her
from heaven, and induced her often to visit, in all her glory, the woods and solitary retreats of Mount Ida.
"She comes! the Goddess; through the whispering air,
Bright as the morn, descends her blushing car,
Each circling wheel a wreath of flowers entwines,
And gemmed with flowers, the silken harness shines;
The golden bits with flowery studs are decked,
And knots of flowers the crimson reins connect.
And now on earth the silver axle rings,
And the shell sinks upon its slender springs;
Light from her airy seat the Goddess bounds,
And steps celestial, press the pansied grounds."
Darwin.
Anchises, however, though warned by her not to speak of their intimacy, boasted of it one day at a feast, and was struck by thunder as a punishment for his disobedience. The power of Venus over the heart, was supported and assisted by a celebrated girdle, called zone by the Greeks, and cestus by the Latins. This mysterious girdle which gave beauty, grace, and elegance when worn even by the most deformed, was irresistible when around beauty: it excited love, and kindled even extinguished flames. Juno herself was indebted to this powerful ornament in gaining the favours of Jupiter; and Venus, though possessed of every charm, no sooner put on her cestus, than Vulcan, unable to resist the influence of love, forgot all the intrigues and infidelities of his wife, and fabricated arms even for her illegitimate children.
"In this was every art and every charm,
To win the wisest, and the coldest warm,
Kind love, the gentle vow, the gay desire,
The kind deceit, the still reviving fire,
Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,
Silence that spoke and eloquence of eyes."
Homer.
The contest of Venus for the golden apple is well known. The Goddess of Discord, not having been invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, evinced her disappointment, by throwing among the assembly of the gods, who were celebrating the nuptials, a golden apple, on which was inscribed, Detur pulchriori. All the goddesses claimed it as their own, and the contention at first became general; however, Juno, Venus, and Minerva, were left at last to decide between them, their respective right to beauty. Neither of the gods was willing, by deciding in favour of one, to draw on him
the enmity of the remaining two, they therefore appointed Paris to the unenviable task.
The goddesses appeared before their judge, and endeavoured, by profuse offers, to influence his decision. Juno promised a kingdom, Minerva glory, and Venus the fairest woman in the world for a wife. When Paris had heard their several claims, he adjudged the prize to Venus, and gave her the apple, to which she seems entitled from her beauty.
The worship of Venus was universally established; statues and temples were erected to her in every kingdom; and the ancients were fond of paying homage to a divinity who presided over love, and by whose influence alone, mankind existed. In her sacrifices, and at the festivals celebrated in her honour, too much licentiousness prevailed: victims, however, were seldom offered to her, or her altars stained with blood. The rose, the myrtle, and the apple, were sacred to Venus; among birds, the dove, the swan, and the sparrow, were her favourites. The goddess of beauty was represented among the ancients in different forms. Among the most highly valued, was that in the temple of Jupiter Olympus, where she was represented by Phidias, as rising from the sea, and crowned by the goddess of Persuasion.
—————"Phidias his keen chisel swayed
To carve the marble of the matchless maid,
That all the youth of Athens, in amaze,
At that cold beauty, with sad tears did gaze."
Thurlow.
She is generally imaged with her son Cupid, in a chariot drawn by doves, or at other times by swans or sparrows. The surnames of the goddess are numerous, and serve to show how well established her worship was all over the earth. She was called Cypria,
because particularly worshipped in the island of Cyprus; and received the name of Paphia, because at Paphos, she had a temple with an altar, on which it was asserted rain never fell, though exposed in the open air.
"O queen of love! whose smile all bright
Glads Paphos and the Cyprian isle,
Forsake those loved retreats awhile,
And to the temple bend thy flight,
Where Glycera, the young, the fair,
Invokes thy presence high,
While clouds of incense fill the air,
And waft her suppliant sigh.
"Bring in thy train the vengeful boy,
And Graces (while their robes loose flow
Gives glances of a breast of snow;)
Wantoning in their thoughtless joy.
Let Hermes grace the jocund scene,
And youth so gay and free;
For what is youth, though fair, oh! queen,
If destitute of thee?"
Horace.
The Cnidians worshipped her under the name of Venus Acræa, of Doris, and of Euploca. In her temple of Euploca, at Cnidos, was the most admired of her statues, being the most perfect piece of Praxiteles. It was formed of white marble, and appeared so much like life, that, according to some historians, a youth of the place secretly introduced himself into her temple, to offer his vows of adoration before the lifeless image.
Hero, in pursuit of whom, Leander braved the Hellespont, and whose touching story will be more minutely given hereafter, was one of the priestesses of Venus, and it was in this occupation that Leander first saw and loved her: a love which led to results so disastrous.
"Come hither, all sweet maidens, soberly,
Down looking, aye, and with a chastened light,
Hid in the fringes of your eye-lids white,
And meekly let your fair hands joined be,
As if so gentle that ye could not see
Untouched, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,
Sinking bewildered mid the dreary sea:
'Tis young Leander toiling to his death;
Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.
O horrid dream! see how his body dips,
Dead—heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile:
He's gone—up bubbles all his amorous breath."
Keats.
Venus was also surnamed Cytheræa, because she was the chief deity of Cythera; Phillommeis, as the queen of laughter; Tellesigama, because she presided over marriage; Verticordia, because she could turn the hearts of women to cultivate chastity; Basilea, as the queen of love; Myrtea, from the myrtle being sacred to her; Mechanitis, in allusion to the many artifices practised in love; and also goddess of the sea, because born in the bosom of the waters;
"Behold a nymph arise, divinely fair,
Whom to Cythera first the surges bear;
Hence is she borne, safe o'er the deeps profound,
To Cyprus, watered by the waves around:
And here she walks, endowed with every grace
To charm, the goddess blooming in her face;
Her looks demand respect, and where she goes
Beneath her tender feet the herbage blows;
And Aphrodite, from the foam, her name,
Among the race of gods and men the same;
And Cytheræa from Cythera came;
Whence, beauteous crown'd, she safely cross'd the sea,
And call'd, O Cyprus, Cypria from thee;
Nor less by Philomeda known on earth,
A name derived immediate from her birth:
Her first attendants to the immortal choir
Were Love, the oldest god, and fair Desire;
The virgin whisper, and the tempting smile,
The sweet allurements that can hearts beguile,
Soft blandishments which never fail to move,
Friendship, and all the fond deceits in love,
Constant her steps pursue, or will she go
Among the gods above, or men below."
Hesiod.
As rising from the sea, the name of Anadyomine is applied to her, and rendered immortal by the celebrated painting of Apelles, which represented her issuing from the bosom of the waves, and wringing her tresses on her shoulder.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ANADYOMINE VENUS.
"She has just issued from the bath, and yet is animated with the enjoyment of it. She seems all soft and mild enjoyment, and the curved lines of her fine limbs, flow into each other with a never ending sinuosity of sweetness. Her face expresses a breathless yet passive and innocent voluptuousness, free from affectation. Her lips, without the sublimity of lofty and impetuous passion, the grandeur of enthusiastic imagination of the Apollo of the capital, or the union of both like the Apollo Belvidere, have the tenderness of arch, yet pure and affectionate desire; and the mode in which the ends
of the mouth are drawn in, yet lifted or half opened, with the smile that for ever circles round them, and the tremulous curve into which they are wrought, by inextinguishable desire, and the tongue lying against the lower lip, as in the listlessness of passive joy, express love, still love!
"Her eyes seem heavy and swimming with pleasure, and her small forehead fades on both sides into that sweet swelling, and then declension of the bone over the eye, in the mode which expresses simple and tender feelings.
"The neck is full and panting, as with the aspiration of delight, and flows with gentle curves into her perfect form.
"Her form is indeed perfect. She is half sitting and half rising from a shell, and the fullness of her limbs, and their complete roundness and perfection, do not diminish the vital energy with which they seem to be animated. The position of the arms, which are lovely beyond imagination, is natural, unaffected and easy. This perhaps is the finest personification of Venus, the deity of superficial desire, in all antique statuary. Her pointed and pear-like person, ever virgin, and her attitude modesty itself."
Shelley.
—————"Breathe softly, flutes;
Be tender of your strings, ye soothing lutes;
Nor be the trumpet heard! O vain, O vain!
Nor flowers budding in an April rain,
Nor breath of sleeping dove, nor river's flow—
No, nor the Œolian twang of Love's own bow,
Can mingle music fit for the soft ear
Of goddess Cytheræa!
Yet deign, white queen of beauty, thy fair eyes
On our souls' sacrifice."
Keats.
