Another peculiarity in the case of Venus is, that she already takes her name, and not only receives mere epithets, from two particular spots where she is worshipped. Cyprus makes her Κύπρις in the Iliad, and from Cythera she is also Cytherea in the Odyssey. She thus stands distinct from Juno: to whom the Argeian name is simply an appendage, though one of a most characteristic force, and one involving important inferences as to her origin. Nor is she less distinct from Minerva, whose name is not derivative in form when she is called Ἀθήνη, and whom we must consider as the eponymist of Athens, and not its namesake. No indication could be of greater force, than this marked localism, in stamping the ideas about Venus as purely human in their origin.
Venus unable to confer beauty.
It would be an error to consider the Venus of Homer as even the goddess of beauty. She was endowed with it personally, and she possessed the cestus of fascination and desire: but she had no capacity to make mortals beautiful, such as Minerva exercised upon Penelope and Ulysses, and Juno upon the virgin daughters of Pandareus. She is there passed by in such a manner as to make it plain that she did not possess any power of imparting this gift. Her δῶρα, in Il. iii. 65, do not appear to include it; or Paris would not say, ‘no one would spontaneously seek them.’ For beauty of person was among the recognised and highly valued gifts of heaven[483].
We are told, in the Twentieth Odyssey, that Venus fed the orphan girls of Pandareus with cheese, honey, and wine; and, continues the passage, Juno gave them extraordinary beauty and prudence, Diana lofty stature, Minerva industrial skill. Afterwards, they being thus equipped, Venus went up to Olympus to pray Jupiter that he would make arrangements for their marriage[484]. Thus her operations in a work of good are wholly ministerial and inferior: and not only does she not confer beauty herself, but she sees it conferred by Juno. This again shows that the Venus of Homer, except for evil, has no power to work upon the body or mind of man.
But we must not omit to mark that sign of the real chastity of Homer’s mind which he has given us by his method of handling the character of Venus; a deity whom the nature of his subject in the Iliad would have led almost any other heathen, and many Christian, poets to magnify.
In not a single instance does Homer exhibit this divinity to us in an amiable or engaging light, or invest her with the attractions of power, glory, and success.
When Minerva advises Diomed in the Fifth Iliad[485], she says, Do not attack any of the immortals; but if you happen to see Venus, her you may wound. We seem to have a clear indication, that Homer introduced this passage simply in order to throw contempt on Venus; because afterwards, when Mars is in the field, and Diomed pleads the inhibition he had received as a reason for his inaction, Minerva at once removes it, and bids the warrior assail that god without scruple[486].
Again, when Diomed wounds Mars, it is because Minerva invisibly directs and impels his lance[487]: but he wounds Venus without any aid. In the Theomachy, she appears upon the list of deities enumerated as taking the Greek and Trojan side respectively; but when the Poet comes to match the others for fight, she disappears from his mind; as though it would have been an insult to any other member of the Olympian family to be pitted against her effeminacy. Accordingly, no antagonist is named for her.
She is sometimes made contemptible, as in the foregoing instances. She is at other times silly and childish, as under the bitter taunt of Minerva and the admonition of Jupiter[488], and again, when she falls into the trap cunningly laid by Juno[489]. Odious in the interview with Helen in the Third Book, she is never better than neutral, and never once so handled by the Poet as to attract our sympathies.