VENUS/APHRODITE/ASTARTE

VENUS/APHRODITE/ASTARTE

"But now another bard insistent call; 

Blest Hellas' train, each from his pedestal;

See Venus and Minerva spiteful vie 

To have the new arrival settled nigh."

H.P. Lovecraft, On Receiving a Portraiture Of Mrs. Berkeley, ye Poetess

“O Nymph more fair than the golden-haired sisters of Cyane or the sky-inhabiting Atlantides, beloved of Aphrodite and blessed of Pallas, thou hast indeed discovered the secret of the Gods, which lieth in beauty and song."
H.P. Lovecraft & Anna Helen Crofts, Poetry and the Gods
 

"First she drew near holy Kythera, and from there, afterwards, she came to sea-girt Kypros, and came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet. Her gods and men call Aphrodite, and Aphrogeneia (the foam-born) because she grew amid the foam, and well-crowned (eustephanos) Kythereia because she reached Kythera, and Kyprogenes because she was born in billowy Kypros, and Philommedes (Genital-Loving) because sprang from the members."

Hesiod, Theogony
 

"Venus and her son threw themselves into the river and there changed their forms to fishes, and by so doing this escaped danger."
Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica
 

"Into the Euphrates River an egg of wonderful size is said to have fallen, which the fish rolled to the bank. Doves sat on it, and when it was heated, it hatched out Venus [Ashtarte, the Syrian Aphrodite], who was later called the Syrian goddess."
Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabula

"The concept behind this designation is graphically illustrated by several Astarte-figurines found at various archaeological sites in Palestine and actually showing the 
goddess with two horns."
 Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess
 

"Antigonos of Karystos, in his treatise on Diktion, says that this shell-fish [the ear-mussles] is called ‘Aphrodite's ear’ by the Aiolians."
Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae
 

"Shellfish were regarded as sacred to Aphrodite from the cockle-shell (in which she is depicted floating at her birth) to the mussel, clam."
Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology

 

 "In her pierced ears they hung ornaments of orichalc and precious gold, and adorned her with golden necklaces over her soft neck and snow-white breasts, jewels which the gold-filleted Horai wear themselves."

Homeric Hymn 6 to Aphrodite