Classical Hymns
The worship of Aphrodite in the days of classical paganism is best characterized by two hymns attributed to Homer, but it must be understood that this whole class of poetry constitutes Homeric apocrypha of a comparatively late date. We quote the original from the Teubner edition:
ΣΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ
Κυπρογενῆ Κυθέρειαν ἀείσομαι, ἥτε βροτοῖσι
μείλιχα δῶρα δίδωσιν, ἐφ’ ἱμερτῷ δὲ προσώπῳ
αἰεὶ μειδιάει καὶ ἐφ’ ἱμερτὸν θέει ἄνθος.
Χαῖρε, θεά, Σαλαμῖνος ἐυκτιμένης μεδέουσα
καὶ πάσης Κύπρου: δὸς δ’ ἱμερόεσσαν ἀοιδήν.
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.
A versified translation of our own reads thus:
“My verse shall praise thee, goddess fair and mighty,
Great Queen of Cyprus, glorious Aphrodite
Who unto mortals love’s sweet gift bestowest
And in the charm of richest beauty glowest.
Thou holdest in thy hand the magic flower
Whose spell subjects us to thy gentle power.
Hail, gracious lady, soother of all woes,
Who conquerest by pleasing smiles thy foes.
As we thy beauty worship and admire
Inspire my song with thy celestial fire.
So shall my muse forever honor thee
And her whom thou commendest unto me.”
Here is another hymn, not less charming:
ΣΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ
Αἰδοίην, χρυσοστέφανον, καλὴν Ἀφροδίτην
ᾄσομαι, ἣ πάσης Κύπρου κρήδεμνα λέλογχεν
εἰναλίης, ὅθι μιν Ζεφύρου μένος ὑγρὸν ἀέντος
ἤνεικεν κατὰ κῦμα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης
ἀφρῷ ἔνι μαλακῷ: τὴν δὲ χρυσάμπυκες Ὧραι
δέξαντ’ ἀσπασίως, περὶ δ’ ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἕσσαν:
κρατὶ δ’ ἐπ’ ἀθανάτῳ στεφάνην εὔτυκτον ἔθηκαν
καλήν, χρυσείην: ἐν δὲ τρητοῖσι λοβοῖσιν
ἄνθεμ’ ὀρειχάλκου χρυσοῖό τε τιμήεντος:
δειρῇ δ’ ἀμφ’ ἁπαλῇ καὶ στήθεσιν ἀργυφέοισιν
ὅρμοισι χρυσέοισιν ἐκόσμεον, οἷσί περ αὐταὶ
Ὧραι κοσμείσθην χρυσάμπυκες, ὁππότ’ ἴοιεν
ἐς χορὸν ἱμερόεντα θεῶν καὶ δώματα πατρός.
αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ πάντα περὶ χροὶ κόσμον ἔθηκαν,
ἦγον ἐς ἀθανάτους: οἳ δ’ ἠσπάζοντο ἰδόντες
χερσί τ’ ἐδεξιόωντο καὶ ἠρήσαντο ἕκαστος
εἶναι κουριδίην ἄλοχον καὶ οἴκαδ’ ἄγεσθαι,
εἶδος θαυμάζοντες ἰοστεφάνου Κυθερείης.
Χαῖῥ ἑλικοβλέφαρε, γλυκυμείλιχε: δὸς δ’ ἐν ἀγῶνι
νίκην τῷδε φέρεσθαι, ἐμὴν δ’ ἔντυνον ἀοιδήν.
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.
Translated into English verse the hymn reads:
“The venerable Lady I adore,
Queen Aphrodite, owner of the shore
Of seagirt Cyprus. Thither Zephyr’s breeze
Had wafted her as babe with gentle ease.
While yet unborn, in briny foam lay she
Floating on billows of the surging sea,
Whence she came forth. The Seasons young and fair
With gold-embroidered bridles guided her,
They took her to their arms and they caressed
The little maid and had her beauty dressed
In garments of Ambrosian fabric wrought.
And then a crown of golden weight they brought,
Three-handled, which above her head they placed.
Her soft white neck with carcanets was graced,
The strands of which her silver breast adorn
In such a way as by the Seasons worn
At dances in sylvestrian resort
Or in Olympus at their father’s court.
They carried up the babe so fair and wee
To the immortals, who in ecstacy
Began at once to hug and fondle her
And kiss her hands. All vowed that they would wear
The sacred flower of this divine fair maid
At Hymen’s feast in festival parade.
Yea, such great charm the Gods e’en never saw;
They gazed and wondered and they stood in awe.
O goddess, dark-browed, sweet of voice,
In thee my song shall glory to rejoice!
On us poor mortals here on earth below
Life’s palm and heaven’s happiness bestow.
Praised be forever thy divinity,
And the fair sex which representeth thee.”
The nature of Venus as the mother of the universe, the mistress of existence, and the representative of all that is charming and lovely endeared her to the philosopher as well as to the poet, and so in Rome at a later day even the freethinker among classical poets, Titus Lucretius, dedicated to her his philosophical book of poetry, De rerum natura, in these often quoted words:44
“Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
And fruitful lands—for all of living things
Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
Through thee are risen to visit the great sun—
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away;
For thee the dedal Earth bears gentle flowers;
For thee wide waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the sérene sky
Glow with diffusèd radiance for thee!
For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred.
First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
Or swim the bounding torrents. Then amain,
Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead;
And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains.
Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
Thou bringest the eternal generations forth.
Kind after kind. And since ’tis thou alone
Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught
Is risen to reach the holy shores of light,
Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born,
Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse
Which I presume on Nature to compose
For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be
Peerless in every grace at every hour—
Wherefore, indeed, Divine one, give my words
Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest
O’er sea and land the savage works of war,
For thou alone hast power with public peace
To aid mortality; since he who rules
The savage works of battle, puissant Mars,
How often to thy bosom flings his strength,
O’ermastered by the eternal wound of love—
And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown,
Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
Hanging upon thy lips? Him thus reclined
Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
Pour from those lips soft syllables to win
Peace for the Roman, glorious Lady, peace!
For in a season troublous to the state
Neither may I attend this task of mine
With thought untroubled, nor may mid such events
The illustrious scion of the Memmian house
Neglect the civic cause.”
The temples of Aphrodite lie in ruins, and her worship is abandoned; but the ideal of womanhood which she represented has remained to this day, and will remain so long as mankind will continue to exist on earth. The artist of the statue of Milo has left us an unsurpassed interpretation of this ideal which even in its mutilated condition is noble and beautiful. At the same time nature does not cease to actualize the type in every living woman that has been born into the world. Each one of them with all her individual traits, her preferences and even her feminine faults is a specimen of the eternal ideal of womanhood—the divinity of love, of grace, of charm, of beauty, a source of inspiration as well as of physical and intellectual creativeness.
The ancient paganism has passed away and will never come back, but because its superstitions are gone we need no longer scorn its gods. We can recognize their grandeur, their nobility, their beauty, yea their truth; and if we contemplate the representation of their ideals in Greek art, we must own that the Venus of Milo is not the least among them.
Footnotes
1 Published under the title “Relation d’une expédition hydrographique dans le Levant et la mer-Noire de la gabarre de Sa Majesté la Chevrette, commandée par M. Gauttier, capitaine de vaisseau, dans l’année 1820,” in Annales maritimes et coloniales de Bajot, 1821, and reprinted in Archives de l’art français, publiés sous la direction de M. A. Montaiglon, II series, Vol. II, 1863, pp. 202ff.
2 “Un dernier mot sur la Venus de Milo,” in the Revue Contemporaine, 1839, XIII, pp. 289ff.
3 These fragments are preserved in a glass case at the window in the same room of the Louvre where the Venus of Milo stands.
4 Geskel Saloman, Die Restauration der Venus von Milo, den Manen de Claracs gewidmet. Stockholm, 1895. Plate IV.
5 Conze, Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen zu Pergamon.
6 The Venus di Milo, Its History and Its Art. New York, Cambridge Encyclopedia Co., 1900.
7 As we might suppose in reading Hesiod, Th., 195ff, and Plato, Crat., 406 c.
8 Taylor mentions this Maori legend in his New Zealand, 119. Cf. Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, I, 302, and Roscher, Lex., s. v. “Kronos,” col. 1542.
9 H. Steinthal, “Die Sage von Prometheus,” in Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, II, ii, 8-9.
10 Διὸς κούρη.
11 As reported in Roscher’s Lexikon, s. v. “Aphrodite.”
12 Preller, Griechische Mythologie, I, p. 364.
13 The original is written in a Sumerian dialect with a translation into the Semitic Babylonian. See Records of the Past, New Series, Vol. I, p. 85.
14 Literally, “I do not take counsel, myself I am not wise.”
15 Records of the Past, Vol. VII, p. 67.
16 II, Pl. XLVIII, p. 697.
17 For further details see Dr. Alfred Jeremias, who publishes the text of the passages here quoted and offers a literal German translation with editorial notes and other explanations. The conception of the document as set forth in the quoted passages is based upon the interpolation of Dr. Jeremias, which he justifies in his critical notes. Dr. Jeremias’s interpretation of the concluding words is justified by another cuneiform tablet which while relating a conjuration of the dead begins with the same description of Sheol as does the legend of Istar’s descent to Hell.
18 The ancient poem of Istar’s descent to Hades has been cast into poetic form by Edward Gilchrist. See The Monist, April, 1912. (Vol. XXII, pp. 259-267.)
19 The passages in brackets are mutilated in the original and the words are suggested by the context or sometimes by parallel passages.
20 Perhaps the dress of wings is an expression of the belief that the soul is winged, found also in Egypt, where the soul of man is compared to a human-headed hawk, in which form it is at liberty to visit other places.
21 Why the goddess Allatu proposes to weep is not quite clear. Perhaps it is a promise to have all the funeral rituals with their wailings and lamentations properly attended to for the sake of preventing further attempts at having the dead reclaimed.
22 The goddess Allatu.
23 Uddusunâmir means “his light will illumine.” The significance of this being does not seem to be clear. Perhaps he is a mere puppet, an automaton to bear the curse of Allatu without suffering harm.
24 The name of the great gods is the most powerful means of conjuration, and Ea alone, the god of unfathomable wisdom, seems to have command of it. The Babylonian origin of the Talmudic and cabalistic belief in the power of the mysterious name is fully established.
25 The same gestures of grief are recorded in Jeremiah xxxi. 19 for the Hebrews, in Odyssey XXXI, 198 for the Greeks. In a similar way, we read of Ea in another document, “when he heard this he bit his lip” (cf. A. S. K. T., LXXXVI, 24).
26 The context does not reveal why the Anunnaki, the seven evil spirits of Sheol, should be placed upon the golden throne.
27 The significance of Belili’s breaking a precious utensil in the ritual of lamentation is not clear.
28 From Woermann’s Geschichte der Kunst.
29 For further details with regard to this relief see the author’s The Bride of Christ, p. 8.
30 See the author’s article. “The Fish as a Mystic Symbol in China and Japan,” The Open Court, July, 1911.
31 Val means “the battle-field”; the name Valkyrie designates “the one who chooses,” viz., the maiden of Odin who selects heroes for Valhall, the great hall of the god of battles. The root Val is still preserved in the modern German word Wahlstatt, “place of battle.”
32 See the author’s Soul of Man, pp. 399ff.
33 Pronounce Russakósh. The name refers to the part he will play in the story; it means both “a ball of mercury,” and “a treasure of taste, wit, literary sentiments or flavors,” a sort of walking encyclopedia. The King’s companion is a salient figure in Hindu drama: he is a sort of Sancho Panza, minus the vulgarity and the humor.
34 “A tree with orange-colored fragrant blossoms.”
35 The Hindu Vulcan, sometimes, as here, used for the Creator, dhatri = Plato’s δεμιοῡργος. Sanskrit literature is the key to Plato; much of his philosophy is only the moonlike reflection of Hindu mythology.
36 Hindu poets see a resemblance between rows of bees and eye-glances.
37 The Indian cuckoo. The crane is a by-word for inward villainy and sanctimonious exterior.
38 The chakrawáka, or Brahmany drake, is fabled to pass the night sorrowing for the absence of his mate and she for him.
39 בֵּיתאֵל
40 Terra-cotta in Berlin Museum (Roscher, Lex., I, col. 407).
42 Cf. Roscher, Lex., I. cols. 411-412, and Preller. Gr. M., I, p. 383.
43 See Roscher, Lex., I, col. 406, and Monuments grecs, Pl. 1.
44 From Dr. William Ellery Leonard’s translation.