Goddess Venus in mythology and real life.  Venus - All about Venus Roman Venus

Was first taken out sea ​​waves to the shore of the island of Cythera, and then to the island of Cyprus, which became the favorite residence of this goddess. According to legend, wherever she appeared, beautiful flowers grew under her feet and all the gods, people and even animals succumbed to the charm of her beauty. The cult of Aphrodite, according to many academic researchers, was brought to Greece from Syria, where a similar goddess was revered under the name Astarte.

Myths ancient Greece. Aphrodite (Venus). Queen of Love Desires

There are several conflicting tales about the birth of Venus. But artists, depicting this birth, always imagine her emerging from the sea foam. In ancient paintings the goddess usually lies in a simple shell. On coins she is depicted on a chariot drawn by tritons; finally, on numerous bas-reliefs the goddess appears accompanied by sea horses or sea centaurs. In the 18th century French artists, and mainly Boucher, loved to depict this poetic myth on lampshades and decorative paintings. Rubens painted the painting “Feast of Venus”, remarkable for its freshness and brilliance of colors; it is in Vienna Museum. From works newest artists Bouguereau's painting "The Birth of Venus" is very famous.

The toilet of Venus is a favorite subject for artists and poets. Ory are engaged in raising a lovely goddess, and grace(charites) are present at her toilet and help her. “She is the most beautiful of all goddesses, forever young, forever captivating, her beautiful eyes promise one bliss, she has a magic belt that contains all the spells of love, and even proud Juno, wanting to return the love of Jupiter, asks Venus to lend her this belt . Her golden jewelry burns brighter than fire, and her beautiful hair, crowned with a golden wreath, is fragrant” (Gottfried Müller). Many paintings depict the toilet of Venus and the graces serving her. All best artists Later times wrote on this topic, including Boucher, Proudhon, Rubens, Albano, Titian and many others.

When Greek art moved from rough and formless primitive images of Venus to more perfect ones, it began to strive to create ideal type, in which all the charming qualities and beauty that the imagination of the Greeks, those passionate admirers of beauty, so generously endowed this goddess would be combined and embodied. The goddess began to be depicted sitting on a throne; she is usually covered with long clothes, the folds of which, gently falling, are distinguished by their special grace. At all, hallmark All statues of Venus have precisely grace, elegance of draperies and movements. In all the works of the school of Phidias and his followers, the type of Venus expresses mainly the femininity of her nature, and the feeling of love that she should arouse is a pure and lasting feeling, which has nothing to do with sensual outbursts. And only later Attic art began to interpret and see in Venus only the personification of female beauty and sensual love, and not a powerful goddess, conquering the entire universe with the power of her charm and femininity.

The lovely Venus bestowed tender feelings and marital happiness on the Romans. She was revered as the goddess of fertility and heartfelt passions - from the Latin word “veneris” is translated as “carnal love”.

The dove and the hare (the animal is known to be fertile) were considered the faithful companions of Venus, and the myrtle, rose and poppy became the flower symbols.

Origin story

Venus took root in the religion of the Romans in the 3rd century BC. The goddess was especially revered in the Italian region of Lazio - here the first temple was erected to her, and the Vinalia Rustica holiday was established. As history progressed, the patroness of lovers began to be identified with the beautiful one of the beliefs of Ancient Greece, who was considered the mother of Aeneas, whose descendants founded Rome (the warrior managed to escape from besieged Troy to Italy). Therefore, Venus was also revered as the ancestor of the Romans.

The goddess was called to weddings, and then the spouses asked her for family happiness and prosperity. The Romans believed that Venus helped to restrain grievances, the bitterness of disappointments, and learn to endure the hardships and difficulties of married life. And the deity, of course, blessed the birth of offspring.

People thanked the goddess of beauty for her attractive appearance; it was believed that this kind woman from the top of Olympus she looked at the handsome man even at birth. Over time, Venus acquired additional functions: the goddess endowed with talents for the arts, oratorical abilities and the ability to seduce and gently control people.

Rituals associated with Venus had a very sensual overtone. During festivals, the marble statue was seated in a shell-like chariot. Doves were tied to the cart, which hovered in the sky, and when the procession moved along the city streets, people threw flower wreaths and even jewelry with natural stones to the wheels. Young people always walked ahead of the cart, because only young people could experience crazy passion and love, as they believed in ancient times.

From the 1st century BC, Venus gained unprecedented popularity. Sulla, who considered himself kissed by the goddess of love and beauty, took the nickname Epaphroditus. Pompey built a temple to the Victorious for a lady of divine blood, and was sure that Venus was the foremother of the Julians.

In Russia beautiful goddess love is usually called Aphrodite, while in the West she is strengthened as Venus - this name is borne by a scattering of sculptures, it is used in works of art and the names of the paintings. The most famous statue - the Venus de Milo (the adjective is derived from the island of Milos, where the statue was found in the early 19th century) - appeared in 130-100 BC. The marble goddess lost her hands in the confrontation between French and Turkish sailors, who defended the right to take the valuable find from Greece to their lands.

Painters and sculptors give an accurate idea of ​​the appearance of the Roman goddess of love. This is an eternally young beauty with long blond hair that frames her round face.

The girl was depicted either naked or wearing a seductive “belt of Venus.” He dedicated the bright and sensual painting “The Birth of Venus” to the goddess. And Gottfried Müller described the deity as follows:

“Venus is the most beautiful of all goddesses, forever young, forever captivating, the beautiful eyes of the goddess promise one bliss, she has a magic belt that contains all the spells of love, and even proud Juno, wanting to return the love of Jupiter, asks the goddess Venus to lend her this belt. The golden jewelry of the goddess Venus burns brighter than fire, and her beautiful hair, crowned with a golden wreath, is fragrant.”

Myths and legends

The interweaving of Greek and Roman mythology led to two versions of the birth of Venus. It is believed that the goddess appeared, like Aphrodite, from the foam of the sea. In other legends, it is the fruit of the love of the supreme god Jupiter and the goddess of moisture Dione.

The newborn girl attracted the attention of ocean nymphs, who raised her in coral caves. The kind patronesses decided to present the matured Venus to the gods. When the inhabitants of Olympus saw unearthly beauty, bowed their heads and expressed admiration.

Venus was given a throne in the abode of the gods. As soon as she occupied it, the male Olympians immediately desired to marry her. But the freedom-loving beauty rejected the suitors with disgust, deciding to “live for herself.”

One day, the goddess of beauty angered, and he punished the extravagant girl by marrying the ugly, lame blacksmith Vulcan (in the Greek tradition -). Unhappy in family life the maiden rushed to change left and right. Among the lovers of Venus, even the god of war was listed - from the love of a rude warrior and a frivolous, gentle goddess, the heavenly archer (Eros) was born.

Beautiful legend talks about the suffering of Venus due to love for a mere mortal. The goddess found a lover among people - he became the hunter Adonis, the son of the king of Cyprus and Myrrha. Moreover, she herself initiated the birth of the young man. The wife of the Cypriot ruler Kinira spread offensive gossip that her daughter Mirra was more beautiful than Venus. The all-powerful patroness of lovers, in anger, sent Mirra into passion for her father. Having learned that his daughter had been in his bed, Kinir decided to kill the heiress, but Venus came to the rescue in time - she turned the girl into a myrrh tree. A baby fell out of a crack in the plant and was named Adonis.

The boy was raised by the queen of the dead, who later made the mature, handsome young man her lover. Venus also fell in love with the handsome man, but Persephone was not going to share. The dispute was resolved by the muse Calliope, who pronounced a verdict that Adonis would divide two-thirds of the year between the beds of the goddesses.

However, the cunning Venus lured the young man to the bed more often than she should have. Persephone got angry and told the husband of the goddess of love about the betrayal. He turned into a wild boar and killed Adonis while hunting. Day and night, inconsolable Venus mourned the young man. Finally, the supreme god took pity and asked to release Adonis to earth. Since then, the hunter lives one half of the year among living people, the other half in the company of the dead. He described a colorful love story in “Metamorphoses,” and later other authors returned to the plot.

The goddess of love conquered the hearts and souls of fans with the help of the “Girdle of Venus”, woven from passion and lust. No one was able to resist his charms. And once she even asked Venus to lend this magical thing for a while in order to return Jupiter’s favor.

Film adaptations

In 1961, the film “The Rape of the Sabine Women” was released, directed by Richard Pottier. The plot is based on a legend about how Roman men suffered from a shortage of women. The problem was solved by the noble Romulus, who set up a Olympic Games. Of course, residents of the surrounding area, among whom there were many girls, came to look at the pumped-up young boys. The picture brought together a pantheon of gods, among them was Venus. The goddess of love is played by actress Rosanna Schiaffino.

Divine, beautiful, eternally youthful Venus (in Latin Venus) at the beginning of the formation of the Roman pantheon was considered the goddess of Spring, the life-giving spring beginning, when everything in nature comes to life, begins to grow again, the goddess of a lush blooming spring garden. Afterwards they began to compare her with the Greek Aphrodite. So, gradually, Venus acquired many of the qualities and attributes inherent in Venus, and became the Goddess of Love and Beauty familiar to us. Also, the Roman people consider Venus to be their foremother, the roots of this confidence again go back to the identification of Venus and Aphrodite. According to ancient mythology, Aeneas, the son of Aphrodite, as everyone knows, the descendants of Aeneas, who miraculously escaped from Troy burning at the behest of Agamemnon, founded Rome. It is not difficult to draw a parallel; this is another fundamental factor in the special veneration of Venus by the Romans. One of the most famous architectural masterpieces of the Roman era in honor of Venus is the Sicilian Temple. Her eternal companions and symbols - hare and dove, vegetable world gave the rose, poppy and myrtle to Venus.

Venus, quod ad omnes veniat, the famous Roman saying: “Venus - because she comes to everything.” The thinker Marcus Tulius Cicero used this saying in his work “On the Nature of the Gods” to substantiate his vision of the origin of the name Venus. There are many assumptions about the etymology of the name Venus. In many Roman phraseological units, the name of Venus could be used as a synonym for any fruit, that which the earth gave birth to and gave; this allegory is associated with the very first definition of Venus as the Goddess of Spring and blooming gardens. One of the common literal translations of the name Venus is “Grace of the Gods,” isn’t that true? If you delve into linguistics and look for roots in distant history, you can find sources for the word in Sanskrit, in which vanas will mean desire, vanita - beloved. Both words are ideally suited to become the etymological roots of the name Venus. Let us not forget the later Roman word vinia - mercy of the gods, which has already been discussed. All hypotheses are worthy, with logical justification and an invariable subtle taste of femininity, charm and romance, philologists cannot give preference to one theory, so the question of the origin of the name Venus is still open, the mysterious goddess is in no hurry to reveal all her mysteries to the curious.

Not only is the story about the possible origin of the name interesting, but also traditional for Roman and then pan-European culture constant epithets for Venus: merciful, cleansing, bald. Superfluous in the semantic series bald ? No! This epithet speaks of Venus as the patroness of the women of Rome, who, for the sake of their husbands’ victory over the Gauls, cut their hair to make strings for bows and ropes for catapults. The classical idea of ​​Venus in any form of art as the goddess of passion and love, hence the widespread opinion that among the admirers of the passionate goddess there were mostly young people: only Venus could share their enthusiastic admiration for their beloved women and help them find the way to their hearts. The Romans also feared Venus as merciless towards those who reject love and do not want to reckon with the great power of a great feeling.

The Romans were true craftsmen, whose skill has not been disputed to this day, in creating statues. It is no secret that many examples of magnificent sculptures have survived to this day, one of the first among them being statues of Venus. The Paris Louvre has a priceless specimen - the Venus de Milo. Second birth, so to speak, found in the Renaissance, firstly, in Europe at that time there was a general fascination and revival (hence the Renaissance) of the ancient heritage, and secondly, the image of Venus has always been considered a classic of the nude female body, to which the state of nakedness only adds naturalness and beauty, is in a sense a necessary manifestation of feelings. It is worth noting that even Puritan Britain did not condemn only the image of Venus for nudity. Thus, since the time of the unlimited power of Rome, the name Venus has become a common noun for all images of a beautiful naked female body.

The myth about birth of the goddess Venus . In the tradition of the Roman mythological code, Venus is the daughter of Jupiter and Dione, the beautiful child of the love union of the supreme god and the goddess of moisture. Greek myths represent Venus-Aphrodite, born from the snow-white foam of the sea. Most likely, you have more often encountered the second option for the origin of Venus; it is more often found on book pages and artists’ canvases, and certainly everyone knows the brilliant masterpiece of Sandro Botticelli.

Rituals associated with the worship of Venus were worn in Ancient Rome unusually sensual and at the same time festive character. During the days of her veneration, a beautiful marble statue was placed in a chariot made in the shape of a sea shell. Harnessed to this marvelous cart were white doves, the favorite birds of the goddess and a symbol of her divine mercy. Along the procession, the Romans presented Venus with lush wreaths of flowers, not forgetting to include roses, poppies and mitres in the compositions, and jewelry, most often made of pearls, to match her skin. Young people, passionate and temperamental, always walked at the head of the procession, their presence especially pleased the goddess, since they gave themselves over to love and passion with truly Venusian madness. Most often, Venus appears before the eyes of admiring spectators naked or wearing clothes called the “belt of Venus,” which only adds charm and femininity to the naked figure of the beautiful goddess. The “Venus Belt” was a common clothing option among Roman women of all ages. social statuses, because feminine unites both women of noble origin and commoners, and Venus gives them endless love and beauty.

Among the many talents of the goddess, the Romans highlighted Venus’s ability to command animals; such a fragile goddess is able to pacify even an angry lion. The consort of Venus is Vulcan, the god of fire, the all-consuming raging flame and the patron of blacksmiths. Vulcan is a serious, even gloomy god, he is lame in one leg. Venus is the complete opposite of her husband - flirtatious, playful, capricious, fast and frivolous. Despite their differences, they understand and complement each other perfectly; Vulcan always gives his greatest jewelry creations to his wife to decorate the already most beautiful goddess in the Roman pantheon. Venus is windy, so while her husband Vulcan is busy at the forge, she gives her love to other men, especially since her “Venus Belt” is endowed with magical property- to generate a passion for Venus in every man. Venus forever conquered the warlike Mars, from the union with which Cupid was born, the eternal little celestial archer, striking with arrows of love without a miss. Among the victories of Venus are also Adonis and Anchises - the father of Aeneas. One day, the masterful and proud Juno asked Venus for her witchcraft belt in order to return the favor of Jupiter.

An unchanging tradition of any Roman holiday organized in honor of Venus was a huge number of fresh flowers. The priests always appeared in magnificent clothes. rich floral wreaths that symbolized eternal spring. The Venetians believe that their city is named after the goddess, so every year in the spring they throw a ring into the sea, as if concluding the marriage of the city of Venice and the Goddess Venus.

Not only the Earth can boast of having names in honor of Venus, the second planet of the solar system, the mysterious morning Star also bears her divine name - .

APHRODITE (VENUS)

The Goddess of Love, as her name testifies (Born of Foam), emerged naked from the sea foam; in the shell she reached the shore. True, other versions of her birth were also expressed. It was clarified that the foam was not simple, but resulted from the fact that Cronus, having castrated Uranus, threw his genitals into the sea.

Her appearance in Greece from the sea is one of the indications that this goddess is of overseas origin. She has another name - Cypris, indicating that she was highly revered on this island.

According to myths, she is one of the ancient gods. In any case, she is older than Zeus and the Olympians. The appearance of Aphrodite brought love and beauty to the ancient, rather gloomy world. According to one of the later versions, she is the daughter of Zeus and the oceanid Dione, but in this case we will have to admit that before that there was no true love on earth, but only, as they now say, sex.

Although she came to land, according to myths, on the islands of Cythera and Cyprus, her image was borrowed, according to experts, from Middle Eastern tribes (Phoenician Astarte and more ancient goddesses: Egyptian Isis and Assyrian Ishtar). However, such borrowings explain little in essence. After all, Zeus took beautiful Europe from Asia Minor, but this does not mean that European culture borrowed from there. With the development of civilization, the Greeks began to worship feminine beauty and idolize love; this was the “foam” from which the image of a beautiful, loving goddess emerged.

2.6 thousand years ago, the Greek lyricist Mimnermus (born, by the way, in Asia Minor) wrote: “Without the golden Aphrodite, what life or joy would we have. I would like to die if secret meetings, and hugs, and a passionate bed stop attracting me.”

And five hundred years later, already in Rome, the poet-philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus began his poem “On the Nature of Things” with the glorification of Venus (Aphrodite), for love inspires people:

The Aenean family is the mother of people and immortals,

O good Venus

Under a sky of sliding constellations

You fill the entire ship-bearing sea with life

And fertile lands, by you all living creatures

Those born begin to live and see the light of the sun...

Everywhere introducing intoxicatingly sweet love into the heart,

You excite everyone's desire to procreate

For you alone hold the helm of nature in your hands,

And nothing will be born into the divine light without you.

There is no joy and no beauty in the world without you.

Be my accomplice in creating this poem...

It is believed that she has the power to pacify wild animals and that she is always surrounded by flowers, as if in spring. She is playful, flirtatious, frivolous. Her husband, the ugliest of the gods, but a skilled craftsman, Hephaestus, is constantly busy in his forge. This allows Aphrodite to bestow her love on some gods and people. She possessed a magic belt that made everyone fall in love with its owner.

She had the longest relationship with the hot-tempered, violent, pugnacious and often drunken god of war Ares. They dated for so long that they had three children.

Hephaestus, having learned about his wife’s infidelities, made a thin and strong metal net, which he discreetly attached to the foot of the bed, lowered from the ceiling. After this, he said goodbye to his wife and left for the island of Lemnos to his forge. Aphrodite, calling Ares, lay down with him on the bed of love. Indulging in passion, they late noticed that they had fallen into the strong net of Hephaestus. So they lay naked when the inventive husband returned, taking the gods as witnesses to his marital dishonor. They were forced - not without interest in the charms of Aphrodite - to admit adultery. Apollo nudged Hermes and remarked with a grin: “It seems to me that you yourself wouldn’t mind being in Ares’ place.” Hermes didn't object and they both laughed.

However, things took a serious turn. Hephaestus demanded that Aphrodite's adoptive father, Zeus, return all the rich wedding gifts. However, Zeus became angry and declared that Hephaestus had been foolish by flaunting his wife’s infidelity. And although family conflict was settled, Aphrodite had new passionate admirers: Hermes and Poseidon. From the first she gave birth to Hermaphrodite, with whom the nymph Salmacis fell in love and, not achieving reciprocity, begged the gods to merge her with a beautiful young man; This is how the first bisexual creature appeared. From Poseidon, Aphrodite, according to some information, had two children.

Here are the words of A. A. Taho-Godi: “The goddess maintains a sweet disposition even in the most unpleasant moments, for example, when she is caught by her husband and other gods on a love date with Ares. Coquetry does not leave Aphrodite even when, wounded by Diomedes, she cries, buried in the lap of her sweet mother Dione. Truly, as Hera says, the goddess Aphrodite conquers people and gods with the power of love and alluring charm.”

Aphrodite's love affairs are numerous, and she has many children. Perhaps many of them were “invented” relatively late in order to diminish the authority of this goddess. The fact is that she was revered primarily on the islands and in Asia Minor; It is no coincidence that in the Trojan War she, along with Apollo, Ares, and Artemis, opposes the Achaeans on the side of the Trojans.

There is an assumption that the network in which she got caught with Ares was in more ancient myths her attribute as a goddess associated with the sea. Her shame, in this case, was a kind of revenge of the Greeks, a decrease in the greatness of her image. As A.F. Losev noted, Aphrodite was even considered the goddess of hetaeras; she herself was called a hetaera and a harlot. Such a humiliating situation great philosopher Plato defined “Aphrodite Pandemos” (Popular), accessible to everyone, distinguishing “Aphrodite Urania” (Heavenly), accessible to few; It is she who elevates the soul of lovers and inspires poets and thinkers.

In Roman mythology, Venus was first the goddess of gardens and fruits. In connection with the veneration of the hero Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Aphrodite, the qualities of the latter were transferred to Venus. Her cult reached its apogee about two thousand years ago, when she was considered the goddess of luck and victory by such famous Romans as Sulla, Pompeii and Caesar. With the spread of eastern cults in the Roman Empire, Venus began to be identified with the goddesses Isis and Astarte. The mythological circle is closed.

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Birth of Venus

According to some, Venus was the daughter of Jupiter and Dione, the goddess of moisture; according to others, it was born from sea foam.
Ocean nymphs were the first to discover it. She lay as if in a cradle on a great blue wave, and they carried her to their coral caves, where they tenderly looked after her and taught her with great diligence. When the education of Venus was completed, the sea nymphs decided that the time had come to present her to the gods, and raised her to the surface of the sea, where the Tritonians, Oceanids and Nereids surrounded the goddess, loudly admiring her beauty, and offered pearls and choice corals so that she could decorate
Then they laid her down big wave and entrusted her to the care of Zephyr, the gentle southern wind, which carried her to the island of Cyprus.
Four beautiful horas (seasons), daughters of Jupiter and Themis, the goddess of justice, stood on the shore and greeted her.
But they were not the only ones waiting for the arrival of Venus - three harites (graces) also greeted her on the shore.

The daughters of Jupiter and Eurynome, the girls whose names were Aglaya, Euphrosyne and Thalia, were just waiting for the moment to express their love to the beautiful mistress. As the wave on which she sat approached, “the rose-breasted Mountains, the retinue of the beautiful Venus,” appeared. Finally, the wind brought the goddess to the shore and, as soon as her foot set foot on the white sand, everyone bowed before her extraordinary beauty and began to watch in awe as she dried her hair.
Having tidied herself up a little, Venus and her retinue went to Olympus, and on the way they were joined by: Himera, the goddess of the desire of love, Pathos, the god of harmony in love, Suadela, the goddess of tender love speeches, and Hymenaeus, the god of marriage.
A throne was prepared for Venus, and when she sat down on it, the assembled Olympians could not contain their exclamations of admiration. Her beauty struck them like lightning, and her grace enchanted them, and they all immediately expressed a desire to take her as a wife, but she rejected the proposals of the gods with contempt.
Venus even refused to the king of the gods, and to punish her, he announced that he would marry her to Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths, the most seedy of all.
This union with Hephaestus (Vulcan) was not happy, for Venus never loved her ugly husband and, instead of being faithful wife, soon left him and told everyone that she would enjoy life.

Beloved of Venus:

Mars, Adonis, Anchises
Children of Venus:
Daughter Harmony (father Mars)
Son Cupid (father Mars)
Son of Aeneas (father of Anchises)

Venus in myths:
Paris (Trojan prince, son of Priam), awarded Venus a bone of contention, thereby incurring the wrath of Juno and Minerva.
Paris, instigated by Venus, began to court Helen and obtained her agreement to flee with him, which led to the Trojan War.
Hippomenes enlisted the support of Venus and received from her three golden apples, thanks to which he won the race against Atalanta.
Thanks to Venus, her son Aeneas survived all the adventures and saved part of the inhabitants of Troy.

Venus in ancient culture:

The most passionate and devoted admirers of Venus were young people, since she rejoiced at their love and always helped all those who truly loved if insurmountable obstacles arose on their way.
Venus, the goddess of beauty, was represented either completely naked or wearing a short garment called the “girdle of Venus.” Seated in a chariot in the form of a pearl shell, which was drawn by snow-white doves, the favorite birds of the goddess, she rode from altar to altar, smugly admiring the luxurious decorations from precious stones and the flowers that admirers brought her. Most of all she liked the victims of young lovers.
Celebrations in honor of Venus were always very colorful, and her priests appeared at them wearing wreaths of fresh, fragrant flowers, a symbol of natural beauty.