Aphrodite

Aphrodite (Venus) loved to trick gods and men with here beauty. She laughs a lot; especially at those she had tricked. It was said that she had stolen the wits of the wise. There are two different stories of how she came to be. She was either the daughter of Zeus and Dione from the //Iliad// or she was born out of the foam from the sea, as said in later poems. Either one could be truth because Zeus had many wives however “Aphros” means foam in Greek. If she was born from the sea, then it was near Cythera. And there she was wafted to Cyprus. Both islands were special too her. In the poems they often called her Cythera. The Romans thought she was pretty much the same person as how the Greeks saw her.

In other poems they talk about how she had an evil side to her and how she mislead men into doing bad things like killing people because of he beauty. In most tales Hephaestus is her husband. He was the got of fire, or the crippled and ugly god of forge. It’s some what ironic because of her great beauty and he’s hideous. But Hephaestus was still special to her along with other sacred things like the Myrtle tree, the dove, sparrow, and the swan.

Judging by the contents of the Greek’s poems and mythology, they thought beautiful people were mean deceiving, or controlling. Also, they probably thought that even the beautiful people had flaws, like the fact that they had an evil side. The gods also argued and had affairs all the time. The Greeks might have written it like this so they could use it as an excuse to make it seem alright when they had serious affairs or arguments. They might have reasoned //well… if the gods do it, then it must be ok.// It is interesting how all of the Greek gods are all related in one big family and know all of the other gods. This is interesting because it seems like a reference to real Greek life and how all of the Greek humans are all related in one big family. They knew people who lived on the other side of Greece even! It is very similar to the movie //My Big Fat Greek Wedding// where a Greek woman gets engaged to a man in theU.S. and her hundreds of Greek family live with her and freak out because she is not marrying a Greek man. They also have many arguments so it is a good reference to Greek life. Connections to modern day: Supermodel: (see above)
 * Allison from Pretty Little Liars: Allison is a pretty, young, teenager who is worshipped by her peers. She has a history of lying, tricking, and being a little scandalous like Allison
 * Stereotypical teenage, popular girl: popular, pretty, while being mean and tricky.

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Hamilton, Edith. //Mythology Timless Tales of Gods and Heroes//. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing, 1999.