APHRODITE

  

 The Goddess of Love and Beauty, who beguiled all, Gods and men alike; the laughter-loving goddess, who laughed sweetly or mockingly at those her wiles had conquered; the irresistible goddess who stole away even the wits of the wise.

She is the daughter of Zeus and Dione in the Iliad, but in later poems she is said to have sprung from the foam of the sea, ans her name was explained as meaning "the foam-risen/" Aphros is foam in Greek. This sea-birth took place near Cythera, from where she was wafted to Cyprus. Both islands were ever after sacred to her, and she was called Cythrea or the Cyprian as often as by her proper name.

In most of the stories she is the wife of Hephaestus, the lame and ugly god of the forge.

The myrtle was her tree; the dove was her bird---sometimes too, the sparrow and the swan.