100 MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS RITES. 
interfere in a quarrel between his father and mother, and espoused the side 
of the latter. This time he fell upon the island of Lemnos, ined inhabit 
ants kindly received and intertained him. 
At a subsequent period he expressed his willingness to return to 
Olympos, and Dionysos (Bacchus) undertook to conduct the refractory. god 
home. Having first intoxicated him, he placed him on an ass, and amid 
music and acclamations bore him safely to the residence of the gods. 
It was not long ere he created new troubles in the divineassembly. Los, 
for whom Hepheestos had made golden arrows, resolved to try their influ- 
ence on the artist himself. One of them took effect, and the fire god 
became a helpless captive to the charms of Aphrodite, the most beautiful 
of all the celestials. As the extremes of beauty and ugliness could not 
naturally meet in one pair, his passion remained long unreciprocated. At 
last the dejected lover abandoned his labors, and threatened never to resume 
them until she should become his wife. The other inhabitants of Olympos, 
whom Hepheestos had supplied with armor and other implements, now felt 
constrained to use their influence in overcoming her objections to the union. 
At length she complied, and after a magnificent solemnization of the mar- 
riage ceremonies, he cheerfully returned to his work. 
8. ApHropite (Venus). The most graceful and charming of all the 
female deities was the goddess of beauty. In her the Greeks expressed 
their most perfect ideal of female loveliness and attraction, of an all- 
influencing, all-subduing power, whose sphere embraced both gods and 
men; but as the beneficent impulse of love itself, if not carefully moderated 
by morality, may prove destructive of its own aims, she sometimes stands 
also as the symbol of this ungoverned sensuality. 
In the later history of mythology, however, it was the object of artists, 
both painters and sculptors, to embody in her representations the most 
attractive female delicacy. Hence the Aphrodite Urania (celestial love) 
must be carefully distinguished from the Aphrodite Pandemos, or Vulgivaga 
(earthly love). As connected with matrimonial and social interests, she 
presided over marriages, births, and festivals, and was the protectress of 
children and mariners. So far as concerned the exterior development which 
the artists endeavored to reveal, it was handsomely realized in the delicate 
and finely swelling form in which beauty and modesty prevailed. The 
face is a lengthened oval, the forehead moderately high, the outline of 
the eye-brow is clear and serene, the eye small and glancing love, the 
mouth small, symmetrical, and charming in expression, the ridge and 
point of the nose elegantly chiselled, and finally, the cheeks have an 
agreeable fulness. The hair, gathered from the forehead and temples, 
reposes in graceful folds on the crown of the head, sometimes adorned with 
a riband. ‘The head itself does not sit perpendicularly upon the swan- 
like neck, but has a slight easy inclination to one side. 
In regard to the dress, position, insignia, &c., of Aphrodite, great diver- 
sity existed. This was the natural result of the almost universal homage 
paid her, and the innumerable attempts to represent her in every conceiv- 
able relation. On the old Pelasgian statues she appeared in full dress ( pi. 
320 
