THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE

 

La nascita di Venere, painting by Sandro Botticelli. No other artist could so masterfully portray the Goddess of LOVE. This painting in particular has been homaged in countless visual media, and it appears on everything from knickknacks (souvenirs) to ten-euro-cent coins.

About them (Uranus' severed private parts) a white (sea-)foam grew from the immortal flesh, and in it a girl formed. First she approached holy Kythera; then from there she came to sea-girt Cyprus. And out stepped this modest and beautiful goddess, and grass began to grow all round beneath her slender feet. Gods and mortals call her Aphrodite, because she was formed in foam (aphros), and Kytherea, because she approached Kythera, and Cyprus-born, because she was born in wave-washed Cyprus.

Hesiod, Theogony (Origins of the Gods)