8. Aphrodite (Venus)

Aphrodite (Venus) 

“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 the later poems she is said to have sprung from the foam of the sea, and her name was explained as meaning ‘the foamrisen.’ Aphros is foam in Greek. . . . . . 

One of the Homeric Hymns, calling her ‘Beautiful, golden goddess,’ . . . . . 

The Romans wrote of her in the same way. With her, beauty comes. . . . . . . 

In most of the stories she is the wife of Hephaestus (Vulcan), the lame and ugly god of the forge. The myrtle was her tree; the dove her bird—sometimes, too, the sparrow and the swan” (Hamilton 32-33).