Aphrodite and Athene "You are what you come from"
...us’s blood falling down on Gaea formed both the giants and the Furies, but then Uranus’s members go on to form this magnificent beauty, Aphrodite. As beautiful as she is Aphrodite was born without a female parent which shows reasoning behind her role of masculine sexual pleasure (Harris & Platzner 73). Aphrodite’s birth from her father’s severed genitals is the connection which gave her the sexual-sensuous functions. This appearance symbolizes the intimate relation Aphrodite shares with her father and with all males (Friedrich 62). Though the castration of her father was an act of hatred and sexual mutilation Aphrodite seems to take on roles that are completely opposite of those and becomes a goddess of love and sexual desire. It also symbolizes the denial of not having a mother. Aphrodite has been called, in today’s terms, as “sexually generous”, by being intimate with many different gods and mortal men. Athene, whose full name is Pallas Athene, is the goddess of wisdom and of war; she is the rescuer from danger and peril and an advisor. Athene is told in the myths to have been born from her father’s (Zeus) head after he swallowed his pregnant wife Metis. After Zeus is cracked in the head with an axe and Athene leaps forth fully armed and accompanied by the figure of Nike tells us that Zeus will use Athene to defend his new power. It also shows her duel role as an embodiment of “male rationality” and the intimate relationship she will share with her father and all males in general (Harris & Platzner 191). By swallowing Metis, Zeus gave birth to Athene through his scull, which shows Athene as a potent manifestation of his creative intelligence (Harris & Platzner 80). It also shows that human thought is known to take place within the brain during this time period. The long reaches Zeus went to in able to give birth to Athene himself represents the value of wisdom and its very close relationship with the gods and divinity. Athene and Zeus share ...