God of the Week: Eros

God of the Week 10/26/09: Eros

Eros was the ancient Greek god of love and beauty. He was the son of the goddess Aphrodite. In the Greek creation myth Eros is said to have sprung out of the primordial chaos itself. Though he does inspire love with his arrows, he was often viewed as being mischievous and undiscriminating with his targets.

From Mythology: Greek and Roman by Friedrich Nösselt

Cupid is represented as a lovely winged boy, now merry and laughing, now sad and crying; again gentle and winning, or pouting and cross. At his birth Zeus, foreseeing that the boy would bring only grief and misfortune into the world, advised Aphrodite to strangle him. But the compassionate mother hid him in a wood, where wild animals nursed him.

As soon as he was strong enough he made himself an aspen bow and arrows of cypress, and practised shooting animals. Not until quite sure of his skill did he attempt the hearts of men ; and seldom did the wounds caused by his arrows heal. Another poet says that Hephaestus forged his arrows, and Aphrodite dipped their points in honey ; but Eros had steeped them in gall, for he was heartless, proud, envious, suspicious, and cruel, always trying to do harm, and to circumvent man by his cunning. He often joined with Dionysus in fooling men, concealing himself in their goblets full of wine, the more easily to wound them as they drank.

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