The Love Goddess': Freya & Aphrodite
A love goddess is a deity associated with sexuality, love, fertility, beauty, and in some occasion’s death. These goddess are common in mythology and may be found in many polytheistic religions. Although there are vast differences among these goddess’, since they have to serve each particular culture’s needs, there are also many similarities that can be drawn to them. There are two love goddess’ that are believed to have many similarities, they are the Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Norse goddess Freya. Although these goddess’ have many differences some similarities are their appearance, lost lovers, a love of beautiful things, charm, an association with the sea, the day Friday and fish. Aphrodite was an extremely attractive young woman who dressed gracefully and loved to wear jewelry. Her eyelashes were curled and she had a constant smile on her gorgeous face, since she was a lover of smiles. Aphrodite had a tender neck, tender breasts and lovely buttocks. In Norse, Freya being the goddess of love and beauty is said to be the most beautiful of all goddess’ and is beloved by all goddess’. Freya is so beautiful that even the prettiest of flowers and plants of the north we named Freya’s hair or Freya’s eye dew and the butterfly being called Freya’s hen. While being said to be the most beautiful of all, of course these ladies would have a love for beautiful things. But along with the love of beautiful things come greed, love and war. It is evident in many stories of Aphrodite that she is easily persuaded by things of beauty, one being the story of the golden apple. To convince Paris to name Aphrodite the most beautiful goddess and award her the golden apple, Aphrodite promises Paris the most beautiful woman in the world to be his bride. When Paris accepts her offer, the transfer of Helen of Troy to his possession spurs the Trojan War. This story also shows the greed and vanity of a goddess causing terrible destruction for humans. Freya equally has a love
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