A French Poet in Cyprus: Arthur Rimbaud

“It has been found again! What? Eternity.
It is the sea mingled with the sun.”

Island means escape. It means freedom. It means isolation. It calls one to chase one’s own utopia in the far distance of every civilisation. Cyprus meant all these to the French poet Arthur Rimbaud; a newfound eternity.

Imagine a stone quarry in Cyprus... Then, place a supervisor in this scene... Let this be a French fellow who mostly enjoyed hard work... Let this be Arthur Rimbaud, the poet who charmed the literary scene of Paris with his poems he wrote in his teens only; one who wrote the most innovative and influencing poem of the age when he was only 17. He burnt out all the poems he had written at once, left Europe, and came here, to Cyprus...
Renowned French poet Paul Verlaine mentioned him, “He was neither Devil nor the holy God; he was Rimbaud, a great poet, (...) a distinctive boy!”
Rimbaud was doubtless a genius who shaped the world of poetry with his four-year work, from the age of 16 to the age of 20. He took poetry out of drawing rooms and placed it in the middle of modern life by crying “from your dark poems, let strange flowers burst out, and electric butterflies! See – it’s the century of Hell!” The life of the poet, who claimed, “I is another”, passed quite congruent to this aphorism of him, extending from the world of letters into a world of hard work incorporating two different others.

The Beginning
Rimbaud is known to have a quick start in life in every aspect. He is said to be born with his eyes open in the morning of October 20, 1854. Then, we see him as an obstreperous teenager. He is young, rebellious, and restless, pushing the borders all the time. Given this image of Rimbaud, a photograph of the poet, retouched to show him wearing jeans, was used as a symbol of the student revolt in Paris in May 1968. The restless soul of Rimbaud, which pushed him leave home several times, finally took him thousands of miles, even continents far from his homeland...
The renowned French poet Verlaine receives a letter in a morning of the year 1871. This was a set of poems, one like which he receives a thousand maybe every day. But this time, it was different. The letter was signed ‘Arthur Rimbaud’, and Verlaine was impressed by the imagery of these poems. He sends a reply to Rimbaud, “We await you; we desire you” with a train ticket to Paris attached.
A forerunner of the Decadence movement in France, standing for “art for art’s sake” which will give way to later Symbolism and Aestheticism, Verlaine is shocked upon meeting Rimbaud, for what he was expecting was a 30-year old man; but what he found instead was a 17-year old countryboy. He patrons him in Paris and introduces him to the literary circles in the city. In the meantime, Rimbaud and Verlaine, whose wife is pregnant, get into a homosexual relationship. In his masterpiece ‘A Season in Hell’, Rimbaud traces this relationship. He mentions Verlaine as “a demon” whose “mysterious ways” seduced him.
When Rimbaud attempted to break apart with Verlaine, the poet shoots him in the arm and he was sent into a Belgian gaol for two years. Upon this, Rimbaud shuts him in his room for some time and writes poetry. At the point that he has many poems to fill a book, he takes them and heads for publishing houses. Nevertheless, the society of letters accuses Rimbaud for spoiling Verlaine’s life by first destroying his marriage and then putting him in the jail. Therefore, he is refused by every little publishing house he takes his poems. The young genius is deeply depressed. And this moment is the exact moment in which everything comes to an end. He throws all his poems into fire at once, the ones that compose his masterpiece ‘A Season in Hell’ mostly, and leaves the country. To become an ‘other’... It is the year 1875...

The Escape
“My day is done: I am leaving Europe. The marine air will burn my lungs; unknown climates will tan my skin.” (A Season in Hell)

The year 1878... After stopping by several cities in Africa, Cyprus welcomes Rimbaud with its tranquillity. Here in Cyprus, he works as a supervisor at a stone quarry. He turns out to be a “man of action” totally leaving aside his personality of a “ man of thought”. He takes fancy in doing hard work. Poetry is dead for him. He never mentions his ‘previous’ life and his glorious days in Paris. No one, not even his employer, knows where he is from or who he is. Upon the inquiries concerning his past he replies, “absurd” and goes on “ridiculous, disgusting”. Rimbaud, has become somebody else. He is leading a tranquil and silent life in Cyprus, where he escaped from his past or maybe from himself.
The first letter he wrote from Cyprus to his mother carries the evidences of that dense feeling of isolated loneliness that would seal his life from then on: “The nearest village is one hour away on foot. There is nothing here but a jumble of rocks, a river, and the sea. There are no houses. No soil, no gardens, no trees”. And of course, no poetry...
How come did Rimbaud end up in Cyprus? Is it an escape from love, or from poetry? Or was he only seeking adventure? Maybe... However, a more detailed look will reveal another perspective: The years that covered Rimbaud’s life was an age in which modernism was climbing very fast. Many values underwent a rapid change with the Industrial Revolution that took place in the beginning of the century. Bourgeoisie was the enemy and everything that belonged to the bourgeois world was fought against. Poets were losing their place in the society.
However, towards the end of the 19th century, bourgeoisie started to gain power steadily. In the face of all these rapid changes, the poets and writers questioned their social idealism, had problems of concern and under this pressure preferred to escape. The literary movement that found roots in this circle of writers is the ‘Escapism’.
Under the suddenly changing values of the city, poets and writers escaped to the wilderness and pristine countries. Can we say then Rimbaud was an ‘escapist’? Considering his sudden escape and disappearing from Europe, he can be labelled as an escapist for sure. The word ‘escape’ in literature brings to mind ‘island’. Island means escape, a place far from the traces of civilisation.
Considering that transportation to islands was possible only via ships in the middle of the 19th century, the most attractive place to chase one’s personal utopia was an island.
Nevertheless, Rimbaud did not have a magnificent life in Cyprus. His letters to his mother tell us that he had hard times on this island. However, who can say this life was not what he pursued, his personal utopia? Especially thinking of the dark bohemian character we have here...
Rimbaud leaves the island in 1880 upon a quarrel he has with the workers, and heads for Aden via the Red Sea gradually getting farther and farther from Europe. After 11 years of exile, he sails to Marseille, worried for a fatal ache in his right leg. Diagnosed as cancer, his right leg is amputated and only six months later Rimbaud dies at the age of thirty-seven.

The End
“Let us go... All the filthy memories are disappearing... At dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter into the splendid cities...” (A Season in Hell)

Teenage rebel, innovative poet, passionate lover, lonely heart...
The poet who came to Paris on a ‘Drunken Boat’ and lived ‘A Season in Hell’ and then had his ‘Illuminations’... Today Rimbaud is renowned neither as a stone quarry supervisor nor as a foreman. He has taken his place in the history of literature as the forerunner of Parnassian movement in literature which gave way to symbolism and decadence later on by seeking “art for art’s sake”. He is remembered as an influential poet who wrote the most innovative poetry of his age though only for four years in his lifetime... He is the great poet who passed by our land that we live on...


Rimbaud’s Oeuvre
The Drunken Boat (Le Bateau Ivre) 1871
The Illuminations (Les Illuminations) 1874
A Season in Hell (Une Saison en Enfer) 1873
(copies of it discovered at a Belgian publisher in 1901)


A Poem by Rimbaud
Sensation
Through blue summer nights I will pass along paths,
Pricked by wheat, trampling short grass:
Dreaming, I will feel coolness underfoot,
Will let breezes bathe my bare head.

Not a word, not a thought:
Boundless love will surge through my soul,
And I will wander far away, a vagabond
In Nature - as happily as with a woman.


Rimbaud in various disciplines of art
Though composed poetry for only four years in his lifetime, Rimbaud was influential not only in poetry and literature but also in various fields of art. His has impacts in the powerful movements of the 20th century such as Symbolism, Expressionism, and Aestheticism. The famous composer Benjamin Britten composed his poetry in ‘Les Illuminations’ (the Illuminations). Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison take him for inspiration. The film ‘Paris Blues’ (1961) narrates the poet’s life and his masterpiece ‘A Season in Hell’ was adapted for the screen. A retouched photography of Rimbaud showing him wearing jeans was the symbol of the student revolt in Paris in 1968.
*published in Caretta Magazine, Feb 2008

The Night of Crossed Destinies

North Cyprus Turtle Project invites you to experience a marvel of nature. You can observe sea turtles laying eggs in the silence and darkness of the midnight beach… An opportunity of a lifetime …

I already knew, on our way to Alagadi, that it would be a poetic night. A full moon, the stillness of the mountains beyond the beach, and the gentle breeze carrying the salty breath of the Mediterranean… We drive to Alagadi, known alternatively by locals as the Turtle Beach. It has been estimated that as few as 300-400 green turtles and 2,000 loggerheads nest throughout the Mediterranean each year. For both species, but in particular the Green Turtle, Northern Cyprus is clearly an extremely important nesting site. Alagadi is considered to be the fifth major nesting site in the Mediterranean for Loggerhead and Green turtles.
We take the turn right and follow signposts to ‘Turtle Project’. The information office, situated some distance from the beach, is known as the Goatshed. This is our meeting point before we set out to observe the nesting of sea turtles tonight. North Cyprus Turtle Project, known as the Marine Turtle Research Group, was initiated in 1992 by Kuzey Kibris Kaplumbagalari Koruma Dernegi (Society for the Protection of Turtles in Northern Cyprus, KKKKD/SPOT), which invited staff and students from Glasgow University to conduct a survey of the nesting beaches in Northern Cyprus. This took the form of an undergraduate expedition lasting three months. Since 1992 over 200 students and staff from British universities have taken part in the annual monitoring and conservation of marine turtles in Northern Cyprus. Work is carried out at the request of and in conjunction with members of the local Society for the Protection of Turtles and the local Department of Environmental Protection.
Around 21:00, we start our long walk from the goatshed to the beach under the guidance of the students who are involved in the Turtle Project. It is a night when destinies cross: the full moon above, the guests that accompany our walk and the mother turtle who is now swimming somewhere in the sea towards some point on the beach to lay her eggs. It is as if we are marching to meet our fate for tonight, somehow taking us to this silent corner of nature. I think of people in the city, killing time in front of their tellies. I am filled with the enthusiasm and delight of being here, and I cannot help but picture in my mind the mother turtle now somewhere in the sea, heading to our shore.

A Patch of Dark on the Sand
21:30… We lay our belongings at a point on the sand. One of the students says a female turtle is approaching. She crawls out of the sea, pausing frequently as if carefully scoping out her spot. We should stop at a distance so as not to alarm her. Maybe she will decide to stay over, and we can then approach her. Sometimes it happens that a turtle crawls out of the sea but for some unknown reason decides not to nest. This is called a "false crawl": it can happen naturally, be caused by artificial lighting or by the presence of people on the beach. All we can do for now is to wait until the students tell us the time is right to approach her.
Normally the students survey the beach every five minutes to check if some turtle comes nesting, and to inspect the nests that are close to hatching. Tonight we do not hear of any other turtles. There is only the one close to us. We learn that when the moon is full turtles are less liable to come to the shore for nesting and besides they usually tend to come much later in the night. This night it seems we are in luck. Whilst waiting we approach Robin Snape, the 25 year old project leader, to obtain some information about the marine turtles that visit Alagadi and the Turtle Project.

Turtles Visiting Alagadi and the Turtle Project
Robin tells us that two types of sea turtles come to lay their eggs at Alagadi: Loggerheads, which are publicly known as Caretta Caretta; and Green turtles. Green turtles, which grow bigger than the Loggerheads, come in large numbers, says Robin, especially this year. They are more specific about their nesting places than the Loggerheads. The Turtle Project volunteers and staff survey the beaches both day and night. They have two groups, working in shifts. Although their main headquarters is in Alagadi, they also have teams in Güzelyurt and Karpaz. Robin says the living conditions and opportunities differ from one base to another, so they regularly change places to be fair to all. For instance, the three students living in Karpaz are staying in a fire station with the firemen. This may be limiting to their social life. At the same time, Robin does not forget to mention the kind people who so generously offered them friendly places in which to stay.
Robin receives a message from the students who have been observing the mother turtle from close by, and now we know it is time…. it is time to meet our little girl who was swimming to the shore as we were walking to the beach.

Our Lady Turtle is Nesting
Sea turtles are generally slow and awkward on land, and nesting is exhausting work. The female turtle flings away loose sand with her flippers. She constructs a body pit by digging with her flippers and rotating her body. After the body pit is complete she digs an egg cavity, using her cupped rear flippers as shovels. The egg cavity is shaped roughly like a teardrop and is usually tilted slightly. When the turtle has finished digging the egg chamber she begins to lay her eggs. The average size of a clutch ranges from about 80 to 120 eggs. However, only a few of them produce healthy hatchlings. Nesting sea turtles appear to shed tears, but the turtle is just excreting the salt that accumulates in her body. Many people believe that while laying her eggs a sea turtle goes into a trance from which she cannot be disturbed. This is not entirely true. A sea turtle is least likely to abandon nesting when she is laying her eggs, but some turtles will abort the process if they are harassed or feel they are in danger. For this reason, it is important that sea turtles are never disturbed during nesting. As our lady, a Green Turtle, starts laying her eggs students measure her and keep her records. Her shell is 87cm, which is quite big for a Green Turtle. I ask Robin her age. He says it is not possible to tell exactly, but the project records have her tagged previously on this beach about 10 years ago. Then we calculate: given the fact that turtles reach adulthood at 30, and she was tagged some ten years ago, she might be around 40 years old. However it is quite possible that she used to come here before she was tagged. Therefore, according to Robin, she might well be 50 or even up to 80 years old.
Once all the eggs are in the chamber the mother turtle uses her rear flippers to push sand over the top of the egg cavity. Gradually, she packs the sand down over the top and then begins using her front flippers to refill the body pit and disguise the nest. The students mark the egg chamber by placing some sticks around it because, as she throws sand in all directions, it is hard to locate the nest afterwards. When she has moved about 2-3 metres from the nest the students start digging to identify the exact location of the egg chamber. Once they locate it, they place a cage around the nest to protect it from dangers. The last thing we want, says Graham Mumby, the project coordinator, is someone to drive a parasol directly into a nest so we place these cages over them. Another danger comes from predators. As the hatchlings start to come out they spread a particular smell, which is scented by dogs wandering around. Attracted by the smell the dogs will dig the ground to reach the hatchlings and eat them. For this reason a net is also placed over the nest.

Significant Work for Natural Survival
23:30… Our lady turtle looks exhausted now. Whilst watching her one feels very sensitive about the threats that endanger the turtles’ existence. I have always felt attracted to their elegant nature; the hard work of their motherhood, their mysterious selectivity of beaches, their lovely babies… but here, watching her laying eggs and undertaking this exhausting job with her big and aged body, is an extraordinary feeling. After throwing sand for a couple of minutes using her flippers, she stops to rest briefly. Then, taking a deep breath, she starts moving her flippers again…
According to information from Robin a turtle nests almost five times a season, leaving approximately a hundred eggs in each nest. Out of five hundred eggs around 350 will hatch, but only one in a thousand hatchlings will survive to adulthood and be able to carry on the cycle of life. Therefore, Robin stresses, if a turtle gets hurt or killed it puts at risk their very existence. Threats are not limited to the low rate of reaching adulthood, unfortunately. Sea turtles also face a myriad of dangers: industrial fishing, coastal development, and global climate change pose the greatest challenges to their continued survival. Due to these threats, many sea turtle species are now listed as endangered. Given all these facts you truly appreciate all the hard work done by the students, volunteers, and staff here at the Turtle Project to help save the lives of these turtles …

Back to the Sea
Our lady Green Turtle is now happy with the concealment of her nest. She slowly crawls her way back into the sea. Exhausted, she will rest in the waters to regain her strength before nesting again later in the season, finally beginning the migration back to her feeding ground. She meets the dark waters washed by blue moonlight, slowly disappearing, giving her bodily weight to the sea.
For us, the visitors, she came out of nowhere and she has returned to a mysterious corner of the deep. Somehow the paths of our destinies crossed tonight… my eyes wander the long beach as far as I can see under the dim moonlight. I see tens of nests marked by cages around them. I try imagining how wonderful it would feel to be able to experience this extraordinary event every night. In the dark, on the beach, you secretly become a part of nature – the realm of marvels.

Baby Caretta Carettas Surprise Us
As we were packing for our return journey, we approached a nest protected by a ring cage and a pyramid cage. Whilst trying to take a photo of this cage in the dark, holding our torches, we suddenly discovered a little baby turtle! And then another one! We yelled at the students “there are baby turtles here!” They came at once to record the hatching nest. The babies, they told us, are Caretta Caretta turtles. They, the students tell us, are identified by being totally black and, to our amazement, they told us that they might excavate the nest the next day! Nothing will hold us back from coming here and seeing baby Caretta Carettas coming out of their nest!

*published in Caretta Magazine, Aug 2008
** see "Caretta Caretta Babies Come Out!" - sequel to this article

Caretta Caretta Babies Come Out!

While watching a huge Green Turtle laying eggs, we discovered two baby Loggerheads in a near nest! Today, we are going back to Alagadi to join the public excavation of the nest! Somewhere in the sand, those babies are waiting to be discovered and released to the sea….

When some sea turtles are just coming to lay their eggs, the first nests begin to open and baby sea turtles make their way to the sea. Following our surprising discovery of two Loggerhead babies on the beach last night, today we are informed that there will be a public excavation at 17:00. You are also invited!
During their regular nightwatches, the students in the Turtle Project, check the nests which are older than 40 days. This indicates that the nest could hatch any time. Therefore, these nests get different treatment to protect any early babies from being eaten or destroyed. They place a pyramid cage to protect any predators stealing into the nest, and a ring cage around it so that if any babies come out of the nest, they stay within this ring until the students find them. We had approached this kind of nest last night as we were about to leave the beach after having watched a 87-cm Green Turtle lay her eggs; and we had discovered two baby Loggerhead sea turtles, which are commonly known as Caretta Caretta.

Excavating the Nest
As hatchlings usually emerge from their nest at night when temperatures are cooler, upon such discovery, the following day the Turtle Project places notices at crowded places in the city to invite people to join public excavation. The people already on the beach willingly approach to witness the birth of the hatchlings. So, it is always very crowded. To prevent any chaos, and to secure their smooth working without any harm to the babies, first the students tape off the area around the nest and a small area near the sea, where they will let the babies perform their legendary walk to the sea.
Excavating hatched sea turtle nests, or ones that have failed to hatch, provides crucial information for understanding turtle hatching successes and failures. Students try to understand the reasons for unsuccessful or high mortality-rate turtle nests. At the end of the season with all the data the volunteers and workers write the final report on the sea turtle nesting season.

Babies Show Up
The students slowly dig the sand using their hands and fingers. This process should be done carefully not to cause any damage to the babies. We start finding them close to the surface. At first, one shows himself. Then, a second, and a third one! They are all covered in sand! You can see a dark spot at the place of their eyes! The students measure them, and weigh them to keep a record. Then they all go into a bucket. Soon, Graham (Graham Mumby, the project coordinator) finds a pip, just coming out of its shell. One of the students takes it around to make everyone see it. It is so hard to believe these little creatures grow so big and heavy. They are Loggerhead babies, which means they will grow nearly to 110 cm. They look so fragile and tiny! They are lucky because they are not left alone to their fate. Many dangers await them on the pathway to their adulthood from the very first moment of their lives.
Once they get out of the nest, the hatchlings orient themselves to the brightest horizon and then dash toward the sea. If they don't make it to the sea quickly, many hatchlings will die of dehydration in the sun or be caught by predators like birds and crabs. Once in the water, there are still many obstacles for hatchlings. Sharks, big fish and circling birds all eat baby turtles, and they die after accidentally eating tar balls and plastic garbage. The obstacles are so numerous for baby turtles that only about one in 1,000 survives to adulthood.

Power of Nature
During the excavation, the Turtle Project team discovers 72 eggs; 16 of them alive. Sixteen Caretta Caretta babies are now ready to go into the sea… The students take them in their hands and leave them at some distance on the beach to let us see how they crawl towards the water. Everybody watches them amazed! Years later, if any of them could survive, she will come back to lay her eggs here, on this beach. At the very place her life started, she will give life to other turtles… If preserved effectively, Alagadi will continue to raise a myriad of turtles in her womb.

*published in Caretta Magazine, Aug 2008
** This article is a prequel to "The Night of Crossed Destinies"

The Goddess of Beauty and Love: Aphrodite Cypridis

Born out of foams in the Mediterranean Sea, the goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite was attracted to the land of Cyprus to put her gentle feet on. Today, thousand years past alike, Cyprus is recognised as home to Aphrodite. This article searched the footsteps and the exalted spirit of the goddess across the island.

Across Cyprus, numerous temples or sacred sites devoted to the goddess Aphrodite would enliven with the rise of spring. As the spring fairy Persophene breathed the spring putting flowers in bloom, every girl used to make a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the goddess for marriage rites ‘to invoke the goddess within’. Exquisitely dressed priestesses of the goddess would welcome the girls in the sacred gardens surrounding the temple. A man would throw an offering at the feet of his preferred pilgrim whereupon the sacred intercourse was performed.
This sort of ritual and offerings actually have deeper roots than Hellenistic culture. The figure of a mother goddess responsible for procreation dates back to matriarchal era when women were considered holy and mysterious due to the inexplicable act of conception.
Standing at the crossroads of Europe, facing the Asia Minor and the Middle East, Cyprus was a kind of ‘melting pot’ of the ancient world comprising many civilisations on its bosom.
Chronologically Mycenaeans, Achaeans, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Crusaders, Venetians, Ottomans and British have all passed by bringing their own customs, religion, and art necessarily changing the current, adapting to or coexisting with it.
An exhibition held in New York in the year 2003 entitled “From Ishtar to Aphrodite” revealed this fact with artefacts discovered around the sanctuaries or graves in Cyprus. These artefacts including grave offerings, vases, bowls, and figurines contributed our conception of the ancient cosmopolitan character of Cyprus as a melting pot. The exhibition proved that various styles of burial traditions coexisted even within short distances.
The figures generally represented a mother goddess of fertility and balance, suggesting an antecedent persona of Aphrodite, brought to the island by Mesopotamian tribes of matriarchal order. Remembering the “Epic of Gilgamesh” will give us the initial clue to start searching the traces of the goddess Aphrodite the Cypriot. A Mesopotamian epic, also the oldest written work of literature, Gilgamesh introduces the goddess of love, Ishtar, aka Inanna.

Origins of the goddess
The cult of the “goddess of love” was actually brought to the island by Phoenecians, who used to name her Inanna, Ishtar or after an Egyptian goddess Astarte. She is called the goddess of the Morning and Evening Star. She presides over the birth of both night and day. Next to her is the sacred star sign of brilliant Venus, symbol of both death and rebirth.
The winged goddess could move freely between the world of the death and that of living. Thus, she is also the goddess of balance. Among her many other titles, Ishtar is the goddess of love and procreation. Sacred marriage rites were performed at New Year. Not to forget that this “new year” is not what we understand today under the imposition of Christianity. The new year in the pagan world started with the wake of nature, that is Spring. The blessings of Ishtar were sought to insure fertility in the month of May when nature was in flourish.
Another interesting fact is that the nature of Ishtar reflects the peaceful Phoenecian society in which she developed. All the other goddesses of the Near East and Greek world wore armour, except Ishtar, or later Aphrodite. Thus, it is time for you to stop and think the famous saying of modern novelist Virginia Woolf: “to fight has always been the man’s habit, not the woman’s”.

Aphrodite as Ishtar’s successor
This goddess image, the Greek confronted on their journeys to the island was rather interesting due to its “different” nature. Living in a world of male dominancy, the Greek were conquered with the peaceful image of the goddess, a holy figure of love and fertility.
Not unwillingly, the Greek adopted the image of the goddess bringing her back to the island in a few centuries later in full Hellenistic disguise. This is clear considering many similarities that exist between the attributes of the goddesses.
Isthar was called the “Queen of Heaven” while Aphrodite was given the name “Urania”, meaning “celestial” or “heavenly”. Isthar is described as having wings and Aphrodite travels always on the back of winged animals such as doves or geese. Moreover, marriage rites were held in the temples of the both goddesses in the wake of spring. One of the most noticeable parallels in their myths is Aphrodite’s lover, the vegetation god Adonis and his counterpart in Babylonian mythology, Ishtar’s lover Tammuz.

The Mythical “birth”
Necessarily, the fact that Aphrodite was brought from Mesopotamia to Greece by way of Cyprus was reinforced in literature as Aphrodite’s mythical “home” is Cyprus.
The birth of Aphrodite, apart from its logical historical roots, is related as a marvellous phenomenon revealing the astonishment of the Greek before the sacred image of the goddess. The scene inspired artists all through the centuries regardless of the branch or art, movements, or countries. The magical moment was rendered in the lines of the English Romantic poet Shelley with these words:
“Look, look why shineThose floating bubbles with such light divine?They break, and from their mist a lily formRises from out the wave, in beauty warm.The wave is by the blue-veined feet scarce press'd,Her silky ringlets float about her breast,Veiling its fairy loveliness, while her eyeIs soft and deep as the heaven is high.The Beautiful is born; sea and earthMay well revere the hour of that mysterious birth.”
The word “Aphrodite” means “the foam-born” in Greek. The myth tells us that Cronus (representing time), the son of Uranus (the skies), castrates him and throws his genitals into the sea, which later turn into the foam giving birth to Aphrodite. This myth explains her attributes as goddess of love, marriage, childbirth; and her Roman title as “Venus” which is mentioned above to symbolize death and life.
Coming back to the myth again, the goddess Aphrodite was carried to the shores of Cyprus on a shell by the breath of Zephyr, the west wind, and Chloris, his wife the breeze of spring. The shores that Aphrodite was carried on her shell by the winds Zephyr and Chloris are claimed to be Petra Tou Romiou bearing a noticeable endemic flora on its bosom or the long golden beach at the Karpaz Peninsula with a fantastic scene. Comparing the likeliness of both of these sites to the painting by the Italian painter Botticelli, “The Birth of Venus”, most famous of representations. But it is still another question, whether the painting reveals the photographic truth or simply an allegoric representation of the myth of Aphrodite’s birth.

Footsteps of the goddess on the isle
It is presumed that there were many a number temples or sacred sites across Cyprus devoted to the goddess. One of these used to stand at the very northern tip of the island dominating the blue waters of the Mediterranean that bore the goddess, while another was built at Palea Pafos.
As previously mentioned, in the old days, with the rise of the spring, every girl used to make a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the goddess for marriage rites and ‘to invoke the goddess within’. Amphorae and ceremonial bowls collected from these sites depict exquisitely dressed priestesses in some scenes from these ceremonies, which are in some sense erotic.
Aphrodite is generally called as Aphrodite Urania, or Celestial Aphrodite to refer her attributes of pure and spiritual love. An ancient site named “Urania” stands on the Karpaz Peninsula today exposing a few remains. Ruins of an ancient marina, tombs, and a fortress are left from the glorious city of Urania, aka Aphendrika, which was one of the six major towns in Cyprus in the 3rd century BC.
Visiting this site will give you the opportunity to imagine yourself in one of the towns built most probably in the name of the goddess. A similar delight is hidden in the face of the fragile beauty in Botticelli’s painting or in the elusive but strong image of the woman portrayed by Dali.
On the other hand, not to forget to remind that it was still Aphrodite to make Paris and Helen fall in love and prepare the scene for the Trojan War. The peaceful spirit of Ishtar, Inanna, Astarte embodied in the image of one goddess, the Cyprus-born, foam-born, Aphrodite Cypridis.

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Aphrodite in art
The birth of Aphrodite was frequently pictured throughout the ages should it be on the face of a vase, or a big painting. She is mostly represented sitting or riding birds or geese.
The most famous work of art concerning the goddess is the painting by Botticelli (1485). In this scene Aphrodite is depicted rising from the water with a rather shy and innocent expression on her face. On the upper left, Zephyr (the west wind) and Chloris (his wife, the breeze of spring) are puffing to move her shell towards the shores; while, on the right, a nymph, one of the three Horae (hours) gives Aphrodite a gorgeous robe adorned with flowers, implying her as goddess of all seasons.
Salvador Dali also painted a picture “Apparition of the Face of Aphrodite” depicting her in the lines of abstract movement.

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“And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden. First she drew near holy Kythera, and from there, afterwards, she came to sea-girt Kypros, and came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet. Her gods and men call Aphrodite, because she grew amid the foam.”
from Hesiod’s “Theogony”.