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”.

Tu sei come una terra

Tu sei come una terra
che nessuno ha mai detto.
Tu non attendi nulla
se non la parola
che sgorgherà dal fondo
come un frutto tra i rami.
C'è un vento che ti giunge.
Cose secche e rimorte
t'ingombrano e vanno nel vento.
Membra e parole antiche.
Tu tremi nell'estate.

29 ottobre 1945
Cesare Pavese

Ölümü göreceksin ve gözlerin olacak

Bir ruhun var, bir nefesin.
Etten yapılmışsın
Saçlar, bakışlar
ve sen olandan. Toprak ve nebat,
mart seması, güneş
titreşir ve sana benzer;
gülümsemen ve yürüyüşün
hırçın akışı gibidir suyun;
gözlerinin arasındaki o kırışık
toplanan bulutlar gibidir.
nazik tenin,
güneşten bir parça..

bir ruhun var bir nefesin.
Bu topraklarda yaşarsın.
Kokusunu bilirsin
Mevsimlerin uyanışını,
Güneşte oynardın,
Bizlerle konuşurdun.
Berrak su, bakir
ilkbahar, toprak,
tomurcuklanan sessizlik,
küçük bir kız çocuğuyla oynamıştın,
değişen o göğün altında,
gözlerinde sessizlik vardı,
ve sonra bir bulut, büyüyen
şimdiyse gülümsüyorsun ve akıyorsun hırçınca
bu sessizliğin altında.

Tatlı bir meyvesin
Berrak göğün altında yaşarsın,
Soluk alıp verir, yaşarsın işte
Şu bizim mevsimimizde,
Kapalı sessizliğindedir
Delişmen gücün. Tıpkı
Havaya uzanan ağaç gibi
Ürperir ve gülümsersin,
Ama sen, sen topraksın
Yırtıcı köksün.
Sen, bekleyen topraksın.

21 mart 1950
Cesare Pavese
(çeviri:Aslı Özgen)

Orhan Pamuk’un paralel dünyaları

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Engin Kılıç’ın yayına hazırladığı ‘Orhan Pamuk’u Anlamak’ kitabı ile böyle bir zamanda karşılaşmıştım. Derlediği makaleler, yazarın o zamana kadar yayımlanan eserleri üzerine açılımlar getirmeyi hedefleyen, Orhan Pamuk’u anlayan akademisyenler tarafından, Orhan Pamuk’u anlamak isteyen insanlar için yazılmışlardı. Orhan Pamuk’u anlamak istemeyenler bu kitabı anlamadı; almadı, okumadı ve onu mahkeme salonlarına sürükleyip kitaplarını yakma cüretini bile gösterdiler.
Edebiyat camiasının Nobel’e pek rağbet etmediğini biliriz. Öyle ya vakti zamanında Sartre ödülü reddetmişti. Ancak Pamuk’u, Sartre gibi ödülü reddetmeye davet edenlerin unuttukları bir şey vardı. Fransız muhafazakârları, 1960’larda Fransa’nın Cezayir’e müdahalesini acımasızca eleştirerek şimşekleri üstüne çeken Sartre’ın tutuklanmasını istemişti Charles de Gaul’den. De Gaul’ün yanıtı kesindi: “Asla! Sarte da Fransa’nın bir yüzüdür”...
Pamuk’un Nobel’i kazanmasının ardından yapılan en yerinde yorum, bu ödülün, Türk Edebiyatı’nın uluslararası alandaki saygınlığını artıracağına dikkat çekiyordu.
Nitekim Pamuk, yedi ay sonra Cannes’da jüri olarak yerini aldı. Pamuk ile birlikte Cannes’da bir de Türkiye çıkarması oldu.
Doğum günü hediyesiOrhan Pamuk’u hâlâ anlamak istemeyenler için umut kalmamışken, anlamak isteyenler için geçtiğimiz ay iki önemli etkinlik vardı: 11 Mayıs günü Kadir Has Üniversitesi’nde düzenlenen ‘Orhan Pamuk Edebiyatı’ başlıklı sempozyumun ardından, 14 ve 15 Mayıs tarihlerinde Boğaziçi Üniversitesi bir Orhan Pamuk sempozyumu düzenledi.
Kadir Has Üniversitesi’ndeki sempozyum, yabancı akademisyenlerin katılımıyla daha çok yazarın yabancı dildeki okumaları üzerine yoğunlaşırken; Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Murat Belge, Engin Kılıç, Jale Parla gibi Orhan Pamuk’un eserleri üzerine uzun süredir inceleme yapan ve yazarla aynı dili paylaşan akademisyenleri konuk etti. 14 Mayıs sabahı Orhan Pamuk’a fahri doktora unvanı sunulmasıyla başlayan sempozyumda, yazarın eserlerinin farklı boyutları derinlemesine incelenerek katılımcılara yeni açılımlar sağlanması amaçlandı. Orhan Pamuk’un çevirmeni Maureen Freely, her iki sempozyuma da katılarak, yazarı İngilizce konuşan ülkelere aktarma serüvenini dinleyenlerle paylaştı.
Boğaziçi Üniversitesi’ndeki törene katılmak için Amerika’dan gelen Pamuk, konuşmasında, "Kitapların korkulacak ya da imrenilmesi gereken kutsal şeyler değil, anlaşılması gereken şeyler olduğunu burada öğrendim" diyerek ‘anlaşılmak’ konusuna bir kez daha dikkat çekti.
Pamuk, 7 Haziran’da 55. doğum gününü kutlayacak. Yazarın Cannes ve İstanbul’da Mayıs ayı içinde yaşadığı coşku, ona en güzel hediye olmuşa benziyor...

Orhan Pamuk’s parallel universes

Introvert like Marcel Proust, adventurer like Umberto Eco, fantastic like Italo Calvino, complex like Joyce, multi-faceted like Borges, magical like Marquez, and courageous like Dante... Included in the jury of Cannes Film Festival, Orhan Pamuk made headlines once again with two symposiums held in his name.

I remember a time when shelves in supermarkets and bookshops were packed with copies of My Name is Red. As I took one copy of the book in my hands, I faced his image lost in contemplation, directly looking at me from the backcover of the book. Suddenly I thought that this face was so familiar and I was sure he had something to reveal me and he knew something that might bring a change in my life. Although there were a hundred copies around, I was taken by his looks in the photograph reaching to me from behind those thick glasses whispering: “I have so much to tell you”.
Orhan Pamuk took me by the hand and opened the gates of new universes with ‘My Name is Red’. My Virgil from then on, Pamuk took me to a ‘New Life’... I remember a character in this book who was underlining the books while reading. I immediately underlined the sentence and many other sentences thereafter.
Reality and dream intermingled in his books, the borders blurred; characters got into each other... A dark atmosphere dominated and memory was deceptive as ever... Parallel universes were created with puns and riddles... Complex plots followed like corridors of the Library of Babel... The Silent House, The White Castle, Other Colours, Snow... Introvert like Marcel Proust, adventurer like Umberto Eco, fantastic like Italo Calvino, complex like Joyce, multi-faceted like Borges, magical like Marquez, and courageous as Dante... Pamuk’s books suddenly became indispensable to my life.

Understanding Orhan Pamuk
I remember a time when everyone was angry with this man whose books were advertised on billboards. They said, literature should not be popularised. I remember those claiming “A lot of people buy Orhan Pamuk books, but very few read them”. I remember reading statistics stating that “only one person out of ten people can read New Life until the end”. I was watching all these with a certain idea on my mind; they understood nothing of and about Orhan Pamuk.
It was on such a day that I encountered a book prepared by Engin Kılıç; ‘A Guide to Understanding Orhan Pamuk’. The articles in this book were collected with an aim to suggest new readings of Pamuk’s works. No doubt they were written by academics who understood Orhan Pamuk for those who want to understand Orhan Pamuk. Those who do not want to understand Orhan Pamuk did not read this book. Furthermore, they drove him to courts and even burnt his books.
Prizes, as the Nobel, are usually handled critically in literary circles, as it should be. It is widely known that Sartre denied the Prize. However, the aftershocks of Pamuk’s winning the Nobel Prize were quite controversial as many comments had no depth, and therefore no value. Those who invited Pamuk to renounce the prize “like Sartre did” failed to remember something. In the 1960s, Jean Paul Sartre made a series of controversial statements during a public lecture, upon which a group of French conservatives turned to Charles De Gaulle to caution the man of letters. After listening to their complaints, De Gaulle said to them "No way. Sartre is also France".
The most important and appropriate comment on Pamuk’s winning of the Nobel Prize emphasised the significance of the Prize in raising a world-wide interest in Turkish Literature and culture.
Not much later, Pamuk was invited to take a place in the jury of Cannes Film Festival. In its 60th year, Cannes also saw a big promotional campaign on Turkish culture.

Birthday present
Forget those who do not take pains to understand Orhan Pamuk; the city of İstanbul witnessed symposiums organised in name of the writer, for those who wish to understand him better. Kadir Has University organised a conference, entitled ‘the Literature of Orhan Pamuk’, on May 11, 2007. Subsequently Boğaziçi University held a two-day symposium where the works of the writer were discussed on May 14 and 15, 2007.
The conference at Kadir Has University focused on the international readings of Pamuk, with the participation of mainly foreign academics and critics; whereas Boğaziçi University housed many acknowledged Turkish academics such as Murat Belge, Engin Kılıç, and Jale Parla, who have been working on Pamuk’s works for some time. The symposium at Boğaziçi University was launched on May 14 with a ceremony, in which Mr.Pamuk was presented a honorary doctorate. Maureen Freely, translator of Pamuk’s works into English, joined the two symposiums and related the adventure and responsibilities of translating Pamuk.
Pamuk came to İstanbul in order to receive his honorary doctorate from Boğaziçi University and he gave a speech to mark the opening of the conference. “This is the place where I learned that books were not to be scared, or to be worshipped; instead books were to be understood”, he said emphasising the significance of mutual understanding.Pamuk celebrates his 55th birthday on June 7. It seems that the excitement he lived through at Cannes and his native city İstanbul in the month of May have been the best presents for him...