Thursday 14 May 2015

Anchises

In Greek mythology, Anchises was described as the mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite.  Anchises was a member of the junior branch of the royal family of Troy, son of  Capys and Themiste.
                                                                             
                                                    According to Greek legend, when Anchises was tending cattle on Mount Ida, the goddess of love, Aphrodite, saw him, and was seized by desire. Aphrodite went immediately to her homeland Paphos, in Cyprus, where the Graces bathed  her with heavenly oil. Aphrodite, goddess of love, put on rich clothes and decked herself with gold, she returned to Ida, flying among the clouds. In some versions, it was described that wolves, lions, bears, leopards, and deer came and seeing them,  Aphrodite, goddess of love, put desire in their breasts so that they all mated.
Anchises and goddess Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess


                                 When  Aphrodite came to Anchises, appeared before him with the looks and height of a mortal woman, but still wearing a robe of gold enriched with all kinds of needlework, twisted brooches, earrings in the form of flowers and several necklaces round her throat. 
Anchises saw her and known she was a goddess. But Aphrodite denied being a goddess, saying that she was a mortal woman and the daughter of Otreus, princess from Phrygia (Turkey). She explained to the Anchises, that she spoke his language because she had been brought up by a Trojan nurse, and that it had been god Hermes who told her to become Anchises's wedded wife. This was how Anchises, not knowing what he did, lay with an immortal goddess. In some version, Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced Anchises for nearly two weeks of lovemaking.
Anchises and goddess Aphrodite

                                             After the love making, when Aphrodite revealed her true identity, Anchises feared the gods would destroy him for having slept with one of the immortals. But Aphrodite, who herself grieved for having laid in the bed of a mortal man, assured him that he was dear to the gods and nothing would happen to him, provided he would say their child was the offspring of a Nymph, for Aphrodite disposed that the Nymphs would rear Aeneas and that, as soon as he was a boy, he would be restored to his father. In some versions, Aphrodite bore him two sons Aeneas and Lyros.
                     According to other version, Anchises learned that his lover was a goddess only nine months later, when she revealed herself and presented him with the infant Aeneas. Aphrodite had warned him that if he boasted of the affair, he would be blasted by the thunderbolt of Zeus. 

               According to some versions,  Zeus sought to punish  Aphrodite, goddess of love, with a lowly mate for causing the gods to fall in love with an endless string of mortal women.
                                         Later, Anchises got drunk and started boasting to friends that he was loved by the goddess Aphrodite herself.  When Zeus, the king of the gods, found out about his arrogance, he became very annoyed. Angrily, he struck Anchises with his thunderbolt and Anchises was scorched and/or crippled.
Aeneas carrying his old father, Anchises .....burning Troy...

                                     After the defeat of Troy in the Trojan War, the elderly Anchises was carried from the burning city by his son Aeneas, accompanied by Aeneas' wife Creusa, who died in the escape attempt, and small son Ascanius.  Anchises himself died and was buried in Sicily many years later. Aeneas later visited Hades and saw his father again in the Elysian Fields.

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