Percy Jackson's Greek Gods (23 page)

YOU GOTTA LOVE APHRODITE

N
O, SERIOUSLY.
That’s an order. See, Aphrodite had a magical belt that could make anyone fall in love with her on sight. If you saw her and she wanted you to love her, you would.

Me, I’m lucky. I’ve seen her, but I guess she wasn’t interested in winning my praise or whatever. So I still hate her guts.

Some of you are thinking,
OMG! She’s so pretty! Why do you hate her?

Clearly, you haven’t met the lady.

She was trouble from the moment she crawled out of the sea. And I mean she
literally
crawled out of the sea.

Aphrodite didn’t have parents. Way back when Kronos dumped the chopped-up bits of Ouranos into the sea, the sky god’s immortal blood mixed with the salt water and formed a frothy patch that solidified into a goddess.

In other words, Aphrodite was born in the wake of the first murder, which tells you something about her true nature.

After drifting through the Mediterranean for a while, looking for a good place to come ashore, she finally decided on the island of Cyprus. This was a relief to the dolphins and fish, because the floating naked goddess with the glowing aura was starting to freak them out.

Aphrodite rose from the sea and walked across the beach. Flowers blossomed at her feet. Birds gathered in the nearby branches to sing sweet songs. Little bunny rabbits and squirrels and ferrets and other critters frolicked all around her. It was like a Disney cartoon.

Describing Aphrodite is hard, because she was the most beautiful woman in creation. That could mean different things to different people. Blonde, brunette, or redhead? Fair complexion or dark? Blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes? Take your pick. Just picture the most attractive woman you can possibly imagine, and that’s what she looked like. Her appearance would change to appeal to each person who gazed upon her.

That day, the three Horai
,
the goddesses of the seasons, happened to be meeting on Cyprus—maybe planning which products would get placed in the “seasonal” aisle at the grocery store. I’m not sure.

They saw Aphrodite walking toward them and completely forgot everything else.

“Oh, wow, you’re beautiful!” said Summer.

“I am?” asked Aphrodite, though she already knew it. She just wanted to hear them say it.

“Dazzling!” said Spring. “We should take you to meet the Olympian gods.”

“There are other gods?” Aphrodite was amazed. “I’m the goddess of love and beauty. What would you need other gods for?”

Autumn and Spring exchanged a wary look.

“Uh…a bunch of stuff,” Autumn said. “But we should get you dressed before we take you to Olympus. Aren’t you cold?”

“No,” Aphrodite said. “Why would I cover myself?”

Autumn wanted to scream:
Because you’re too freaking gorgeous and you’re making the rest of us feel bad!

Instead she said, “If you appear like that, you’ll drive the gods insane with desire. I mean…they will
literally
go insane.”

“Oh.” Aphrodite pouted. “But I didn’t bring a thing to wear.”

The Horai
took care of that. They summoned up some magical clothing and had a fashion show. Spring offered Aphrodite an Easter Bunny costume. Autumn thought Aphrodite would look good as a Halloween witch. Those plans were vetoed. Finally Summer produced a beautiful white gossamer dress. The Horai placed a delicate golden crown on Aphrodite’s head, hung gold earrings in her ears, and draped a gold necklace at the base of her throat.

Aphrodite looked even
more
amazing with clothes on, which Autumn found infuriating; but the seasonal goddess forced a smile. “Perfect! Let’s get you to Olympus.”

By now you probably know enough about the Olympian gods to figure out what happened when Aphrodite showed up.

The women were immediately, like:
I hate her.

The guys fell all over themselves, tripping on their tongues and trying not to drool.

“It would be my honor to marry you,” said Apollo, god of poetry and archery.

“No,
my
honor!” barked Ares, god of war.

“My honor!” yelled Poseidon.

“You’re already married,” Zeus snapped. “It would be
my
honor.”

“
You’re
already married!” Hera protested. “To me!”

“Curses!” said Zeus. “Er, I mean, of
course
, dear.”

The gods argued and shoved each other and offered Aphrodite various gifts for her hand in marriage. Poseidon conveniently forgot his wife Amphitrite and promised the love goddess all the seafood she could eat, a bunch of horses, and a set of his-and-hers matching tridents.

Apollo made up some bad haiku in her honor and vowed to give Aphrodite free archery lessons.

Ares offered to take her on a romantic chariot ride over the crushed lifeless bodies of his foes.

The other goddesses got disgusted. They started yelling at the men to grow up and stop acting like fools.

The entire Olympian council was on the verge of civil war. Meanwhile, Aphrodite just stood there batting her eyelashes, like:
All this fuss for little old me?
But inside she was loving it.

Finally, Hera stepped back, took a deep breath, and realized that her godly family was about to unravel. Being the goddess of family life, Hera couldn’t allow that, even if half the time she wanted to strangle the other gods herself.

She glanced at the far corner of the throne room, where one god was
not
participating in the argument. He sat in the shadows, quiet and dejected, knowing he had no chance of competing for Aphrodite.

Hera smiled. She had an idea, and I can tell you from personal experience
that when Hera gets an idea, you should run away ASAP.

She raised her arms and yelled, “SILENCE!”

The gods were so startled, they stopped fighting.

“I have a solution,” Hera said. “As the goddess of marriage, I am responsible for picking the best husband for our dear new friend Aphrodite. I’m sure my husband Lord Zeus will support my decision…with force, if necessary.”

“I will?” Zeus said. “I mean…yes, dear. Of course I will!”

“Well, then?” Ares asked. “And may I just say, Mother, that you look beautiful today. Who will marry Aphrodite?”

“My son…” Hera began.

Ares beamed with joy.

Then Hera pointed to the opposite side of the room. “Hephaestus, the blacksmith god.”

Hephaestus was so surprised that he fell off his throne, his crutches clattering across the floor.

As he struggled to get up, Ares exploded: “What?! How can
that
be married to
this
?”

He gestured to the radiant Aphrodite, who was staring in horror at the blacksmith god, with his twisted legs, his misshapen face, his stained coveralls, and the remains of several meals in the whiskers of his beard.

“They’re perfect together,” Hera said. “A beautiful woman needs a hardworking, plainspoken, no-nonsense husband to keep her grounded!”

I’m pretty sure that’s the first time the word
grounded
was ever used to mean a punishment.

“Besides,” Hera continued, “Aphrodite must get married right away, or the fighting over her will never end. We can’t allow the council of the gods to be in chaos over a woman. Can we, Lord Zeus?”

“Hmm?” Zeus was distracted, studying Aphrodite’s lovely arms. “Oh! No, indeed, my dear. You’re absolutely right.”

Athena stood, her gray eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. “I think it’s a brilliant idea. And I am, after all, the goddess of wisdom.”

“Yes!” Demeter chimed in. “Aphrodite
deserves
a good husband like Hephaestus.”

The male gods stopped grumbling. They all wanted to marry Aphrodite, but they had to admit Hera was right. If any
decent
god married her, the other guys would never stop fighting about it and feeling offended. But if Aphrodite married Hephaestus…well, he was a joke. They couldn’t be jealous of
him.

Besides, if Aphrodite was stuck in an unhappy marriage, that opened up all sorts of possibilities for becoming her secret boyfriend.

“It’s decided, then,” Zeus said. “Hephaestus, come here!”

The blacksmith god staggered over. His face was the color of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

“Hephaestus, do you take this woman, et cetera?” Zeus asked.

Hephaestus cleared his throat. “My lady Aphrodite, I know I’m not, um, very handsome….”

Aphrodite didn’t respond. She was too busy trying to look beautiful and revolted at the same time, which wasn’t easy.

“I’m not much of a dancer.” Hephaestus’s metal leg braces creaked. “I’m not witty or charming. And I don’t smell very good. But I promise to be a loving husband. I’m handy at fixing things around the house, and if you ever need a lug wrench, or a power sander—”

“Urgh,” Aphrodite said, swallowing her nausea.

“Well, that’s good enough for me!” Zeus said. “I now pronounce you husband and wife!”

So Aphrodite married Hephaestus and the celebrity ship
Aphrophaestus
completely dominated Olympian tabloid news for like a thousand years.

Did they live happily ever after?

HAHAHAHAHA. No.

Aphrodite stayed away from her husband as much as possible. They never had any kids. Aphrodite had plenty of children…just not with Hephaestus. Immediately after getting married, she started an affair with Ares, the god of war, which became the worst kept secret on Mount Olympus.

When she wasn’t busy sneaking around behind her husband’s back, Aphrodite spent her time making all the other gods and mortals miserable—uh, I mean, helping them discover the joys of love!

Aphrodite took her place among the Olympians as the goddess of beauty, pleasure, sweet-talk,
telenovelas,
steamy romance novels, and (of course) love. When she had to travel, she rode in a golden chariot pulled by a flock of snowy doves, though sometimes when the gods went to war, Aphrodite rode with her boyfriend Ares in his war chariot and even held the reins while he was busy killing people.

She had a bunch of attendants called
erotes
—miniature winged love gods. Their leader was Eros, son of Aphrodite, who was the god of physical attraction and Aphrodite’s hit man. Whenever she wanted somebody to fall madly in love, she sent Eros to shoot the poor schmuck with a magic arrow. Later on, Eros became known as Cupid. He still shows up on those cheesy Valentine’s Day displays. He might sound silly, but if Aphrodite sends him after you, it’s no joke. He can make you fall in love with
anyone
.

If Aphrodite likes you, she might cause you to fall for somebody attractive and nice. If Aphrodite is angry, she might make you fall in love with the most repulsive person you know, or a toy poodle, or a telephone pole.

Aphrodite’s favorite trick was to make someone fall in love with a person who didn’t love them back. She thought that was the best fun ever. If you’ve ever had a crush on somebody who didn’t notice you, that’s Aphrodite fault. I guess the goddess figured that way, more people would pray to her, like:
Oh, please, let him/her notice me! I’ll sacrifice a nice box of chocolates to you, I promise!

Actually, they didn’t have chocolate in Ancient Greece, but Aphrodite was fond of apples. That was her sacred fruit, maybe because it was pretty and sweet, just like her. (Insert gagging sound here.)

She had dozens of other sacred plants and animals and stuff, some of which made sense; some not so much. The rose was one of her flowers, which is why we still use it as a romantic gift. She also liked daffodils, and…wait for it…lettuce. Yep. That incredibly romantic roughage was considered Aphrodite’s sacred salad ingredient. There’s a reason for that, which we’ll get to it in a second. But if someday you’re tossing a Caesar salad and you start feeling lovey-dovey as you shred romaine lettuce, now you’ll know why.

Aphrodite’s sacred stone was the pearl, since it comes from the sea, just like Aphrodite.

Her favorite animals were the rabbit (because they have lots and lots and lots of baby bunnies!) and the goose, which you’ll sometimes see pictures of Aphrodite riding sidesaddle.

Why a goose? Dunno. It must’ve been a
big
goose.

All I know is, if I ever saw Aphrodite riding one, I’d bust out laughing. Then she’d probably curse me, and I’d end up engaged to a ’72 Impala or something.

Aphrodite was a popular goddess because everyone wanted love, but she didn’t always get along with mortals or her fellow gods.

For instance, one time she got jealous of Athena because everyone was praising her weaving skills.

Aphrodite didn’t like it when the spotlight was on anyone except her.

“Oh, weaving is nothing,” Aphrodite said.
“I
could do that if I wanted to.”

“Really?” Athena smiled. “Care to challenge me?”

Never heard about the great weaving contest between Athena and Aphrodite? That’s because it wasn’t so great. It was a disaster.