Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Aphrodite, a la Shmoop.

  • Oh, hello there. Sorry. You caught me being all nostalgic and stuff.

  • I look at those pretty waves out there, and I think of my amazing birth.

  • You know, when my Granddad Cronus cut off Great Granddaddy Uranus’s member

  • and tossed it into the ocean.

  • Yeah, my fam is kinda messed up.

  • Afterwards, a divine foam rose from the waters, giving birth to yours truly.

  • Some say my name even meansborn from foam.”

  • Others take this to mean that I’m a total bubble brain, but it’s just not true.

  • Just because I’m ridiculously hot doesn’t mean I’m stupid.

  • Just because gods and mortals alike worship all this hotness, and I don’t mind...

  • you know...rewarding their worship, doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person.

  • I’ve gotten beau coups of bad press over the years for the many many

  • times I’ve cheated on my husband, Hephaestus <<huh-FEST-iss>>.

  • But, really, can you blame me?

  • Have you seen what he looks like?

  • Maybe you think it’s shallow for me to say that, but I’m the goddess of beauty.

  • If I’m not concerned with good looks, who will be?

  • It’s kinda my job.

  • I tried with the Heph monster, but it’s a no-go.

  • Yeah, he still blows his top when he hears about my various liaisons.

  • Everybody knows about that time he caught Ares, the war god, and me in that stupid golden

  • net of his and tried to shame us by showing the other gods.

  • What was he trying to prove exactly?

  • That marrying the goddess of sex and expecting her to be faithful was an idiotic plan?

  • Point proven, Hephy. Good job.

  • Ares and I have been carrying on for years, despite what Hephaestus or anybody else thinks.

  • Weve even had a ton of kids together. Hard to believe with this body, right?

  • Our most famous kid is probably Eros, aka Cupid, who gets even more props than me on Valentine’s day.

  • The Olympian child services got on us for letting him fly around causing havoc with his love-inducing arrows.

  • But I was like, “I love love,” and Ares was like, “I love havoc,”

  • and we told those narrow minded social workers to buzz off.

  • Anyway, you want to know the sad thing about steamy affairs?

  • In the end, even they run out of steam.

  • I’d meet up with Ares, and he’d be going on and on about some new war he started.

  • How many times can a girl hear about horrible bloodshed before it all starts to sound the same?

  • That’s when I spied a beautiful hunter named Adonis <<uh-DON-iss>>.

  • I’m not afraid to admit to you guys, the moment I saw Adonis was the first time I really

  • knew what love was. Some say Eros grazed me with one his arrows, and that’s why I fell

  • so hard, but I think it was more than that. That mortal was so handsome, so perfect, so good.

  • His only flaw was that he was super into hunting.

  • I’d be like, “Let’s go get a couples massage,” and he’d be like,

  • Oooor we could go shoot some wild animals and skin them.”

  • Usually, I tell men to do stuff, and they just...like...do it.

  • But I was so into him that I actually let his impertinence slide.

  • I loved Adonis so much I even dressed up in hunting clothes to try and impress him.

  • It turns out that I should have put my foot down, though.

  • One day, Adonis met his match when a wild boar did him in.

  • I have a strong suspicion that boar was Ares in disguise, but I’ve never been sure...

  • And if that’s true it means it was all my fault...and I...I...I’m sorry.

  • It’s hard to even talk about this.

  • I was so sad when I found his body.

  • He was gone, and even though I was a goddess there was nothing I could do.

  • In honor of him, I took some of his blood and turned it into the bright red flower known as the anemone.

  • And now every time I smell one of these flowers, I ask...

  • Why is it so hard for the goddess of love to find true love for herself?

Aphrodite, a la Shmoop.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it