Ares And Aphrodite Quotes

Fear can’t be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They’re like love. They’re almost identical emotions. That’s why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons – Fear and Panic – were spawned from both war and love.

Athena called, "Annabeth Chase, my own daughter." Annabeth squeezed my arm, then walked forward and knelt at her mother's feet. Athena smiled. "You, my daughter, have exceeded all expectations. You have used your wits, your strength, and your courage to defend this city, and our seat of power. It has come to our attention that Olympus is...well, trashed. The Titan lord did much damage that will have to be repaired. We could rebuild it by magic, of course, and make it just as it was. But the gods feel that the city could be improved. We will take this as an opportunity. And you, my daughter, will design these improvements." Annabeth looked up, stunned. "My...my lady?" Athena smiled wryly. "You are an architect, are you not? You have studied the techniques of Daedalus himself. Who better to redesign Olympus and make it a monument that will last for another eon?" "You mean...I can design whatever I want?" "As your heart desires," the goddess said. "Make us a city for the ages." "As long as you have plenty of statues of me," Apollo added. "And me," Aphrodite agreed. "Hey, and me!" Ares said. "Big statues with huge wicked swords and-" All right!" Athena interrupted. "She gets the point. Rise, my daughter, official architect of Olympus.

Her heart raced with joy to sleep with War

She was not the still quiet type. Aphrodites never are.

Fear can't be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They're like love. They're almost identical emotions. That's why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons - Fear and Panic - were spawned from both war and love.' 'But I don't...this doesn't make sense.' 'No,' Piper agreed. 'Stop thinking about it. Just feel.' 'I hate that.' 'I know. You can't plan for feelings. Like with Percy, and your future - you can't control every contingency. You have to accept that. Let it scare you. Trust that it'll be okay anyway.

There are few things more mysterious than endings. I mean, for example, when did the Greek gods end, exactly? Was there a day when Zeus waved magisterially down from Olympus and Aphrodite and her lover Ares, and her crippled husband Hephaestus ) I always felt sorry for him), and all the rest got rolled up like a worn-out carpet?

Hephaestus: "I envy your mortals." Aphrodite: "As Ares says, they die you know." Hephaestus: "They do. But the lucky ones live first [...] The luckiest ones spend time with you.

Fear can’t be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They’re like love. They’re almost identical emotions. That’s why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons—Fear and Panic—were spawned from both war and love.

The two creatures were sexless. But he of Malacandra was masculine (not male); she of Perelandra was feminine (not female). Malacandra seemed to him to have the look of one standing armed, at the ramparts of his own remote archaic world, in ceaseless vigilance, his eyes ever roaming the earth-ward horizon whence his danger came long ago. "A sailor's look," Ransom once said to me; "you know... eyes that are impregnated with distance." But the eyes of Perelandra opened, as it were, inward, as if they were the curtained gateway to a world of waves and murmurings and wandering airs, of life that rocked in winds and splashed on mossy stones and descended as the dew and arose sunward in thin-spun delicacy of mist. On Mars the very forests are of stone; in Venus the lands swim. For now he thought of them no more as Malacandra and Perelandra. He called them by their Tellurian names. With deep wonder he thought to himself, "My eyes have seen Mars and Venus. I have seen Ares and Aphrodite.

THANK GOD," sighs Ares. Aphrodite says: "You're welcome.

Eros mumbled something. "I'm sorry?" said Aphrodite. "Whatwouldjesusdo." "What would Jesus do?" said Aphrodite. "Let me tell you something. Jesus was a very good boy. He would do exactly what his mother told him to." "But-" "Jesus was supposed to be a god, right?" said Aphrodite. "Ergo, he did revenge. All gods do revenge." "Not exactly. He said you should turn the other-" "What else does your Jesus say?" Aphrodite interrupted. "I thought you didn't care." "Let me see," said Aphrodite. "I remember. 'Honour thy father and mother'." "One, that wasn't Jesus. And two, it's hard to honour your father when there are so many candidates for who he might be." "That's not very nice," said Aphrodite. "You know who your father is. It's your cousin Ares." [...] "I wish the Virgin Mary was my mother," grumbled Eros eventually.

Aphrodite and Ares are wounded in battle (by Diomedes in Book 5), and both respond with ridiculous self-pity at their own trivial injuries. Ares and Aphrodite lack honor because they are so closely associated with the basest and most simplistic of human motivations.

The discussion was escalating into an argument when the Demeter head counselor offered one last suggestion. "What about this?" He held out a small red object. "Miniature explosive!" the Ares boy bellowed. "Duck!" "It's not an explosive or a duck," the Demeter boy said. "It's a berry native to this land. Grows all over the place here." The Aphrodite girl wrinkled her nose. "Excuse me, but ew! There are seeds all over the outside! So unattractive. And red? That colour is so overdone, fruit-wise." "Yes, but it's tasty," the Demeter counselor said. "I call it a strawberry. "Why?" the Athena girl wanted to know. "Because blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, and cranberry were taken.

all is fair in love and war but war must bow down to love eventually

I quickly dropped my hands and changed the subject. "So those two who visited me the other night. Who were they?" I asked. He smiled, knowingly. "Ares and Aphrodite." Of course, I thought. In fact, I think I had already sort of figured that out. Although in my mind they were still Mr. Scowly Face and Miss Perfect Bitch. I found those the names I had given them much more appropriate

The influence of Greek art and literature became so powerful in Rome that ancient Roman deities were changed to resemble the corresponding Greek gods, and were considered to be the same. Most of them, however, in Rome had Roman names. These were Jupiter (Zeus), Juno (Hera), Neptune (Poseidon), Vesta (Hestia), Mars (Ares), Minerva (Athena), Venus (Aphrodite), Mercury (Hermes), Diana (Artemis), Vulcan or Mulciber (Hephaestus), Ceres (Demeter).

But whence came this curious difference between them? He found that he could point to no single feature wherein the difference resided, yet it was impossible to ignore. One could try - Ransom has tried a hundred times - to put it into words. He has said that Malacandra was like rhythm and Perelandra like melody. He has said that Malacandra affected him like a quantitative, Perelandra like an accentual, metre. He thinks that the first held in his hand something like a spear, but the hands of the other were open, with the palms towards him. But I don't know that any of these attempts has helped me much. At all events what Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender.

And thus, having been assured by Themis, the mother of the Fates,that it was fated that she & the God of War should meet, Aphrodite, with downcast eyes,informed the Goddess of Oracles, Rites & Laws that she would be happy to accept Ares` challenge, adding that she thought that Mars sounded better than Ares & that she would prefer to call him Mars if he would call her Venus.

That is the miracle of Greek mythology—a humanized world, men freed from the paralyzing fear of an omnipotent Unknown. The terrifying incomprehensibilities which were worshiped elsewhere, and the fearsome spirits with which earth, air, and sea swarmed, were banned from Greece. It may seem odd to say that the men who made the myths disliked the irrational and had a love for facts; but it is true, no matter how wildly fantastic some of the stories are. Anyone who reads them with attention discovers that even the most nonsensical take place in a world which is essentially rational and matter-of-fact. Hercules, whose life was one long combat against preposterous monsters, is always said to have had his home in the city of Thebes. The exact spot where Aphrodite was born of the foam could be visited by any ancient tourist; it was just offshore from the island of Cythera. The winged steed Pegasus, after skimming the air all day, went every night to a comfortable stable in Corinth. A

The ascent of the soul through love, which Plato describes in the Phaedrus, is symbolized in the figure of Aphrodite Urania, and this was the Venus painted by Botticelli, who was incidentally an ardent Platonist, and member of the Platonist circle around Pico della Mirandola. Botticelli’s Venus is not erotic: she is a vision of heavenly beauty, a visitation from other and higher spheres, and a call to transcendence. Indeed, she is self-evidently both the ancestor and the descendant of the Virgins of Fra Filippo Lippi: the ancestor in her pre-Christian meaning, the descendant in absorbing all that had been achieved through the artistic representation of the Virgin Mary as the symbol of untainted flesh. The post-Renaissance rehabilitation of sexual desire laid the foundations for a genuinely erotic art, an art that would display the human being as both subject and object of desire, but also as a free individual whose desire is a favour consciously bestowed. But this rehabilitation of sex leads us to raise what has become one of the most important questions confronting art and the criticism of art in our time: that of the difference, if there is one, between erotic art and pornography. Art can be erotic and also beautiful, like a Titian Venus. But it cannot be beautiful and also pornographic—so we believe, at least. And it is important to see why. In distinguishing the erotic and the pornographic we are really distinguishing two kinds of interest: interest in the embodied person and interest in the body—and, in the sense that I intend, these interests are incompatible. (See the discussion in Chapter 2.) Normal desire is an inter-personal emotion. Its aim is a free and mutual surrender, which is also a uniting of two individuals, of you and me—through our bodies, certainly, but not merely as our bodies. Normal desire is a person to person response, one that seeks the selfhood that it gives. Objects can be substituted for each other, subjects not. Subjects, as Kant persuasively argued, are free individuals; their non-substitutability belongs to what they essentially are. Pornography, like slavery, is a denial of the human subject, a way of negating the moral demand that free beings must treat each other as ends in themselves.

And the naked lovers looked for a place where they could lay together & Aphrodite suggested that her bed was as good as any. And thus, Ares & Aphrodite, dropped their war games in favour of love games, to make love, not war. And as they kissed & coupled again & again in Aphrodite`s bed, the Goddess of Love was impregnated with the lovely Harmonia since Harmony & Peace prevailed when people made love, not war. And that was also the time when Chaos fell on the lovers as the invisible netting rigged by Hephaestus over his wife`s bed caught the lovers in its trap.

and drew her strength directly from our magickal Oklahoma earth. “U-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, it seems I need help at the lavender booth. I simply cannot believe how busy we are.” Grandma had barely spoken when a nun hurried up. “Zoey, Sister Mary Angela could use your help filling out cat adoption forms.” “I’ll help you, Grandma Redbird,” Shaylin said. “I love the smell of lavender.” “Oh, honey, that would be so sweet of you. First, could you run to my car and get into the trunk. There is another box of lavender soaps and sachets tucked back there. Looks like I’m going to sell out completely,” Grandma said happily. “Sure thing.” Shaylin caught the keys Grandma tossed to her and hurried toward the main exit of the school grounds which led to the parking lot, as well as the tree-lined road that joined Utica Street. “And I’ll call my momma. She said just let her know if we get too busy over here. She and the PTA moms will be back here in a sec,” said Stevie Rae. “Grandma, do you mind if I give Street Cats a hand? I’ve been dying to check out their new litter of kittens.” “Go on, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. I think Sister Mary Angela has been missing your company.” “Thanks, Grandma.” I smiled at her. Then I turned to Stevie Rae. “Okay, if your mom’s group is coming back, I’m gonna go help the nuns.” “Yeah, no problem.” Stevie Rae, shielding her eyes and peering through the crowd, added, “I see her now, and she’s got Mrs. Rowland and Mrs. Wilson with her.” “Don’t worry. We can handle this,” Shaunee said. “’Kay,” I said, grinning at both of them. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I left the cookie booth and noticed Aphrodite, clutching her big purple Queenies cup, was right on my heels. “I thought you didn’t want a lecture from the nuns.” “Better than a lecture from PTA moms.” She shuddered. “Plus, I like cats more than people.” I shrugged. “Okay, whatever.” We’d only gotten partway to the Street Cats tent when Aphrodite slowed way down. “Seriously. Effing. Pathetic.” She was muttering around her straw, narrowing her eyes, and glaring. I followed her gaze and joined her frown. “Yeah, no matter how many times I see them together, I still don’t get it.” Aphrodite and I had stopped to watch Shaunee’s ex-Twin BFF, Erin, hang all over Dallas. “I really thought she was better than that.” “Apparently not,” Aphrodite said. “Eeew,” I said, looking away from their way too public display of locked lips. “I’m telling you, there’s not enough booze in Tulsa to make watching those two suck face okay.” She made a gagging sound, which changed to a snort and a laugh. “Check out the wimple, twelve o’clock.” Sure enough, there was a nun I vaguely recognized as Sister Emily (one of the more uptight of the nuns) descending on the too-busy-with-their-tongues-to-notice couple. “She looks serious,” I said. “You know, a nun may very well be the direct opposite of an aphrodisiac. This should be entertaining. Let’s watch.” “Zoey! Over here!” I looked from the train wreck about to happen to see Sister Mary Angela waving me over to her.

The least you can do is buy the lady a drink.” As the tavern-goers returned to their carousing, he turned his arrogant grin on Sophia. “What are you having, then?” She blinked at him. What was she having? Sophia knew exactly what she was having. She was having colossally bad luck. This well-dressed mountain of insolence looming over her was Captain Grayson, of the brig Aphrodite. And the brig Aphrodite was the sole ship bound for Tortola until next week. For Sophia, next week might as well have been next year. She needed to leave for Tortola. She needed to leave now. Therefore, she needed this man-or this man’s ship-to take her. “What, no outpouring of gratitude?” He cast a glance toward Bains, who was lumbering up from the floor. “I suppose you think I should have beat him to a pulp. I could have. But then, I don’t like violence. It always ends up costing me money. And pretty thing that you are”-his eyes skipped over her as he motioned to the barkeep-“before I went to that much effort, I think I’d at least need to know your name, Miss…?” Sophia gritted her teeth, marshaling all her available forbearance. She needed to leave, she reminded herself. She needed this man. “Turner. Miss Jane Turner.” “Miss…Jane…Turner.” He teased the syllables out, as if tasting them on his tongue. Sophia had always thought her middle name to be the dullest, plainest syllable imaginable. But from his lips, even “Jane” sounded indecent. “Well, Miss Jane Turner. What are you drinking?” “I’m not drinking anything. I’m looking for you, Captain Grayson. I’ve come seeking passage on your ship.” “On the Aphrodite? To Tortola? Why the devil would you want to go there?” “I’m a governess. I’m to be employed, near Road Town.” The lies rolled effortlessly off her tongue. As always. His eyes swept her from bonnet to half boots, stroking an unwelcome shiver down to her toes. “You don’t look like any governess I’ve ever seen.

Gods in The Lost Hero Aeolus The Greek god of the winds. Roman form: Aeolus Aphrodite The Greek goddess of love and beauty. She was married to Hephaestus, but she loved Ares, the god of war. Roman form: Venus Apollo The Greek god of the sun, prophecy, music, and healing; the son of Zeus, and the twin of Artemis. Roman form: Apollo Ares The Greek god of war; the son of Zeus and Hera, and half brother to Athena. Roman form: Mars Artemis The Greek goddess of the hunt and the moon; the daughter of Zeus and the twin of Apollo. Roman form: Diana Boreas The Greek god of the north wind, one of the four directional anemoi (wind gods); the god of winter; father of Khione. Roman form: Aquilon Demeter The Greek goddess of agriculture, a daughter of the Titans Rhea and Kronos. Roman form: Ceres Dionysus The Greek god of wine; the son of Zeus. Roman form: Bacchus Gaea The Greek personification of Earth. Roman form: Terra Hades According to Greek mythology, ruler of the Underworld and god of the dead. Roman form: Pluto Hecate The Greek goddess of magic; the only child of the Titans Perses and Asteria. Roman form: Trivia Hephaestus The Greek god of fire and crafts and of blacksmiths; the son of Zeus and Hera, and married to Aphrodite. Roman form: Vulcan Hera The Greek goddess of marriage; Zeus’s wife and sister. Roman form: Juno Hermes The Greek god of travelers, communication, and thieves; son of Zeus. Roman form: Mercury Hypnos The Greek god of sleep; the (fatherless) son of Nyx (Night) and brother of Thanatos (Death). Roman form: Somnus Iris The Greek goddess of the rainbow, and a messenger of the gods; the daughter of Thaumas and Electra. Roman form: Iris Janus The Roman god of gates, doors, and doorways, as well as beginnings and endings. Khione The Greek goddess of snow; daughter of Boreas Notus The Greek god of the south wind, one of the four directional anemoi (wind gods). Roman form: Favonius Ouranos The Greek personification of the sky. Roman form: Uranus Pan The Greek god of the wild; the son of Hermes. Roman form: Faunus Pompona The Roman goddess of plenty Poseidon The Greek god of the sea; son of the Titans Kronos and Rhea, and brother of Zeus and Hades. Roman form: Neptune Zeus The Greek god of the sky and king of the gods. Roman form: Jupiter

Gods, you’re an ugly bastard,” Ares taunted. “I’m surprised Aphrodite never slayed you in your sleep. I even begged her to a few times over the past millennia.” “Maybe because she was too busy in my bed to even think about it.

Should I also be glad of our unwanted guest?" "Unwanted?" Her eyes widened as her voice rose. "She's the goddess of love, fertility, beauty, and desire. Who could be more perfect for a wedding? Although..." She tapped her lush lips, considering. "She does have a bad side, but you can't blame her. Who wouldn't have issues if you'd been born from the sea foam created from Uranus's blood after his youngest son, Cronus, castrated him and threw his genitals into the sea?" The woman in pink choked on her food. The man with the goatee barked a laugh. Jay crossed his legs, although his family jewels weren't under threat. "She also had many adulterous affairs," Zara continued to her now rapt audience of singles. "Most notable with Ares. So maybe cutting off her head is a good thing." She lifted a forkful of biryani. "Did you know her name gave us the word aphrodisiac? Or that her Latin name, Venus, gave us the word venereal for venereal dis----" Jay cut her off with a raised hand. "Not something I really wanted to think about over a meal.

thirteen full-body statues arranged in a loose circle around the room. One for each member of the Thirteen, the group that rules Olympus. I name them off silently as my gaze skips over each one—Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Athena, Ares, Dionysus, Hermes, Artemis, Apollo, Hephaestus, Aphrodite—before turning back to face the final statue. This one is covered in a black cloth that pours over it, spilling down to pool on the floor at its feet. Even still, it’s impossible to miss the wide-set shoulders, the spiky crown that adorns his head. My fingers itch to grab the fabric and rip it away so I can finally see his features once and for all. Hades.

Hephaestus felt like he’d been hit in the face with a three-pound club hammer—one of the really nice ones with the fiberglass grip and the double-faced drop-forged steel head. “Cheating on me?” he asked. “Impossible!” “Possible,” Helios said grimly. “I saw them myself. Not that I was looking! But, well, they were kind of hard to miss.” The sun Titan explained that Aphrodite and Ares often sneaked into Hephaestus’s apartment while the blacksmith god was working in the forges. Right there in his own bedroom, they got extremely naughty.

Does love even have a sex? I doubt it. If you are lucky enough to love, who cares what decorative flesh your lover sports? The divine delta, that juicy fig, the powerful phallus, that scepter of state- each is only an aspect of Aphrodite, after all. We are all hermaphrodites at heart- aren't we? The delta is as soft as Aphrodite, the phallus stiff as Ares' spear. And no one wears anything for long but a coat of dust. Only the songs of passion linger

We have a saying in my culture. Dios no le diá, alas a los alacranes: God did not give wings to scorpions. No. They seem a little scary at first, but look how small they are, how bitter and ugly. They just have to crawl around in everybody else's mierda, waiting for the chance to sting someone. Pobrecita... don't it just suck to be a bottom feeder? Don't it just?

Apollo alone stands apart. If I were Minos, a newcomer to this city who’s obviously looking to make his own grab for power, Apollo is where I would strike. He’s the cornerstone of the alliance that pledges to Zeus. Without him, Zeus would keep Ares and Aphrodite at his side, by virtue of them being his sisters, but would he be able to keep the rest?

Take that up with my fuckup of a son. I told Icarus to deal with Aphrodite, but somehow he ‘mistook’ Pan for her.” He curses. “Don’t look at me like that, Hermes. It’s the story he spun.” “It’s not a very good one.” “It won’t happen again. My other boys aren’t half so inept.” He laughs harshly. “And Atalanta is tied up in the basement. She’s perfectly fine. I just can’t risk her interfering with what comes next. You saw her in the Ares trials. She’s formidable.” “Formidable enough to almost take down one of your prized foster sons.” “Your jokes leave something to be desired.” A pause. “You’re sure they won’t run us out of town for this?” “The laws are the laws, even if most people have no idea what little secrets from our founding the Thirteen have hidden all these years. If your boys follow my instructions to the letter, the clause will be triggered. But I never promised it would work.

Time is not linear. I see the beginning and the end of all things now. I know Pandora. I understand Eve. I have been them and I have made them, both. Their stories repeat, as does mine, in the hands of every person who scrambles to be both what they’re expected to be and what they are. Everyone who upends their own darkness and swallows it.

Aphrodite battled Ares to protect her wounded lover Adonis. When she was wounded and fell next to Adonis, their blood combined, turning the white quartz around them pink. The fusion is what made Rose Quartz—love and war. Battle and blood. Unconditional and perfect—just like you.

Usually when you talk to people, they don't want to talk; they want to dominate. Most of the time, they don't want to have a conversation; they want to place judgment on your soul...and you can use this to your ADVANTAGE. So the next time someone picks a fight with you, ask them a question no longer than 8 words. Emotional people LOVE answering questions. And it's by their answers ye shall truly know them. And it's by their answers that ye shall discover where their pressure points are. And at the perfect time...you'll ask the final question. Now, you might not get anywhere, but the audience will feel it.

One for each member of the Thirteen, the group that rules Olympus. I name them off silently as my gaze skips over each one—Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Athena, Ares, Dionysus, Hermes, Artemis, Apollo, Hephaestus, Aphrodite—before turning back to face the final statue.

I have come to join your fight, Rich One." Hermes laughed. "It's because he wants to be on the winning side." Ares glared at the God of Mischief, though if not for Aphrodite, Ares would have likely waited until he was certain his choice would win. "It sounds to me like you are asking for a favor, Ares," said Hades. "And if that is the case, I will require one in return." The god straightened. "A favor in exchange for my battle prowess?" "Do you mean your bloodlust?" asked Athena. "Need I remind you that no one asked for you at all?" said Hades. Hermes inhaled between his teeth. "Oh, you must be in pain after that burn.

Je me demande quelle qualité tu peux bien avoir pour que nous acceptions de te remettre notre fils, Antéros, à Aphrodite la Céleste et à moi, Arès, Fléau des hommes, assène-t-il avec toute l’autorité possible. Antéros est l’un de nos cinq enfants bien-aimés, tendre et vicieux tout à la fois.

I challenge you, then." Ares raised a closed fist, as did Hephaestus. As Heph and Ares played Rock, Scissors, Paper over who had the honor of paying her debt, Aphrodite's chic façade switched between ethereal beauty and irritated bitch

Now, Aphrodite emerged from foam, remember? Foam love is a nice feeling, but just as superficial. When it’s gone, it’s gone, nothing remains. Always aim for the kind of love that comes from the deep.’ ‘I’m not in love!’ ‘Fine, but when you are, just remember, foam love is interested in foam beauty. Sea love seeks sea beauty. And you, my heart, deserve sea love, the strong and profound and enchanting type.

Zeus turned the sky black, commanding dozens of explosive lightning strikes that filled the plain with ear-splitting thunder and sent thick smoke curling into the air from the fires left in their stead. Poseidon drove his glowing trident into the ground, opening gaping rifts that swallowed everyone in their path. Ares mercilessly wielded his sword, slashing through human after human, leaving his hands and armour dripping with blood. Athena whirled her spear around, skewering anyone who came too close. Apollo’s hands glowed, sunlight bursting from his outstretched palms, blinding and scorching everyone within twenty feet. Artemis fired off arrows while commanding an army of ferocious beasts that used their pointed teeth and enormous talons to maim and kill their victims. Aphrodite bewitched males with pink mist she blew from her mouth, forcing them to turn on their allies. And Hera threw crackling white fireballs, incinerating the humans they collided with.

Using the same terms Homer uses on the battlefield, he wrote that love has the power of breaking or weakening the knees, and that the look of a woman can have the same effect as a javelin that spills forth “life-blood” onto the battlefield. All of these terms employ the same verbs, and even Sappho, who was known to use Homeric language, used them too. In one of her poems, she wrote that Penelope’s suitors’ knees “are loosened under the charm of love,” a Homeric turn of phrase that is more often used to describe the final fall of a felled soldier in battle.[52]

I pray Aphrodite will help him find someone who loves him as much as he loves her.” “That’s a good prayer.” Father gave me a hug and stood up. “Now let’s find her shrine, and make sure she hears it.” I smiled sadly. “Don’t the gods hear our prayers wherever we are?” “Yes, but I think it’s best to speak with them in their own houses and bring them a little gift when you really want them to pay attention to what you’ve got to say.

what if when icarus fell apollo caught him before he hit the sea, arms as warm as the sun, but safer. what if when ariadne cast the rope across a broken branch aphrodite stepped in with a reminder that this, this is not the kind of love you die for. what if when achilles was ready for war ares appeared with a smile and said “you win well when you win, but what are you unwilling to lose if you lose?” and achilles knew the answer. if you could retell the tale wouldn’t you want to tell it kinder? wouldn’t you want to give them peace, even love, where you could?

daycare. Totally little kid stuff.” He waved his hand as if to brush away that topic of conversation. And then he craned his neck over Aphrodite’s shoulder to stare hungrily at the cake. “That looks great,” he said. As he’d hoped, Aphrodite dropped a big slice onto one of the small silver plates and handed it to him. He wanted to tell her how pleased he was at all the trouble she’d gone to in planning this party, how much he appreciated and liked her. But he’d never been any good at “mushy” talk. And he especially didn’t want to say all that in front of Eris and the guys. Suddenly, Eris reached toward the plate of cake Ares held. “Thanks. I’d love some,” she said. With lightning-quick reflexes, she snatched his plate away before he could even utter a protest. Typical. She’d often done stuff like that when they were growing up. She tore off a large hunk of the cake and stuffed it into her mouth. He knew better than to try to get his plate back. Though Eris might look kind of scrawny, her appearance was deceptive. He absolutely did not want to provoke her if he could help it. He just hoped that no one else would, either. Aphrodite was looking horrified at Eris’s manners, or lack thereof, as were several of the other students standing

Today, in a world in which the very word ‘classical’ hints at something revered to the point of dullness, it is hard to understand quite how alarming many of these works were to the Christians. But to Christian eyes the classical canon had the power to horrify. It was replete with sins of every kind. Open Homer’s Iliad and you might find your eyes falling on a passage about how the god Ares seduced golden Aphrodite – and how they were both then caught in flagrante delicto. Open Oedipus the King and you might find a declaration that ‘the power of the gods is perishing’. Even works by the most stuffily august of authors were not without danger: open a work by the tediously virtuous Virgil, and you might find Dido and Aeneas up to no good in a cave in a rainstorm. Idolatry, blasphemy, lust, murder, vanity – every sin was there. That was what made them so enjoyable and, to the Christians, so damnable.

Who is Adrestia?” Ethan put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side, careful not to touch her face. His fingers were still laced in hers and Mika studied their hands, wondering if she would ever be able to do this without all these layers between them. “She is the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite,” Ethan told her, running his thumb over her shoulder in a soothing pattern. “She would go into war with Ares – ‘she who none can escape.’ The goddess of revenge and retribution – she is the equilibrium, the balance between good and evil, and so beautiful that gods and titans fought over her.