Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/137

 Another yet more remarkable story introduces us to the garden of Eros, whither a prince once went to fetch water to cure the blindness of the king, his father. 'There at the entrance he beheld a woman that was the fairest upon earth; she sat at the gate and played with a boy who had wings and in his hand held a bow and many arrows. The garden was full of roses, and over them hovered many little winged boys like butterflies. In the midst of this garden was a spring, whence the healing water flowed. As the king's son drew near to this spring, he espied therein a woman white as snow and shining as the moon; and it was in very truth the moon that bathed there. Beside the spring sat a second woman of exceeding beauty who was the Mother of Eros [Greek: hê mana tou Erôta].' She gave him the water and her blessing, and his father was healed.

The distinct reminiscence of Artemis in this story will be noticed later ; here we need only notice a few points in the story relating to Eros and his mother. The description of the 'boy who had wings and in his hand held a bow and many arrows' is simply and purely classical, according exactly with the Orphic address to him as [Greek: toxalkê, pteroenta]. The 'woman at the gate who was the fairest upon earth' is in all probability the same as 'the Mother of Eros' beside the spring, the single personality, by some vagary in the transmission of the story, having become duplicated. The roses, of which the garden was full, are the flower always sacred to Aphrodite, the sweetest emblem of love; and over these it is fitting that the 'little winged boys' should hover, brothers as it were of Eros, ever-fresh embodiments of love, to all of whom, in antiquity, Aphrodite was mother.

These folk-tales present sufficient evidence that the memory of the name and attributes of Aphrodite survived locally until recent times to warrant the conclusion that her worship, like that of other pagan deities, possessed vitality enough to compete for a long while with Christianity for the favour of the common-folk; but as a personality she is no longer present, I think, to their consciousness; she is at most only a character in a few. For representations in ancient art of many [Greek: erôtes], cf. Philostr. Eikones, p. 383 (770).]