Prayer to Venus

"Tannhauser in Venusberg" by Collier (1901)

Venus is the Goddess of love in all its guises, as well as fertility, regeneration and divine protection from harm, for she is a life-giver. Ancient sources suggest that the offerings that most please her are roses, mint, myrtle, garlands of flowers, wine* and incense. As she is a maternal Goddess, milk** is also a suitable offering, perhaps even more so if mixed with crushed poppy and honey removed from the comb (Ovid recommends that newly wed women should drink this mixture in honour of Venus), or with a small amount of rose water added. More elaborate offerings might include baked goods in the shape of a dove, a horned ram or a bull (these animals were sacrificed to her in ancient Rome); golden jewellery, especially necklaces, and pearls may also please the Goddess. During rituals in her honour, it is traditional for worshippers to wear white if possible, and to cover their heads (capite velato), as it is when praying to most Roman Gods. Prayers should be made with open palms (manu supina) and respect for her images is well conveyed by blowing a kiss in their direction. 

Here follows several prayers to Venus. I wrote the first (though it is heavily influenced by Boyle and Woodard's translation of Ovid's Fasti), as well as the third (derivative of Melvilles' translation of Lucretius), and the seventh (inspired by the Orphic Hymn to Aphrodite). 

For more on Venus see Venus, Goddess of Love and Life and In Praise of Venus.

The Nicholson Museum

In the mid to late 19th century many educated British men and women were obsessed with ancient Greece and Rome. Adventurous British people of this era often found themselves in the colonies, including New South Wales, Australia. One of these fellows was Sir Charles Nicholson, who was a founder of the University of Sydney, which is now the oldest Australian university. The university was founded in 1850; seven years later Nicholson travelled to Europe, inter alia, to do a grand tour of Italy, Greece and Turkey and buy antiquities for what became, in 1860, the university's Nicholson Museum.

The Nicholson Museum is now home to the largest collection of Mediterranean antiquities in the southern hemisphere. The 600 or so objects that Nicholson initially brought back to Australia has now grown to nearly 30,000 artefacts of artistic and archeological significance from Egypt, the Near East, Cyprus, Greece and Italy. To attract younger visitors it is also home to one of the most amazing Roman Lego set ups in the world, at the moment they have a large scale reproduction of Pompeii. In the past they have also done the Colosseum and the Acropolis. I went there today, and while it is not the British Museum it is still definitely worth a visit. Here are some of the (mostly Greco-Roman) photographic highlights.

Freyr – Lord of Plenty

"Freyr Icon" by Jesseca Trainham

In Germanic polytheism, neatly put, Freyr is the God of good times, peace and plenty.  He is a protecting God of the earth and a male fertility God par excellence. Of the Roman Gods he is most like Faunus. Like Faunus, Freyr is associated with the fruitful earth and fertile flocks. Implicitly, both Gods are strongly associated with male sexuality. Respected Cambridge scholar H R Ellis Davidson goes so far as to speculate that ceremonies involving sexual abandon may have been among the wilder rites associated with Freyr in pre-Christian times (Gods and Myths of Northern Europe at 126). This sexual aspect of the God is not simply about hedonism, it is about something far more serious and fundamental – it represents an affirmation of life and a continuation of this same force. For Freyr is not only fertile, he is wise (Poetic Edda; Skirnir’s Journey). When Freyr is honoured crops succeed, livestock flourishes and people enjoy good health. H R Ellis Davidson describes Freyr thus: 

“the Gods and Goddesses who brought peace and plenty to men were known as the Vanir … The God who stands out most prominently in the literature is called Freyr, a name meaning ‘Lord’. His twin sister was Freyja, ‘Lady’ [fertility Goddess of love], and their father was the God Njord [God of the fertile sea]. Freyr was said to have been worshipped by the Swedes at Uppsala in the late Viking Age, along with Thor and Odin [foremost of the Aesir Gods], and to have been represented in the temple there by a phallic image. He was described as the God who dispensed peace and plenty to men, and who was invoked at marriages [Scandinavian Mythology at 74].”

Thus it seems that just as Freyja (who is very like the Roman Venus) deals with female sexuality and fertility so is Freyr essentially a God of male sexual virility and fertility.