Aphrodite, or the Woman with a Penis

Hesiod tells us how Aphrodite came into being when Kronos had separated his parents Heaven and Earth and castrated his father Ouranos:

'But the genitals—as after first severing them with the steel—he had cast them into the heaving sea from the continents, so kept drifting a long time up and down the deep and all around kept rising a white foam from the immortal flesh and in it a maiden was nourished.'1 The myth evidently means that Aphrodite can only originate after the father has been killed and also points to the phallic origin of the love goddess. This goddess of love is partly indigenous, partly Oriental.2'Signum autem eius est Cypri barbatum corpore sed vesti muliebri cum sceptro ac natura virili, et putant eandem marem ac feminam esse. Aristophanem eam Aphrodition apellat.'3 Rendel Harris actually derives Aphrodite from the mandragora of the ancients, the German Alraun. 'Hesychius explains the term Mandragoritis (She of the Mandrake) as meaning Aphrodite.'4 Women wore mandrake roots next to their skin to make themselves irresistible. Its magic virtue is clear from the language of Homer. It was witchcraft and made its wearer, for the time being, into a witch. Hence Hera begs to use it so that she may operate on Zeus with more than normal charms, and it is interesting that in describing the loan of the cestus Homer lets us