Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus, Spirit of Love, or by whatever name we call her; the one eternal divinity recognized by all ages, all races; the universal essence whose fragrance intoxicates every soul: the one queen before whom all must bow: the one imperial autocrat sure of everlasting rule--sure of the devoted allegiance of every living thing to the end of time! Such is Aphrodite, for that is the name under which we seem to love her best--the Aphrodite of the Greeks, without the vague terrifying aspect of Astarte, or the more earthly qualities of the Roman Venus. Who loves not the Aphrodite sprung from the foam of the sea; shading the sun on the Cytheran isle with the light of her glory; casting an eternal hallow over the groves of Cyprus; flooding the god-like mind of Greece with her sparkling radiance? What conception of her beauty can rise high enough when the grass in astonishment grows beneath her feet on desert rocks; when lions and tigers gently purr as she passes, and the rose and the myrtle throw out their scented blossoms to sweeten the air? Hera and Athena leave the heavens to help man fight and kill: Aphrodite descends to soothe despairing hearts, and kindle kindly flame in the breast of the loveless. The spear and the shield with the crested helmet she knows not, nor the fiery coursers accustomed to the din of strife. Serenely she traverses space at the call of a lover's prayer, her car a bower of celestial blooms. From the ends of the earth fly the sparrows to draw it, till their myriads hide the sun, and mortals learn that the time has come when their thoughts may turn to the spirit of love. This was the Aphrodite of Grecian legend and poetry, if we except Homer and Hesiod. It is the type of the goddess whom Sappho implored, and must be accepted as the general ideal of the Grecian worshippers who desired divine mediation when troubled with pangs of the heart. But it was not the type of Phidias and his school, for Phidias passed over Hesiod and purified Homer, representing Aphrodite with the stately mien and lofty bearing of a queen of heaven, daughter of the all-powerful Dione: goddess of beauty and love certainly, but so far above the human understanding of these terms that all efforts to associate her with mundane ideas and aspirations must signally fail.[44]