Two Weeks with a Goddess

Some of my readers have asked me about my namesake, Anchises. He was a prince from a territory near Troy. He was so beautiful as a young man that Aphrodite fell in love with him. Disguised as a princess, she spent about two weeks with him, but he didn't realize that she was a goddess until nine months later, when she presented him with their infant offspring, Aeneas, and revealed her identity. Later, when he was drinking with some buddies, Anchises bragged about his affair with the goddess. This so enraged Zeus - the telling not the kissing - that he hurled a thunderbolt at him, laming him for life. That's the reason that Aeneas had to carry Anchises on his back as they fled the burning city of Troy.

Anchises accompanied his son on his adventure-laden travels before his death and burial in Sicily. And his story doesn't end there, because Aeneas visited him in the underworld, where Anchises explained what his son was seeing. But I'll omit Anchises's post-Trojan history, since what I really want to write about are, of course, those two weeks he spent with Aphrodite. Perhaps my opinion would be different were I in my twenties, but from the vantage point of old age, two weeks with a goddess seems rather trying. As the old joke goes, first prize is a week with [supply your own film star here], and second prize is two weeks.

Aphrodite and Anchises couldn't have made love 24-7 for two weeks could they? Maybe it would have been possible for a goddess, but not for a mortal. They have had to come up for air from time to time. Then what did they do? I suppose they ate and drank something, although from our point of view the comestibles and potables of the time would have been pretty unappetizing. The variety of strawberry that grew wild in the ancient world was pretty meager, not at all like its American cousin, which was introduced into Europe a couple of thousand years later. The French did not yet exist so there was no champagne. And of course ambrosia and nectar were unavailable to mortals.

And what could they have talked about? Not literature, since there wasn't any literature, even though Anchises and Aphrodite were to become the subjects of literature. In any case, they were both probably illiterate. And since Aphrodite didn't reveal her divinity until nine months later, she couldn't talk about life on Mount Olympus, and what in the world could he have told her that she would have found interesting? Hadn't she seen everything already? So I suppose that they looked into each other's eyes, where they saw what they imagined to be their soul mates. But how long can you do that without blinking?

It was probably Aphrodite who became bored first. In any case, she left her lover behind. After all, she had had plenty of other affairs and could look forward to an eternity of new ones. But Anchises did not get the worst of their relationship. After all, Aphrodite gave him Aeneas, who saved him from the sack of Troy and made his name immortal. Two weeks with a goddess, I guess, would be worth that.