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Question: Two Incidents of Venus' Anger <- I don't really understand!.!.!.!?
Two Incidents of Venus' Anger - that's a poem in ovid!.

Amathus, a town of Cyprus, is rich in metals,
But never ask that town about her daughters,
Whose foreheads once bore horns, or the other ones,
Turned, later, into stone!. The former had
An altar at their gates, sacred to Jove,
The god of host and guest: if any stranger
Had seen it, stained with blood, he would suppose
That sheep or calves were slain there, and how wrong
He would have been! That blood came from the murder,
Always, of innocent guests!. Venus, offended,
Prepared to leave her Cyprian plains and cities,
And then reflected: 'But these lovely regions
Are not at fault, the cities are not guilty!.
Let these Horned Girls, these wicked creatures, rather
Pay for their sins by exile or by death
Or by some punishment halfway between,
Let us say, a change of body!.' As she wondered
What change, her eyes fell on the horns they carried:
Those they might keep!. They were big women by nature,
Let them be bulls!

And even so, the others,
The foul Propoetides, would not acknowledge
Venus and her divinity, and her anger
Made whores of them, the first such women ever
To sell their bodies, and in shamelessness
They hardened, even their blood was hard, they could not
Blush any more; it was no transition, really,
>From what they were to actual rock and stone!.

Okay, I get that Venus took her anger out, but what two incidents wer ethe cause of Venus's anger!?!.!.!.I don't understand!. If you could explain this poem, it would be great!. Thanks!Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
The former had
An altar at their gates, sacred to Jove,
The god of host and guest: if any stranger
Had seen it, stained with blood, he would suppose
That sheep or calves were slain there, and how wrong
He would have been! That blood came from the murder,
Always, of innocent guests!.

I interpreted this first incident as this: The first girls (daughters of Amathus) had an altar of Jove (which from research i figured is a kind of counterpart to Zeus) in which the were commiting murders of innocent visitors to the town!. It says people would mistake it for blood from livestock but it really belonged to their victims!. They were made into horned bulls!.

And even so, the others,
The foul Propoetides, would not acknowledge
Venus and her divinity, and her anger
Made whores of them, the first such women ever
To sell their bodies, and in shamelessness
They hardened, even their blood was hard, they could not
Blush any more; it was no transition, really,
>From what they were to actual rock and stone!.

This means that the other girls (daughters of Amathus) either didnt recognize Venus's divinity or they ignored what happened to the other girls and continued the murders which means they "would not acknowledge Venus and her divinity" and so they were "turned into stone" which is a metaphor for turning them into shameless whores!.Www@QuestionHome@Com