Love goddess
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Featured:  Illustration: Portrait fantaisiste du marquis de Sade (1866) by H. Biberstein |
Most ancient cultures had female love goddesses. In the Greco-Roman world her name was Venus. She has been compared to other goddesses of love, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli in Aztec mythology, Kukulcan in Maya mythology, Frigg and Freyja in the Norse mythos, and Ushas in Vedic religion. Ushas is also linked to Venus by a Sanskrit epithet ascribed to her, vanas- ("loveliness; longing, desire"), which is cognate to Venus, suggesting a Proto-Indo-European link via the reconstructed stem *wen- "to desire".
Venus is also associated with the Latvian god Auseklis, whose name derives from the root aus-, meaning "dawn". Auseklis and Mēness, whose name means "moon", are both Dieva dēli ("sons of God").
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