Aphrodite gives happiness to those who serve her faithfully. So she gave happiness to Pygmalion, the great Cypriot artist. Pygmalion hated women and lived in solitude, avoiding marriage. One day he made a statue of a girl of extraordinary beauty from shiny white ivory. This statue stood as if alive in the artist’s studio. She seemed to be breathing; it seemed that she was about to move, walk and speak. The artist spent hours admiring his work and finally fell in love with the statue he himself had created. He gave her precious necklaces, wrists and earrings, dressed her in luxurious clothes, and decorated her head with wreaths of flowers. As Pygmalion often whispered:
- Oh, if you were alive, if you could respond to my speeches, oh, how happy I would be!
But the statue was silent.
The days of celebration in honor of Aphrodite have arrived. Pygmalion sacrificed a white heifer with gilded horns to the goddess of love; he stretched out his hands to the goddess and whispered prayerfully:
- Oh, eternal gods and you, golden Aphrodite! If you can give everything to the one who asks, then give me a wife as beautiful as that statue of a girl that I made myself.
Pygmalion did not dare to ask the gods to revive his statue; he was afraid of angering the Olympian gods with such a request. The sacrificial flame flared up brightly in front of the image of the goddess of love Aphrodite; By this, the goddess seemed to make it clear to Pygmalion that the gods had heard his prayer.
The artist returned home. He approached the statue, and, oh, happiness, oh, joy: the statue came to life! Her heart is beating, life is shining in her eyes. So the goddess Aphrodite gave a beautiful wife to Pygmalion.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru