Editing Hephaestus (section)

==== Hephaestus and Aphrodite ====
[[File:Guillemot, Alexandre Charles - Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[Mars (mythology)|Mars]] and [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] Surprised by [[Vulcan (mythology)|Vulcan]]'' by Alexandre Charles Guillemot (1827)]]
Though married to Hephaestus, Aphrodite had an affair with [[Ares]], the god of war. Eventually, Hephaestus discovered Aphrodite's affair through [[Helios]], the all-seeing Sun, and planned a trap during one of their trysts. While the lovers lay together in bed, Hephaestus ensnared them in an unbreakable chain-link net so small as to be invisible and dragged them to Mount Olympus to shame them in front of the other gods for retribution. 

The gods laughed at the sight of these naked lovers, and [[Poseidon]] persuaded Hephaestus to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer's fine, or that he, Poseidon, would pay it himself. Hephaestus states in ''The Odyssey'' that he would return Aphrodite to her father and demand back his bride price. The [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]] translation depicts Hephaestus demanding/imploring Zeus before Poseidon offers, however, leading the reader to assume Zeus did not give back the "price" Hephaestus paid for his daughter and that this was the reason Poseidon intervened.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Emily |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PpJYDgAAQBAJ&q=EMILY+WILSON%E2%80%99S+TRANSLATION++THE+ODYSSEY |title=The Odyssey |date=7 November 2017 |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=9780393634563 |pages=BOOK 8, LINES 265–367}}</ref>  Some versions of the myth state that Zeus did not return the dowry, and in fact Aphrodite "simply charmed her way back again into her husband’s good graces."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Richardson |first1=Donald |title=Great Zeus and All His Children |date=1984 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |isbn=9780133649505 |page=26}}</ref> In the ''[[Iliad]]'', Hephaestus is described as married to the [[Charites|Grace]] [[Charis (mythology)|Charis]] during the events depicted in the [[Trojan War]],<ref name="auto">[[Homer]], ''[[Iliad]]'' 18.382</ref> while in the ''[[Theogony]]'', he is married to the Grace [[Aglaia (Grace)|Aglaea]].<ref name=":hesd" /> The later ''[[Dionysiaca]]'' by [[Nonnus]] explicitly states that, though Hephaestus and Aphrodite were once married (she is referred to as his "ancient wife"), that they have since separated and Hephaestus is now married to Charis.<ref name="nonnus 29.317">[[Nonnus]], ''[[Dionysiaca]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/529#29.317 29.317]</ref>

In a much later, interpolated detail, Ares put the young soldier [[Alectryon (mythology)|Alectryon]], by their door to warn them of Helios's arrival as he suspected that Helios would tell Hephaestus of Aphrodite's infidelity if the two were discovered, but Alectryon fell asleep on guard duty.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gallagher |first=David |url=https://brill.com/view/book/9789042027091/B9789042027091-s006.xml |title=Avian and Serpentine |date=2009-01-01 |publisher=Brill Rodopi |isbn=978-90-420-2709-1 |language=en}}</ref> Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus, as Ares, in rage, turned Alectryon into a [[rooster]], which always crows at dawn when the sun is about to rise.<ref>[[Lucian]], ''Gallus'' [http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:dialogues:the-rooster 3], see also scholiast on [[Aristophanes]], ''[[The Birds (play)|Birds]]'' [https://archive.org/details/scholiaonavesar01whitgoog/page/n272/mode/2up?view=theater 835]; [[Eustathius of Thessalonica|Eustathius]], ''Ad Odysseam'' 1.300; Ausonius, 26.2.27; Libanius, ''Progymnasmata'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=kRi-If9IAOYC&pg=PA31 2.26.]</ref>

The [[Thebes (Greece)|Thebans]] told that the union of Ares and Aphrodite produced [[Harmonia (mythology)|Harmonia]], but that of the union of Hephaestus with Aphrodite, there was usually no issue. Because Harmonia was conceived during Aphrodite's marriage to Hephaestus, for revenge, on Harmonia's wedding day to [[Cadmus]], Hephaestus gifted her with a finely worked but cursed [[Necklace of Harmonia|necklace]] that brought immense suffering to her descendants, culminating with the story of [[Oedipus]].<ref>Roman Monica and Luke, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=tOgWfjNIxoMC&pg=PT213 201]</ref>

The author of ''[[Octavia (play)|Octavia]]'' (traditionally attributed to [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]], but now agreed to not be his) writes that "[we] delude ourselves that [Eros] was born from Venus and sprung from the loins of Vulcan", implying the notion that Eros/Cupid was the son of Vulcan/Hephaestus was a decently common one in late antiquity.<ref>[[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]], ''[[Octavia (play)|Octavia]]'' [https://www.attalus.org/poetry/octavia.html 564]</ref> [[Nonnus]] also seemingly presents Eros as the son of Aphrodite and Hephaestus,<ref>[[Nonnus]], ''[[Dionysiaca]]'' [https://archive.org/details/dionysiaca02nonnuoft/page/392/mode/2up?view=theater 29.333]</ref> but it has been suggested that the use of ''{{lang|grc|πολυφράδμων}}'' (a word that can mean both 'wise' and 'cunning') to describe Aphrodite and the emphasis given in Hephaestus fearing that Eros would be born crippled like him, only for the child to be abled-bodied, strongly implies that Nonnus means for Ares to be understood as the real father, while Aphrodite passed her son as Hephaestus'.<ref>[[Nonnus]], ''[[Dionysiaca]]'' [https://archive.org/details/dionysiaca01nonnuoft/page/178/mode/2up?view=theater 5.135–43]</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Shorrock |first=Robert |title=The Challenge of Epic: Allusive Engagement in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus |date=2001 |publisher=BRILL publications |isbn=978-90-04-11795-2 |series=Mnemosyne |volume=20 |pages=54–5}}</ref> Ulrich von Wilamovitz's conjecture of a badly preserved scholium on the ''[[Argonautica]]'' to read that [[Ibycus]] made Eros the son of Aphrodite and Hephaestus is widely accepted by scholars, but cannot be proven as the ancient text is unreadable.<ref>{{cite book |last=Breitenberger |first=Barbara |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MCCl0yBS4UsC |title=Aphrodite and Eros: The Development of Erotic Mythology in Early Greek Poetry and Cult |date=May 13, 2013 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=0-415-96823-2 |location=NYC, New York |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=MCCl0yBS4UsC&pg=PT171 171–172]}}</ref>

Hephaestus was somehow connected with the archaic, pre-Greek [[Phrygia]]n and [[Thrace|Thracian]] mystery cult of the [[Kabeiroi]], who were also called the ''Hephaistoi'', "the Hephaestus-men", in Lemnos. One of the three Lemnian tribes also called themselves Hephaestion and claimed direct descent from the god.