H. A. Guerber in his _Myths of Northern Lands_ describes Freya as follows:
“Although goddess of love, Freya was not soft and pleasure-loving, for the ancient northern races said that she had very martial tastes, and that as Valfreya[31] she often led the Valkyrs down to the battle-fields, choosing and claiming one-half the heroes slain. She was therefore often represented with corselet and helmet, shield and spear, only the lower part of her body being clad in the usual flowing feminine garb.
“Freya transported the chosen slain to Folkvang, where they were duly entertained, and where she also welcomed all pure maidens and faithful wives, that they might enjoy the company of their lovers and husbands even after death. The joys of her abode were so enticing to the heroic northern women that they often rushed into battle when their loved ones were slain, hoping to meet with the same fate; or they fell upon their swords, or were voluntarily burned on the same funeral pyre as the beloved remains.
“As Freya was inclined to lend a favorable ear to lovers’ prayers, she was often invoked by them, and it was customary to indite love songs in her honor, which were sung on all festive occasions, her very name in Germany being used for the formation of the verb _freien_, i. e., ‘to woo.’”
From Guerber’s _Myths of Northern Lands_.]
When the conception of the mother goddess of antiquity began to decay, a new faith spread and under a new name the old ideal was revived as Mary, Mother of God, _Maria Theotokos_; the star of the sea, or _Stella Maris_; and the Italian fishermen sing to her the beautiful lines,
“_O sanctissima, O piissima,_ _Dulcis mater amata._”
The problem of womanhood has found different expressions in different ages. In prehistoric times all great questions were answered mythologically. Cosmogeny and anthropogeny, including gynecogeny, were expressed in stories of gods, while in later periods the same facts remained and found different solutions in religious dogmas and still later in scientific investigations.
The same subjects have been treated in a different spirit during the Christian era and again differently still under the influence of a scientific world-conception. Socrates respected the gods but he no longer believed in them as personalities. He explained them as signifying some facts of experience. To him love found expression in a belief in Aphrodite and in her powerful son, Eros. Further, his disciple Plato explains to us the significance of love and devotes a special dialogue to a discussion of its meaning in every aspect. This dialogue of Plato’s, the Symposium, may truly be characterized as the most poetical and most interesting discussion of Greek philosophy. It tells of a banquet to which Agathon has invited his friends, among whom we find the philosopher Socrates, the poet Aristophanes (the disciple of Socrates), Pausanias, Phaedrus and some others. After dinner Phaedrus proposes to make speeches in honor of love, and Pausanias begins by drawing a distinction between heavenly and earthly love, extolling the former and giving scant praise to the latter. Aristophanes is the next speaker, but, being prevented by a severe hiccup from taking up the discussion, gives precedence to Eryximachus, the physician. This speaker approves the distinction made by Pausanias, but generalizes the conception of love by regarding it as a universal principle, bringing about the harmony that regulates nature in the course of the seasons in its relations of moist and dry, hot and cold, etc., and whose absence is marked by diseases of all sorts. Aristophanes, having recovered from his hiccup, proposes to offer a new explanation setting forth a novel theory of the origin of human nature. We quote extracts from the translation of Jowett: