“Hera said that Hephaestus was the one who made the lovely chariots for Zeus, Poseidon & Hades. Also the one for Helios, the Sun God. And if she married him, he might make one for her too. But she did not tell the young Goddess of Love why none of the Goddesses wanted to marry him in the first instance & that he was ugly & a cripple. She also omitted to tell her that Hephaestus, having created the first woman, Pandora, from clay, had neither the patience nor the inclination to woo & pamper women, let alone put up with the changing moods of the young lovely Goddesses at Olympus. And that even the warlike & down-to-earth Athena had dropped him like a ton of bricks.As Aphrodite did not appear to have any choices, she nodded her head & thus accepted Hera as her future mother-in-law. And this explains one of the greatest mysteries in Greek Mythology: why the loveliest & most beautiful of the Goddesses would agree to marry the ugliest of the Gods. For this mismatch would not have happened if not for Hera.”

“Hera thus suggested that she would tell Zeus that he had to couple with Aphrodite as a matter of duty, not love,since this was the wish of Eros & Chaos who were responsible for the Big Bang.And Themis volunteered to tell Aphrodite that she would have to couple with the King of the Gods for the same reason.And thus Themis & Hera took it upon themselves to rectify the consequences of the Big Bang by arranging the Big Crunch. And when the news got around, all the Gods & Goddesses of Olympus said that they would like to witness the spectacle.”

“And thus it was to everyone`s surprise when Hera said that she would undertake to provide a whole amphora full of her husband`s seed- she would harvest them herself- if Aphrodite would promise to marry her brilliant son, Hephaestus, the sapient Craftsman of the Gods, when she was translated to Olympus.”

“And Zeus told Aphrodite, in all sincerity, that he had now given up catching oysters for her sake. But could not help cursing her for having started him off in eating them. Since Hera had now taken over the show. She was the only Goddess in Olympus who had the ability to renew her virginity as she bathed in the spring of Kanathos, near Argos, & thus had taken upon herself the job of supplying him with fresh oysters.”

“Aphrodite then reminded Zeus what Themis had said. She had to swallow a whole amphora full of his seed before Eros & Chaos would let her girdle hang free. And she said that she looked forward to swallowing his seed, if he would let her. Zeus then took the young Goddess in his arms & told her that he would even willingly give her a whole amphora full of his blood if that would make her happy. He would like to give her all the seed that his sperm sacs could produce each day but only wished that the transaction did not have to go through Hera.”

“And thus, the Titans & titanesses made love without passion And so did the Gods & Goddesses. They only had Longing[Pothos], Love[Eros] & Reciprocal Love[Anteros] between them, but no Passion. And this fact accounted for the unimaginative number of offspring that some of them had. And the unimaginative tendency of Gods & Goddesses to take aunts & uncles, sons & daughters & even granddads & grandmas to wife or to husband. So much so that some Gods & Goddesses preferred to produce offspring asexually, even without Love. As Hera begot Hephaestus.”