Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

In the hall of the Phaeacian king Alcinous, the bard Demodocus sings how Ares and Aphrodite first lay together in secret in Hephaestus’s own house. Helios the Sun marked them and told the smith. Hephaestus went to his forge, set the great anvil on its block, and hammered bonds that none could loosen or see—a snare fine as spiders’ webs. He spread the trap all about the bedposts and hung it from the roof-beams above, then pretended to leave for Lemnos, his favorite land. Ares kept watch, saw the craftsman depart, and went straight to Aphrodite, hungry for love. She came from her father’s house; they sank onto the bed—and the invisible chains closed about them so that they could neither move nor rise. Hephaestus turned back, stood in the doorway, and shouted to the gods to witness the laughable, bitter sight: Zeus’s daughter and the war god caught in the act. The gods gathered in the bronze threshold; goddesses stayed away for shame. Unquenchable laughter rose among them at the cunning of Hephaestus. Apollo needled Hermes: would he accept such bonds to lie with golden Aphrodite? Hermes answered that he would endure thrice as many if only he might. Poseidon alone did not laugh; he urged Hephaestus to free Ares and pledged that Ares would pay the adulterer’s fine. Hephaestus at first refused, fearing Ares would default and flee, but when Poseidon guaranteed the debt himself, the smith loosed the bonds. Ares fled to Thrace; Aphrodite to Paphos in Cyprus, where the Graces bathed and anointed her. The song is entertainment for mortals in the epic, but within myth it is the classic Homeric account of marital revenge, divine laughter, and the settlement of an adultery fine among the gods.