Aphrodite As An Anthropomorphic Map
The goddess we call Aphrodite
Is not just an old Grecian deity.
The Phoenicians did make
Her a map. It's not fake.
Her body is cartograffiti.
The Punic war destroyed her face, 1
The Romans left nary a trace.
But her hair is still there,
In Sahara, that's where. 2
And her chin's a Tunisian place. 3
Mt. Atlas is her first verTebra. 4
Her backbone is now Gulf of Sidra. 5
Her heart is in Libya, 6
Her left leg, Somalia. 7
Her breast is in Chad wearing no bra. 8
The Greeks called her liver Egypt, an' 9
Her kidney was Biblical Goshen. 10
She's bent at her waist,
Now Misr-ably placed. 11
The Red Sea was her menstruation. 12
As a kid I did think the Red Sea
Was an English map typo: lost E,
From Reed Sea in Hebrew.
But that could not be true,
Mare Rubrum 'twas Latin, B.C.
Aphrodite with Hermes did sin,
We know this is true 'cause within
Her "snatch" we call Sinai 13
His "zaiyin" does still lie. 14
It's known as the desert of Zin.
Notes
Anthropomorphic maps were generated by configuring the body of a god or goddess over the area to be mapped. The name of each body part became the name of the area under that part. This produced a map-without-paper on which each name indicated its approximate location, direction & size with respect to other places on the same map.
1 The Romans destroyed Carthage during the 3rd Punic War. In Hebrew,
"face" is PaNim.
2 In Hebrew, "hair" is Sa3aR (using 3 for the letter aiyin).
3 Tunis is a reversal of SaNTir, the Hebrew word for chin.
4 The Atlas is the first cervical vertebra that supports the skull.
5 In Hebrew, SHiDRa is spine, backbone.
6 The Semitic term for "heart" is LeB.
7 In Hebrew, "left" is S'MoL.
8 In Hebrew, "breast" is SHaD.
9 As in ancient Greek hepato- (liver).
10 The ancient shin had a T-sound. Gimel often has a K-sound in other
languages. So, GoSHeN sounded like QiTNiot (beans). Goshen was her
bean-shaped kidney.
11 Arabic Misr & Hebrew MiTZRaim are derived from Semitic TZaR (narrow).
The waist is the narrow part of the body.
12 The Red Sea was Mare Rubrum in Latin. In Hebrew, it is Yam SooF =
Sea of Reeds. SooF reverses the sound of PoS (female pudenda, p_ssy).
13 In Hebrew, Sinai sounds like it had an aleph after the nun. Giving the
aleph its ancient CHS sound makes Sinai sound like "snatch", a reversal
of K'NiSah = entrance (to her body).
14 Zaiyin means weapon in Hebrew. It is a euphemism for the male member.
Copyright © Israel Cohen | Year Posted 2017
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment