Ebb tide to me as of the sea! 
    Old age causes me reproach ... 
    It is riches
    Ye love, it is not men: 
    In the time when we lived
    It was men we loved ... 
    My arms when they are seen
    Are bony and thin: 
    Once they would fondle,
    They would be round glorious kings ... 
    I must take my garment even in the sun: 
    The time is at hand that shall renew me.[133]

Freyja, the Germanic mother goddess, whose car was drawn by cats, had similarly many lovers.  In the Icelandic poem “Lokasenna”, Loki taunts her, saying: 

    Silence, Freyja!  Full well I know thee,
      And faultless art thou not found;
    Of the gods and elves who here are gathered
      Each one hast thou made thy mate.

Idun, the keeper of the apples of immortal youth, which prevent the gods growing old, is similarly addressed: 

    Silence, Idun!  I swear, of all women
      Thou the most wanton art;
    Who couldst fling those fair-washed arms of thine
      About thy brother’s slayer.

Frigg, wife of Odin, is satirized as well: 

    Silence, Frigg!  Earth’s spouse for a husband,
      And hast ever yearned after men![134]

The goddesses of classic mythology had similar reputations.  Aphrodite (Venus) had many divine and mortal lovers.  She links closely with Astarte and Ashtoreth (Ishtar), and reference has already been made to her relations with Adonis (Tammuz).  These love deities were all as cruel as they were wayward.  When Ishtar wooed the Babylonian hero, Gilgamesh, he spurned her advances, as has been indicated, saying: 

    On Tammuz, the spouse of thy youth,
    Thou didst lay affliction every year. 
    Thou didst love the brilliant Allalu bird
    But thou didst smite him and break his wing;
    He stands in the woods and cries “O my wing”.

He likewise charged her with deceiving the lion and the horse, making reference to obscure myths: 

    Thou didst also love a shepherd of the flock,
    Who continually poured out for thee the libation,
    And daily slaughtered kids for thee;
    But thou didst smite him and didst change him into a leopard,
    So that his own sheep boy hunted him,
    And his own hounds tore him to pieces.[135]

These goddesses were ever prone to afflict human beings who might offend them or of whom they wearied.  Demeter (Ceres) changed Ascalaphus into an owl and Stellio into a lizard.  Rhea (Ops) resembled

        The tow’red Cybele,
    Mother of a hundred gods,

the wanton who loved Attis (Adonis).  Artemis (Diana) slew her lover Orion, changed Actaeon into a stag, which was torn to pieces by his own dogs, and caused numerous deaths by sending a boar to ravage the fields of Oeneus, king of Calydon.  Human sacrifices were frequently offered to the bloodthirsty “mothers”.  The most famous victim of Artemis was the daughter of Agamemnon, “divinely tall and most divinely fair".[136] Agamemnon had slain a sacred stag, and the goddess punished him by sending a calm when the war fleet was about to sail for Troy, with the result that his daughter had to be sacrificed.  Artemis thus sold breezes like the northern wind hags and witches.