Adonis- Greek FigureMortal"Beloved of Aphrodite"

Birth from the Myrrh Tree

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Adonis was born from an incestuous union between Myrrha (also called Smyrna) and her father Cinyras, king of Cyprus. His name comes from the Phoenician adon, "lord." Myrrha had been cursed by Aphrodite with uncontrollable desire for her father after her mother boasted that her daughter surpassed the goddess in beauty. With the help of her nurse, Myrrha deceived Cinyras for twelve nights under cover of darkness, concealing her identity during a festival when the women of Cyprus were forbidden from their husbands' beds.

When Cinyras discovered the deception by lamplight, he pursued his daughter with a sword. Myrrha fled across Arabia, pregnant and despairing, until the gods took pity and transformed her into a myrrh tree, the tree whose resin weeps fragrant tears. Nine months later, the bark split and the infant Adonis was born from the tree. Lucina, goddess of childbirth, attended the delivery, and the Naiads anointed the newborn with his mother's tears of myrrh.

The Dispute of the Goddesses

Aphrodite, struck by the beauty of the infant, hid him in a chest and entrusted him to Persephone, queen of the underworld, for safekeeping. But when Persephone opened the chest and saw the child, she refused to return him. Both goddesses claimed him. In Apollodorus, the Muse Calliope judged the dispute.

The verdict split the year in three: one part with Persephone below, one with Aphrodite above, and one wherever Adonis chose. He chose Aphrodite and gave her two-thirds of his time, the underworld only what was required. So the year turned with him: the world green when he walked above, barren when he descended.

Aphrodite's Devotion

Aphrodite's love for Adonis unmade her. The goddess who inspired desire in others was herself helpless before this mortal youth. Ovid describes how she abandoned Paphos and Cythera to follow Adonis through the forests and mountains of Cyprus. She dressed as a huntress, kilting up her robes, chasing hares and deer alongside him. But she drew the line at dangerous game: no lions, no boars. She told him the story of Atalanta and the lions as a warning. Adonis, young and sure of himself, paid no attention.

The Fatal Hunt

Adonis went after a wild boar in the mountains. The boar turned on him and drove its tusks deep into his groin. Aphrodite heard his dying cries from her swan-drawn chariot in the sky and rushed to him, but arrived too late. She threw herself upon his body, tearing her hair and beating her breast.

Who sent the boar was disputed even in antiquity. Pseudo-Apollodorus names Ares, jealous of Aphrodite's devotion to the mortal youth. Artemis was the other suspect, repaying Aphrodite for the death of her devoted hunter Hippolytus.

The Anemone and the River

From Adonis's blood Aphrodite caused the anemone to spring, a flower of vivid red that blooms briefly and drops its petals at the first wind. Bion of Smyrna's Lament for Adonis, composed in the second or first century BCE, captures the mourning: roses spring from Aphrodite's tears, anemones from Adonis's blood, while the Erotes cut their hair and cast aside their bows.

At Byblos on the Lebanese coast, the Adonis River ran red each spring, staining the sea at its mouth with crimson. The locals said it was the blood of Adonis flowing from Mount Lebanon where the boar had slain him. Lucian, in De Dea Syria, notes the skeptic's explanation: red soil washing down during spring rains. He preserves the local account regardless.

The Adonia

Women across the Greek world celebrated the Adonia. Participants planted seeds of wheat and lettuce in broken pots called "gardens of Adonis." These sprouted fast in the summer heat and withered just as fast, rootless and shallow. Women carried the withered gardens to rooftops and mourned there with wailing and breast-beating, placing figurines of Adonis on funeral biers surrounded by fruit and cakes.

Aristophanes makes a pointed reference in Lysistrata: during the debate over the Sicilian expedition, women on the rooftops were crying "Woe for Adonis!" The assembly chose to ignore the omen. Theocritus's Idyll 15 follows two women through the royal Adonia at the Ptolemaic court in Alexandria, where Adonis lay beside Aphrodite on silver couches strewn with fruit and flowers.

Athenaeus records that Aphrodite laid Adonis's body in a bed of lettuce, a plant the Greeks held to be an anti-aphrodisiac.