The Mythology Book

88

SHE WANTS ADONIS

MORE THAN SHE

DOES HEAVEN ITSELF

APHRODITE AND ADONIS

E

ven Aphrodite, the great

goddess of love, was not

immune to the darts of

desire. One day, as Eros played in

his mother’s arms, one of his arrows

brushed against her breast. When

she looked up, the first person that

Aphrodite chanced to see was the

beautiful Adonis, as he sprinted

past with his pack of hounds in

pursuit of a lone deer.

Aphrodite was instantly smitten.

Adonis, Myrrha’s son, was not only

the fairest youth of all—to this day

his name is a byword for male

beauty—but also the least

Adonis rejects Aphrodite as he

hurries off to hunt. In Titian’s Venus

and Adonis (1554), this is no time for

love—Eros is asleep, dawn is breaking,

and the hounds yearn to leave.

IN BRIEF

THEME

Unrequited love

SOURCES

Metamorphoses, Ovid, 8 ce;

Library, Pseudo-Apollodorus,

ca. 10 0 ce.

SETTING

Ancient Greece.

KEY FIGURES

Aphrodite Goddess of love;

known as Venus in Roman

myth, she pursued Adonis

relentlessly.

Eros Son of Aphrodite; god

of sexual attraction.

Cinyras King of Cyprus;

deceived and seduced by his

daughter, then disgusted by

her.

Myrrha Daughter of Cinyras;

pitying her, the gods later

turned her into a myrrh tree.

Adonis Son of Cinyras and

Myrrha; a beautiful and

chaste youth.

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89

See also: Orpheus and Eurydice 53 ■ Perseus and Medusa 82–83 ■ Cupid and Psyche 112–13 ■

Echo and Narcissus 114 ■ Pomona and Vertumnus 122–123 ■ Pyramus and Thisbe 124

ANCIENT GREECE

attainable. Resolutely chaste, he

had no interest in romantic love—

hunting was the only passion that

stirred his cold heart. Day and night,

he ran through dense dark forest in

search of every sort of quarry.

Inflamed by desire, Aphrodite

set off in pursuit of Adonis, her long

hair streaming behind, and her

garments flying open as she ran.

Each time she caught Adonis, he

struggled free. He would not submit

to her embraces, however much

she called after him to stay.

Unheeded warnings

Pursuing Adonis through the

woods, Aphrodite took care to steer

clear of savage boars and other wild

animals that might attack, and

urged Adonis to do the same.

Adonis dismissed Aphrodite’s

fears, rejected her pleas and

caresses, and returned to his

hunt—only to be charged by a

giant and ferocious wild boar. Its

sharp tusk sliced into his groin—a

symbolic castration regarded by

some scholars as punishment for

his rejection of sexual love. As

Adonis lay dying in the arms of the

weeping Aphrodite, his blood

spilled out. At her command, the

bloody drops stained the lovely

petals of the anemone a deep red,

and the flower sprung up afresh

each year.

Adonis and the seasons

Athenian women held an annual

festival in memory of Adonis, called

the Adonia. Plato disapproved, but

otherwise the overwhelmingly male

official chroniclers of Greek life said

little about this festival of female

sexuality. Women openly celebrated

male physical beauty and mourned

its fleeting nature. They and their

daughters made miniature gardens

in pots packed with fast-growing

plants and carried them up to the

rooftops. When the Adonia’s eight

days of dance and song ended, the

plants were thrown into streams

or the ocean—a symbolic act seen

by some scholars as an attempt

to generate plentiful rain for the

coming harvest.

In myths and festivals alike,

Adonis was not only remembered for

his cold beauty but linked to fertility,

the seasons, and the cycle of decay

and regeneration. One myth, for

example, tells of a conflict between

Aphrodite and Persephone over who

should be allowed to keep the

infant Adonis. Zeus ordered Adonis

to divide his time equally between

the two, spending spring and

summer with Aphrodite (among the

living) and fall and winter with

Persephone (in the Underworld). This

tale emphasizes Adonis’s

connection to fertility and the cycle

of death and revival in crops. ■

Myrrha

Adonis was conceived through

his mother Myrrha’s unnatural

desire for her father Cinyras,

king of Cyprus. This happened

when Myrrha slipped into his

bed one night, after he had

drunk too much wine, tricking

him into believing she was her

mother. Her incestuous passion

was punishment from the

Furies, Cinyras’s unwitting

involvement an act of spite by

Aphrodite, who had taken great

offense when Myrrha’s mother,

Kenkhreis, had boasted about

her daughter’s beauty. Fleeing

her outraged father, Myrrha was

turned into a tree at her own

request, after praying for

transformation from the gods

as a punishment for her actions.

Shedding tears of myrrh, she

gave birth to Adonis, who was

perversely chaste. Classical

writers wrote that Myrrha’s lust

for her father came from an

obsession with her virginity.

Myrrha hides her face in shame as

the poets Dante and Virgil journey

through Hell, in an illustration by

Gustave Doré (1885).

My dear Adonis,

keep away from

savage beasts.

Metamorphoses

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