192 i Flora Unveiled
According to Marcel Detienne, Aristophanes’s use of the name “Little Myrtle” is highly
appropriate for a seductress because of its erotic overtones:
The branches of this aromatic shrub are used, in Attica, to weave the crowns worn by
marrying couples. The name of this plant, which is consecrated to Aphrodite, is used
to refer to either the clitoris or the pudenda of the woman. Thus the perfume in which
Myrrhina smothers herself is simply the ultimate expression of the seductive attrac-
tion emanating from a woman totally committed to Aphrodite. ... The resemblance
between Myrrhina and the Myrrha who seduces her father is all the greater in that in
one of the versions of the myth of Adonis, his mother is transformed into not a myrrh
tree but a sprig of myrtle. ^26Although not a deity, Aristophanes’s Myrrhina is emblematic of the strong association of
myrtle with female sexuality.
Figure 7.4 Birth of Adonis from myrrh tree. The infant Adonis is shown exiting a large vulva at
the base of the tree. Sixteenth- century Italian plate.
Francesco Durantino, Italian (Urbino, 1543– 75). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Accession Number: 2001- 148- 3.