Adonis

“ For why ah overbold! didst thou follow the chase, and, being so fair, why wert thou thus over-hardy to fight with beasts?... A tear the Paphian sheds for each blood-drop of Adonis, and tears and blood on the earth are turned to flowers.... Ah even in death he is beautiful, beautiful in death, as one that hath fallen on sleep.... All things have perished in his death, yea all the flowers are faded.... He reclines, the delicate Adonis, in his raiment of purple, and around him the Loves are weeping and groaning aloud, clipping their locks for Adonis. ”

“ Then to hide from her eyes the painful sight of the young hunter's mangled body, the kindly earth again took pity on her grief and turned the drops of blood that came from Adonis's side into red roses. Still the goddess would not be comforted, but sat mourning alone with her dead.
Then Mercury came to lead the soul of Adonis to gloomy Hades; and when the messenger of the gods had departed with his slight burden, Venus went back to Olympus, and throwing herself on the ground before Jupiter's throne, she besought him to give Adonis back to her, or else to allow her to stay with him in Hades. ”

“ FABLE IX. Adonis is educated by the Naiads. His beauty makes a strong impression on the Goddess Venus, and, in her passion, she traverses the same wilds in pursuit of the youth, which his mother did, when flying from the wrath of her father. After chasing the wild beasts, she invites Adonis to a poplar shade, where she warns him of his danger in hunting lions, wild boars, and such formidable animals. On this occasion, too, she relates the adventures of Hippomenes and Atalanta. The beauty of the latter was such, that her charms daily attracted crowds of suitors. ”

“ How many images and feelings are here brought together without effort and without discord, in the beauty of Adonis, the rapidity of his flight, the yearning, yet hopelessness, of the enamored gazer, while a shadowy ideal character is thrown over the whole! ”

“ The beautiful Adonis, as her dearest lover, was seen walking first before the car, in the gracious habit of a huntsman, and with him appeared as his companions two charming little Loves, with painted wings and with bows and arrows. These were followed by the marital Hymeneus, young and beautiful, with the customary garland of marjoram, and in his hand the lighted torch; and by Thalassius with the spear and shield, and the little basket full of wool. ”

“ You will call them the garments of the gods.
Praxinoë. Lady Athene, what spinning women wrought them, what painters designed these drawings, so true they are? How naturally they stand and move, like living creatures, not patterns woven. What a clever thing is man! Ah, and himself—Adonis—how beautiful to behold he lies on his silver couch, with the first down on his cheeks, the thrice-beloved Adonis,—Adonis beloved even among the dead. ”

“ Amidst the trampled brake, where many a hound lay stiff and dead, while others, disembowelled by the tusks of the boar, howled aloud in mortal agony, lay Adonis. As he lay, he “knew the strange, slow chill which, stealing, tells the young that it is death.”
And as, in extremis, he thought of past things, manhood came to Adonis and he knew something of the meaning of the love of Aphrodite—a love stronger than life, than time, than death itself. His hounds and his spear seemed but playthings now. Only the eternities remained—bright Life, and black-robed Death. ”

“ An Adonis admires himself as much as he admires us; he likes us, and we choose to notice him,—nothing more simple. He has a claim to our love, but is hardly grateful; but to show favour to a man like you, my master dear, would be to take him from earth to heaven, to fulfil his wildest dreams, his most insensate hopes. For if some being were to say [Pg 83] to you, 'You love Cecily to distraction, if I chose she should be yours next minute,' you would suppose such a being endued with supernatural power, shouldn't you, master dear? ”

“ Nay I, though I be his mother, have not been able to fend off his arrows: Witness the tears I have shed for the death of Adonis! But why weary myself and thee with the utterance of so many words? There is no deity in heaven who has passed unscathed from his assaults ”

“ O Queen that lovest Golgi and Idalium and Eryx, O Aphrodite that playest with gold—lo from the everlasting stream of Hades they have brought thee back Adonis.... A bridegroom of eighteen or nineteen years is he, his kisses are not yet rough, the golden down being yet on his lips.... Thou only, dear Adonis, so men tell, visitest both this world and the stream of Hades. ”

“ She absented herself even from Olympus, for Adonis was dearer to her than heaven. Him she followed and bore him company. She who loved to recline in the shade, with no care but to cultivate her charms, now rambled through the woods and over the hills, girt like the huntress Diana. She chased game that is safe to hunt, but kept clear of the wolves and bears. She charged Adonis, too, to beware of dangerous animals. "Be brave toward the timid," she would say, "courage against the courageous is not safe." ”

“ In early spring, therefore, Adonis left the Lower World, and came with bounding tread to join his beloved. On his path the flowers bloomed and the birds sang, to show their joy at his coming. An emblem of vegetation, which rises from the ground in early spring to deck the earth with beautiful foliage and flowers, and cause the birds to sing for gladness, Adonis reluctantly returned to Hades, when Winter, the cruel boar, slew him again with his white tusk, and made nature again droop, and mourn his departure.
“But even in death, so strong is Love,
I could not wholly die ”

“ Venus also loved a beautiful young earthly youth, called Adonis, who died of a thrust from a wild boar’s tusk, while his blood stained crimson the pretty flower, pheasant’s eye, which is still called Adonis. Venus was so wretched that she persuaded Jupiter to decree that Adonis should come back and live for one-half of the year, but he was to go down to Pluto’s underground kingdom the other half. This is because plants and flowers are beautiful for one year, die down, and rise again. ”

“ Since the world could not well spare the goddess of beauty, Jupiter refused to let her go to the sunless realm of Pluto; but neither would that dread ruler consent to give up Adonis to her longing arms. Then the gods, touched by the depth of Venus's grief, interceded in her behalf, and reluctantly Pluto agreed to allow Adonis to spend six months with the goddess in the warmth and joy of the sunlight if for the rest of the year he would be content to dwell in Hades. ”

“ The face of a great rock, above a roughly hewn recess, is here carved with figures of Adonis and Aphrodite. He is portrayed with spear in rest, awaiting the attack of a bear, while she is seated in an attitude of sorrow. Her grief-stricken figure may well be the mourning Aphrodite of the Lebanon described by Macrobius, and the recess in the rock is perhaps her lover’s tomb. Every year, in the belief of his worshippers, Adonis was wounded to death on the mountains, and every year the face of nature itself was dyed with his sacred blood. ”

“ And one upon his shafts, another on his bow, is treading, and one hath loosed the sandal of Adonis, and another hath broken his own feathered quiver, and one in a golden vessel bears water, and another laves the wound, and another, from behind him, with his wings is fanning Adonis.... Thou must again bewail him, again must weep for him another year.... He does not heed them [the Muses] ; not that he is doth to hear, but that the Maiden of Hades doth not let him go.'
The next-ensuing passages come from the Elegy of Moschus for Bion:—
'Ye flowers, now in sad clusters breathe yourselves away. ”

“ Adonis woke up from his trance, and Venus came to solace him with love. Venus spoke soothingly also to Endymion, telling him that she knew of his love for some one of the immortals, but who this was she had failed to fathom. She promised that one day he should be blessed, and with Adonis she then rose heavenward in her car. The earth closed, and Endymion gladly pursued his way through caves, jewels, and water-springs. ”

“ This quality of self-contented sentiment partly explains why the type of beauty adored is neither womanly nor manly, but adolescent. It has to be tender, fragile, solicitous, unripe; appealing to sensibility, not to passion, by feminine charms in nerveless and soulless boyhood. The most distinctive mark of Adonis is that he has no character, no will, no intellect. ”

“ In Attica, certainly, the festival fell at the height of summer. For the fleet which Athens fitted out against Syracuse, and by the destruction of which her power was permanently crippled, sailed at midsummer, and by an ominous coincidence the sombre rites of Adonis were being celebrated at the very time. As the troops marched down to the harbour to embark, the streets through which they passed were lined with coffins and corpse-like effigies, and the air was rent with the noise of women wailing for the dead Adonis. ”

“ What a pity that it's a man, or what a pity that I am not a woman! This Adonis, who, in addition to his lovely face, has a very keen intellect of very wide range, still enjoys the privilege of having at the service of his bright remarks and his jests, a voice of a silvery and penetrating quality which it is difficult to hear without emotion.—He is really perfect.—It seems that he shares my taste for beautiful things, for his clothes are very rich and well chosen, his horse very spirited and a thoroughbred ”

“ It is a poem on the Rites of Adonis; or rather, on a couple of gossips, making holiday to enjoy the festival that formed a part of the rites. Adonis, the favourite of Venus, slain by the boar, and permitted by Jupiter to return to life every half-year and enjoy her company, was annually commemorated by the heathen world for the space of two days, the first of which was passed in mourning for his death, and the second, in feasting and merriment for his coming to life. Arsinoe, the consort of the poet’s patron, Ptolemy Philadelphus, celebrated these rites in the Egyptian capital, Alexandria ”

“ The orderly, my attendant, had another in the rear of the retreating column; but, inasmuch as that was now swept by the swift-receding current far beyond us, he could neither have me mounted nor command other present means whereby to get me off. I reclined, like Adonis, upon a soft bed of meadow-grass studded here and there with wild-flowers, an emerald velvet with silver spangles,—but suffering, unlike him, from bruises, and with my best soulless friend dead at my side. I was somewhat sprained by the fall the dying beast had given me. ”

“ Death and Resurrection, mourning and rejoicing, present themselves in sharp antithesis in each and all of the forms.
We know the god best as Adonis, for it was under that name that, though not originally Greek, he became known to the Greek world, was adopted by them with ardour, carried by them to Alexandria, where his feast assumed the character of a State solemnity; under that name his story has been enshrined in Art, and as Adonis he is loved and lamented to this day. The Adonis ritual may be held to be the classic form of the cult. ”

“ Or sun shall rise, or hearts feel love's desire,
My voice shall cross their dreams, a sigh of fire.
LAMENT FOR ADONIS
Ah, for Adonis!
See, he is dying,
Delicate, lovely,
Slender Adonis.
Ah, for Adonis! ”

“ Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers,
So they were dew'd with such distilling showers.
Look, how a bird lies tangled in a net,
So fasten'd in her arms Adonis lies;
Pure shame and awed resistance made him fret,
Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes:
Rain added to a river that is rank
Perforce will force it overflow the bank.
Still she entreats, and prettily entreats,
For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale;
Still is he sullen, still he lours and frets,
'Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy-pale:
Being red, she loves him best ”

“ Hence, if the explanation which I have adopted of the latter is correct, the ceremony of the death and resurrection of Adonis must also have been a dramatic representation of the decay and revival of plant life. The inference thus based on the resemblance of the customs is confirmed by the following features in the legend and ritual of Adonis. His affinity with vegetation comes out at once in the common story of his birth. ”

“ O weep for Adonis! Adonis is dead." But though his spirit had crossed the gloomy river and fled to the dark halls of Hades, yet Death was not strong enough to hold him. The voice of his love and of Aphrodite's pleaded together, and heaven and earth, and the world of the dead, were moved by their prayer. Even the heart of Pluto, the black-browed god of Death, was touched, and he said that for only four months in the year must Adonis dwell beneath the earth, [Pg 110] but for the other eight he might live his old life with Aphrodite in the sunlight. ”

“ For in this way I might have made my tongue a profitable member of my body; but now, being hurried up and down in barren places, like one mad of love, from my longing after fair youths, I waste my speech on them; receiving, as is the wont of true lovers, only curses and ingratitude from their arrogance. But tell me, thou proud Adonis—This spirit of truth in thee, which thou thoughtest, and rightly, thy most noble possession—did it desire truth, or not? ”