Adonis

Role: infant son of Myrrha · First appears: Fable 90

Life events

Adonis is born from the transformed Myrrha with Lucina’s assistance.(Fable90)
- With: Myrrha Lucina
- “Gentle Lucina stands by the moaning boughs, and applies her hands, and utters words that promote delivery. The tree gapes open, in chinks, and through the cleft bark it discharges the living burden.”
Venus becomes enamored of Adonis and abandons her usual haunts to follow him.(Fable91)
- With: Venus
- “Charmed with the beauty of the youth, she does not now care for the Cytherian shores, nor does she revisit Paphos”
Adonis is fatally wounded and killed by a wild boar.(Fable92)
- “and lodged his entire tusks in his groin, and stretched him expiring on the yellow sand.”
Venus declares that Adonis’s death will be commemorated annually.(Fable92)
- With: Venus
- “the memorials of my sorrow, Adonis, shall ever remain; and the representation of thy death, repeated yearly, shall exhibit an imitation of my mourning.”
Venus transforms Adonis’s blood into a crimson flower.(Fable92)
- With: Venus
- “Having thus said, she sprinkles his blood with odoriferous nectar, which, touched by it, effervesces, just as the transparent bubbles are wont to rise in rainy weather. Nor was there a pause longer than a full hour, when a flower sprang up from the blood, of the same colour {with it}, such as the pomegranates are wont to bear, which conceal their seeds beneath their tough rind.”

parent: Myrrha “Myrrha flies from her father’s dominions and being delivered of Adonis, is transformed into a tree.”
with Lucina (Lucina assists at the birth of Adonis.) “Gentle Lucina stands by the moaning boughs, and applies her hands, and utters words that promote delivery.”

admirer: Venus “And {} now he pleases even Venus,[52] and revenges the flames of his mother, {kindled by her}.”
with Venus (Venus tells her story to Adonis.) “But {this} toil to which I am unaccustomed has now fatigued me, and see! a convenient poplar invites us, by its shade, and the turf furnishes a couch. Here I am desirous to repose myself, together with thee;”

parent: Cinyras “the son of Cinyras pierced him, endeavouring to escape from the wood, with a wound from the side.”
with Venus (Venus mourns Adonis after his death.) “But, however, all things shall not be in your power; the memorials of my sorrow, Adonis, shall ever remain; and the representation of thy death, repeated yearly, shall exhibit an imitation of my mourning.”

Extracted from the original text of The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Made with Rho MD.