In Greek mythology, a beautiful young man who was loved by Aphrodite. He insisted on going hunting and was killed by a boar, but Persephone saved him on condition that he spent part of the year with her in the Underworld. There was a yearly commemoration of the event, with wailing and singing. There is a clear connection with the growth and death of vegetation, and similar Eastern ceremonies.
Adonis, an annual vegetation life-death-rebirth deity, imported from Lebanese into Greek mythology, always retained aspects of his Semitic Near Eastern origins and was one of the most complex cult figures in classical times. His cult belonged to women: the cult of dying Adonis was fully-developed in the circle of young girls around Sappho on Lesbos, about 600 BCE, as a fragment of Sappho reveals.
Origin of the cult
Adonis was certainly based in large part on Tammuz. Yet there is no trace of a Semitic cult directly connected with Adonis, and no trace in Semitic languages of any specific mythemes connected with his Greek myth; These are the very features of the Adonis cult: a cult confined to women which is celebrated on flat roof-tops on which sherds sown with quickly germinating green salading are placed, Adonis gardens...
Adonis was worshipped in unspoken mystery religions: not until Imperial Roman times (in Lucian of Samosata, De Dea Syria, ch. 6 ) does any written source mention that the women were consoled by a revived Adonis. Women in Athens would plant "gardens of Adonis" quick-growing herbs that sprang up from seed and died.
Life of Adonis
Adonis' birth is shrouded in confusion for those who require a single, authoritative version. Walter Burkert questions whether Adonis had not from the very beginning come to Greece with Aphrodite (Burkert 1985, p.
Multiple versions of the birth of Adonis exist: The most commonly accepted version is that Aphrodite urged Myrrha to commit incest with her father, Theias, the King of Smyrna or Syria (which helps confirm the area of Adonis' origins). When Theias shot an arrow into the tree — or when a boar used its tusks to rend the tree's bark — Adonis was born from the tree.
As soon as Adonis was born. The argument between the two goddesses was settled, either by Zeus or Calliope, with Adonis spending four months with Aphrodite, who seduced him with the help of Helene, her friend, four months with Persephone and four months of the years to himself. Some say Aphrodite eventually seduced Adonis into spending his four months alone with her.
Adonis died at the tusks of a wild boar, sent by either Artemis in retaliation for Aphrodite instigating the death of Hippolytus, a favorite of the huntress goddess, or Aphrodite's paramour, Ares. As Aphrodite sprinkled nectar on his body, each drop of Adonis' blood turned into a blood-red anemone, and the river Adonis (modern Nahr Ibrahim) flowing out of Mount Lebanon in coastal Lebanon ran red, according to Lucian (chs. Lucian, who attributes the color of the river Adonis to siltation, adds "Nonetheless, there are some inhabitants of Byblos who say that Osiris of Egypt lies buried among them, and the mourning and the ceremonies are all made in honor of Osiris instead of Adon" .
"In Greece" Burkert concludes, "the special function of the Adonis cult is as an opportunity for the unbridled expression of emotion in the strictly circumscribed life of women, in contrast to the rigid order of polis and family with the official women's festivals in honour of Demeter."
The most detailed and prettiest literary version of the story of Adonis is Ovid, Metamorphoses, x
Modern metaphorical use of the name
In modern parlance the name "Adonis" is frequently used as an allusion to an extremely attractive, youthful male, often with a connotation of deserved vanity: "the office Adonis".
In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman refers to his sons Biff and Happy as "Adonises."
Giovan Battista Marino's masterpiece, Adone, published in 1623, is a long, sensual poem, which elaborates the myth of Adonis, and represents the transition in Italian literature from Mannerism to the Baroque.
In the video game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, a demon named Vyers refers to himself as the "Dark Adonis". The Greek Myths (Penguin), 18.h-.k Kerenyi, Karl, 1951 The Gods of the Greeks pp 75 – 76,
See Adonis interpreted by R.
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