Aphrodite was an ancient goddess with a contemporary outlook. She
was married to the craft god Hephaistos but he didn’t put the
requisite sizzle into the union. So she bade her betrothed adieu and
took solace in the strong arms of Ares, god of war. But the ultimate
key to her heart was not strength, but sweetness — and this she
found in Adonis.
Eros, Aphrodite’s son, accidentally wounded her bosom with
one of his arrows. Reeling from the wound, she took solace in her
mineral pool, the famed Baths of Aphrodite
on the Akamas Peninsula of Cyprus. The hunter Adonis was within sight
that day, and the love he inspired in Aphrodite was the greatest and
most painful she would ever know.
She
told the proud mortal (who was born from a myrrh tree): “Your
youth and beauty will not touch the hearts of lions and bristly boars.
Think of their terrible claws and prodigious strength!”. But
Adonis did not heed his beloved’s admonition. While Aphrodite
was out spreading the spirit of love and beauty, Adonis pursued a
boar which proceeded to trounce and kill him with his tusks. Little
did he know this was a jealous Ares in disguise. Aphrodite heard his
cries from her swan-drawn chariot, high above the island. Once by
his side, she summoned the nymph Menthe (the mint spirit), who sprinkled
nectar on his blood, and then by a process as yet unclassified by
scientists red anemones sprang forth. Anemos in Greek means wind.
The flowers’ blossoms are opened by the same wind that scatters
their petals. And yet, each spring, they rise again from the fertile
soil of Cyprus.
She
told the proud mortal (who was born from a myrrh tree): “Your
youth and beauty will not touch the hearts of lions and bristly boars.
Think of their terrible claws and prodigious strength!”. But
Adonis did not heed his beloved’s admonition. While Aphrodite
was out spreading the spirit of love and beauty, Adonis pursued a
boar which proceeded to trounce and kill him with his tusks. Little
did he know this was a jealous Ares in disguise. Aphrodite heard his
cries from her swan-drawn chariot, high above the island. Once by
his side, she summoned the nymph Menthe (the mint spirit), who sprinkled
nectar on his blood, and then by a process as yet unclassified by
scientists red anemones sprang forth. Anemos in Greek means wind.
The flowers’ blossoms are opened by the same wind that scatters
their petals. And yet, each spring, they rise again from the fertile
soil of Cyprus.
