Adonis

There are conflicting stories as to Adonis’ life and death; he was the son of Kinyras (Cinyras) king of the island of Cyprus and the king’s daughter Myrrha (Zmyrna); the unholy union was the result of the goddess of Love, Aphrodite’s, revenge for Myrrha’s disrespect.

At this point, the story of Adonis is unclear, either:

1. His mother was turned into a myrrh tree and Adonis was born from this tree; he grew to be a beautiful young man and Aphrodite fell in love with him; or
2. Aphrodite put Adonis in a chest and sent him to the Underworld; Zeus had sympathy for the beautiful young man and allowed him to live half of the year with Persephone in the Underworld and the other half with Aphrodite on the earth’s surface; or perhaps
3. Adonis was raised by nymphs and met Aphrodite while he was hunting; he was killed by a wild boar sent by Ares (god of War) and from his blood sprang the rose.

The worship of Adonis reached the city of Athens in the fifth century BCE and is assumed to have originated on the island of Cyprus or in the Far East; regardless of his origins, by the mid-seventh century BCE, his name was used by the singer/poet, Sappho, as a general term meaning a favorite or a darling.