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The Death Of Adonis
by
Yet, even then, the grief of Aphrodite knew no abatement. And when Zeus, wearied with her crying, heard her, to his amazement, beg to be allowed to go down to the Shades that she might there endure eternal twilight with the one of her heart, his soul was softened.
“Never can it be that the Queen of Love and of Beauty leaves Olympus and the pleasant earth to tread for evermore the dark Cocytus valley,” he said. “Nay, rather shall I permit the beauteous youth of thy love to return for half of each year from the Underworld that thou and he may together know the joy of a love that hath reached fruition.”
Thus did it come to pass that when dark winter’s gloom was past, Adonis returned to the earth and to the arms of her who loved him.
“But even in death, so strong is love,
I could not wholly die; and year by year,
When the bright springtime comes, and the earth lives,
Love opens these dread gates, and calls me forth
Across the gulf. Not here, indeed, she comes,
Being a goddess and in heaven, but smooths
My path to the old earth, where still I know
Once more the sweet lost days, and once again
Blossom on that soft breast, and am again
A youth, and rapt in love; and yet not all
As careless as of yore; but seem to know
The early spring of passion, tamed by time
And suffering, to a calmer, fuller flow,
Less fitful, but more strong.”
Lewis Morris.
And when the time of the singing of birds has come, and the flowers have thrown off their white snow pall, and the brown earth grows radiant in its adornments of green blade and of fragrant blossom, we know that Adonis has returned from his exile, and trace his footprints by the fragile flower that is his very own, the white flower with the golden heart, that trembles in the wind as once the white hands of a grief-stricken goddess shook for sorrow.
“The flower of Death” is the name that the Chinese give to the wind-flower–the wood-anemone. Yet surely the flower that was born of tears and of blood tells us of a life that is beyond the grave–of a love which is unending.
The cruel tusk of a rough, remorseless winter still yearly slays the “lovely Adonis” and drives him down to the Shades. Yet we know that Spring, with its Sursum Corda, will return as long as the earth shall endure; even as the sun must rise each day so long as time shall last, to make
“Le ciel tout en fleur semble une immense rose
Qu’un Adonis celeste a teinte de son sang.”
De Heredia.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Aphrodite.