Myrrha

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For the ladybird beetle genus, see Myrrha (beetle).

The Birth of Adonis, from Myrrha

In Greek mythology, Myrrha (Ancient Greek: Μύρρα) was a daughter of the king Theias of Assyria and the mother of Adonis by Theias. Two different versions of Adonis' birth existed.

1. The most commonly accepted version is that Aphrodite inspired Myrrha with lust to commit incest with her father, Theias. Myrrha's nurse helped with the scheme. When Theias discovered this, he flew into a rage, chasing his daughter with a knife. The gods turned her into a tree (a myrrh) and Adonis eventually sprung from its trunk.
2. It was also said that Myrrha fled from her father and Aphrodite turned her into a tree. Adonis was then born when Theias shot an arrow into the tree or when a boar used its tusks to tear the tree's bark off.

In Ovid's version of the story, Metamorphoses Book X, Myrrha's father is the king Cinyras of Cyprus, and she is able to sleep with him by disguising herself as a new concubine. This is probably the version that Dante had in mind when, in the Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XXX, he sees her shade suffering rabies for all eternity in the eighth circle of Hell. Her punishment is not the consequence of her unnatural lust (which would have landed her in the second circle) but for her practice of the art of deception. Myrrha was turned into a tree (a myrrh). Adonis was born from its trunk.

Myrrha was also the original Aeolic Greek name for Smyrna.

References

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