this may probably be regarded as little more than the Semitic colouring of a ritual and a belief which exist among Indo-European peoples, quite apart from Phœnician influence. Mannhardt traces the various points in the Aphrodite cult already enumerated through the folklore of the German peasants. The young lover, the spring, is the Mai-könig or Laubmann; his effigy is a clothed and crowned idol or puppet, or the Mai-baum. The figure is thrown into the water and bewailed in Russia, or buried or burned with lamentations.[1] He is wakened and kissed by a maiden, who acts as the bride.[2] Finally, we have the "May-pairs," a kind of valentines united in a nominal troth.
The probable conclusion seems to be that the Adonis ritual expresses certain natural human ways of regarding the vernal year. It is not unlikely that the ancestors of the Greeks possessed these forms of folklore previous to their contact with the Semitic races, and their borrowing of the very marked Semitic features in the festivals.
For the rest, the concern of Aphrodite with the passion of love in men and with general productiveness in nature is a commonplace of Greek literature. It would be waste of space to recount the numerous and familiar fables in which she inspires a happy or an ill-fated affection in gods or mortals. Like most other mythical figures, Aphrodite has been recognised by Mr. Max Müller as the dawn; but the suggestion has not been generally accepted.[3] If Aphrodite retains any traces of an elemental origin, they show chiefly in
