the sea-shore and committed to the waves.[1] The date at which this Alexandrian ceremony was observed is not expressly stated; but from the mention of the ripe fruits it has been inferred that it took place in late summer.[2] At Byblus the death of Adonis was annually mourned with weeping, wailing, and beating of the breast; but next day he was believed to come to life again and ascend up to heaven in the presence of his worshippers.[3] This celebration appears to have taken place in spring; for its date was determined by the discoloration of the river Adonis, and this has been observed by modern travellers to occur in spring. At that season the red earth washed down from the mountains by the rain tinges the water of the river and even the sea for a great way with a blood-red hue, and the crimson stain was believed to be the blood of Adonis, annually wounded to death by the boar on Mount Lebanon.[4] Again, the red anemone[5] was said to have sprung from the blood of Adonis; and as the anemone blooms in Syria about Easter, this is a fresh proof that the festival of Adonis, or at least one of his festivals, was celebrated in spring. The name of the flower is probably derived from Naaman (“darling”), which seems to have been an epithet of Adonis. The Arabs still call the anemone “wounds of the Naaman.”[6]
- ↑ Theocritus, xv.
- ↑ W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 277.
- ↑ Lucian, De dea Syria, 6. The words ἐς τὸν ἠέρα πέμπουσι imply that the ascension was supposed to take place in the presence, if not before the eyes, of the worshipping crowds.
- ↑ Lucian, op. cit. 8. The discoloration of the river and the sea was observed by Maundrell on 1727th March 16961697. See his “Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem,” in Bohn’s Early travelsin Palestine, edited by Thomas Wright, p. 411. Renan observed the discoloration at the beginning of February; Baudissin, Studien, i. 298 (referring to Renan, Mission de Phénicie, p. 283). Milton’s lines will occur to most readers.
- ↑ Ovid, Metam. x. 735, compared with Bion i. 66. The latter, however, makes the anemone spring from the tears, as the rose from the blood of Adonis.
- ↑ W. Robertson Smith, “Ctesias and the Semiramis legend,” in English Historical Review, April 1887, following Lagarde.
