A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

while others, disembowelled by the tusks of the boar, howled aloud in
mortal agony, lay Adonis. As he lay, he "knew the strange, slow chill
which, stealing, tells the young that it is death."
And as, in extremis, he thought of past things, manhood came to
Adonis and he knew something of the meaning of the love of
Aphrodite--a love stronger than life, than time, than death itself. His
hounds and his spear seemed but playthings now. Only the eternities
remained--bright Life, and black-robed Death.
Very still he lay, as though he slept; marble-white, and beautiful as a
statue wrought by the hand of a god. But from the cruel wound in the
white thigh, ripped open by the boar's profaning tusk, the red blood
dripped, in rhythmic flow, crimsoning the green moss under him. With
a moan of unutterable anguish, Aphrodite threw herself beside him, and
pillowed his dear head in her tender arms. Then, for a little while, life's
embers flickered up, his cold lips tried to form themselves into a smile
of understanding and held themselves up to hers. And, while they
kissed, the soul of Adonis passed away.
"A cruel, cruel wound on his thigh hath Adonis, but a deeper wound in
her heart doth Cytherea[6] bear. About him his dear hounds are loudly
baying, and the nymphs of the wild woods wail him; but Aphrodite
with unbound locks through the glades goes wandering--wretched, with
hair unbraided, with feet unsandalled, and the thorns as she passes
wound her and pluck the blossom of her sacred blood. Shrill she wails
as down the woodland she is borne.... And the rivers bewail the sorrows
of Aphrodite, and the wells are weeping Adonis on the mountains. The
flowers flush red for anguish, and Cytherea through all the
mountain-knees, through every dell doth utter piteous dirge:
"'Woe, woe for Cytherea, he hath perished, the lovely Adonis!'"
Bion.
Passionately the god besought Zeus to give her back her lost love, and
when there was no answer to her prayers, she cried in bitterness: "Yet
shall I keep a memorial of Adonis that shall be to all everlasting!" And,