Son of a Tree: Adonis and his Mother, Myrrha

• In Event: The Verdant Earth II: Women, Plants, and Children

Abstract

“Son of a Tree” recovers the Ovidian origins of myrrh, an aromatic gum widely known in religious contexts as one of three gifts of the Magi at Christ’s nativity. In medieval Passion plays, myrrh-bearers again brought this tree resin, an embalming agent, to the site of the crucifixion. Uniquely paired with sacrifice and preservation, childbirth and death, myrrh was also defined figuratively as anything that soothes, heals, or preserves. In Ovid, however, its origins are generally understood as perverse and tragic: a young girl named Myrrha seduces Cinyras, her unknowing father. When she becomes pregnant, the gods pity her and turn her into the tree from which Adonis is born. As a tree-creature, she cannot speak but she expresses grief through tears, which “bring her honor.” I argue that Myrrha’s transformation protects Adonis, and produces an extraordinary, salutary agent, signaling her status as survivor of catastrophic experience.

Author

• Shannon Kelley, Fairfield University