Myrrha (Smyrna): Birth of Adonis from the Myrrh Tree

Catalogue ID: 05-local-and-lesser/050-myrrha-smyrna-birth-adonis

Cycle: Local and lesser — Cypriot / Near Eastern birth aetiology

Version line: Apollodorean birth notice thickened; Ovid-labeled full incest narrative

Sources: Apollodorus, *Library* 3.14.3–4 (Smyrna’s passion; transformation; Adonis born of the tree); Ovid, *Metamorphoses* 10.298–518 (Roman — nurse; deception; flight; myrrh tree; birth); scholia and Hyginus, *Fabulae* 58, 164

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/05-local-and-lesser/050-myrrha-smyrna-birth-adonis.md

Characters

Adonis — child born from the split tree
Artemis — punisher of Myrrha’s slight; later guardian of Adonis
Cinyras — father; unknowing partner; pursuer with the sword
Myrrha — daughter; incestuous lover of her father; becomes the myrrh tree; mother of Adonis
Nurse — helper in the deception (Ovid strand)

Places

Arabia — alternate Theias localizations in some mythographers
Myrrh tree — living tomb and womb of Adonis
Salamis — Apollodorean setting

Themes

Narrative

Smyrna (Myrrha), daughter of Cinyras of Cyprus (or of Assyrian/Theias lines in alternate genealogies), was struck with an unlawful desire for her own father—Aphrodite’s punishment for the girl’s slight to the goddess, in the usual motive. With a nurse’s help she deceived Cinyras in darkness over several nights. When he discovered the truth, he drew his sword; Myrrha fled, prayed to be neither living nor dead among humans, and was changed into the myrrh tree. In time the bark split; the infant Adonis was born from the wood, caught and anointed by Aphrodite or by water-nymphs, and given his double destiny between goddesses (05/005). Apollodorus states the passion, the tree, and the birth with handbook brevity; Ovid expands the nurse, the recognition, the long flight, and the tears that are myrrh. Both serve one aetiology: why myrrh is a bitter perfume of grief, and how the beautiful Adonis entered the world already marked by crime and metamorphosis. The tale is Greek in Apollodorus’s Cypriot placement; the psychological fullness is Roman-labeled where drawn from Ovid.