Myrrha

Myrrha tried to ignore her feelings, felt shame in her desire, and wept and sobbed in grief. She prayed to the gods to remove the filth in her heart, but no god could remove what the Goddess of Love herself had placed there. There would be no relief for the poor princess.

Even so, she resisted. Night after night she lamented the flutter of her heart at the sight of her lover, the flush of her cheeks at the thought of him, and the dreams that haunted her in her sleep. Oh gods, the dreams! In the day under Helios' watchful eye she kept the lid on her feelings clamped down tight, but in the darkness her desires slipped past her sleeping defenses and ran wild. The dreams threatened to crush her resolve all-together.

One night while the King hosted a symposium in the halls below and the Queen was away, Myrrha resolved to end her life. But her nurse, Hippolyte, had grown worried of her nightly fits and had been standing watch nearby. As she tied the fatal knot her nurse rushed in and stayed her hand. She begged Myrrha to tell her what was wrong or else let her send for one of Asklepios' healers. The princess gave up nothing until finally she cried to herself, tears sparkling like resin in the candlelight,
"Oh, Mother, so happy in her husband!"

And there! The nurse recognized the dark truth and with a little more prodding her charge told her everything. That she'd been neglecting her worship to Aphrodite, that surely this was her punishment, the incestuous thoughts, everything. Initially the nurse was shocked and appalled, but quickly the two embraced in wracking sobs. Truly Myrrha was cursed, grief-stricken, tormented, but what could a nurse do to help?

And then the nurse, with the best of intentions, had a fateful and horrible idea.

"Myrrha," she cooed, wiping the tears across the maiden's cheeks.
"I fear you will waste away before my very eyes trying to fight the gods. What if- if-" the sin hung on her tongue.
"What if this is what Aphrodite wants you to do?"
Myrrha stiffened. The nurse swallowed.
"What if once will- will satisfy the goddess and she releases you."

The princess hadn't thought of that before.
What if? What if? I'd be free! And somewhere in the shadow of her heart whispered,
Only once...?

Her nails dug into the nurse's arm. Hippolyte continued,
"I mean just look at the gods, many of them have mated with their...kin, and no one bats an eye at them."
Myrrha nodded, this all making perfect sense. For mortals even encourage such in our livestock, why is it really so strange?

"I think I have a plan," said the nurse, and they hunched over in hushed and excited whispers. They both ignored the lumps growing in their throats while laughter and clattering dishes echoed below.

III. A Dirty Plan

The nurse snuck down the stairs from the King's chambers, every candle she could find tucked beneath her robes. She'd left Myrrha nervous and excited. She prayed that what they planned wouldn't land her in Tartaros, but she refused to let Myrrha , the beautiful girl she'd raised from childhood who had everything before her as a princess in Aphrodite's city choose to be a bride of Hades.
Even if her lover is...

She shook the uncomfortable word from her head and marched down the stairs into the banquet hall, straight past the drunk and belligerent guests. Wine, food, and...fluids, littered the floor. Cyrpus' King was celebrating lavishly while his wife was away practicing Demeter's sacred rites. Hippolyte threw up a whispered thanks to the gods for the convenient timing.

The Symposium was nearing a close. Most of the more sensible guests had long since retired, and there on his couch was the King deep in his cups. She came up beside him and refilled his wine glass, leaning in close to his ear,
"My King," she cooed, "I know the hour is late but I just found the perfect desert for a night such as this."
The King perked up, swirling his wine before taking another drag. On the sides of the terracotta was a painting of Clytemnestra wielding an ax over her head.

"There is a girl who works in the castle, and she has confessed to me that she is madly in love with your grace. She desires nothing more than to share your bed tonight- oh but she's terribly shy, if not tonight she might lose her courage!"
"Oh re-ally?" smacked the King, licking his lips and hiccupping.
"And how old would you say?"
"Just Myrrha's age." the nurse answered, and then quickly changed the subject, cleared the table, and slipped out the door.

As she hurried to return to the princess with the news, she heard the King announce to his guests the symposium had come to an end and that he'd be retiring for the evening. She heard the splash of his closing libation on the floor to Bull-Headed Dionysos as she rounded the tower. A vision of a bloody sword flashed before her eyes and she shook off the creeping feeling before returning to her princess.

IV. Partners in Crime

The nurse smuggled Myrrha successfully to the King's chambers. No one saw. Myrrha , trembling beside her, wore a long veil over her body as a disguise. Beneath the cloth her nurse had rubbed fragrant oils into her skin, her hair combed, perfumed, and left long, loose, and wild down her back, but otherwise she was completely naked. Myrrha's stomach fluttered with butterflies, or was that a pit?

The nurse knocked on the door. Myrrha shivered, freezing despite the torch mounted on the wall beside them. There was movement from within. Familiar footsteps. For a moment she filled with dread and began to panic. She feared she would anger the gods by staying. Or by leaving. She feared she'd be found out, that her father would find out,
Good Gods, if he ever found out I'd be killed!

As his footsteps grew closer her nerves failed her and she took a step to flee. Only, too late. The King opened the door and stood before her and she found she couldn't tear herself away anymore.
I am already doomed, she thought hopelessly.

As the nurse pushed her into the King's open arms, quickly so the torchlight didn't illuminate her face through her veil, and into his darkened chamber toward his wide and wifeless bed, the dread finally made way for crooked anticipation. Her lover took her trembling quiet for a virgin's shyness and lead her toward the bed. I would spare you the details of what happened there after, but unfortunately Ovid did not:

Immediately her love, her crime, her father raised his sword against poor Myrrha, and chased her out the door. More than once his sword cut the air above her head and nipped at her heels as she sprinted from the castle, but at last Hippolyte threw herself around his legs and stalled him long enough for Myrrha to lose him in the forest. She laid down under the bushes, relieved. She was safe. For now.

But naked in the woods, exhausted, unable to return home, and with nothing but the sheet she'd snatched from her bed of crimes and the child in her womb, she wandered.

V. Lost Hope

And now, friends, I warn you once more, for a sad story only grows worse. The stories of Ancient Greece are rarely kind to women.

Myrrha wandered long and far. Dressed as she was and now covered in mud, she was shunned from every door. For nine months the outcast princess walked surviving on scraps, her belly swelling with child and despair. She knew her due date was swiftly approaching, but each passing day there was less and less of her left to endure any future beyond that. She'd never had much meat on her bones to begin with, but she was dangerously thin these days. The baby she carried seemed to syphon anything she'd scavenged for herself. If she died in childbirth, would anyone find it or would it be left for the wolves?

Secretly she longed for Persephone's court. Cruel fate had left her a pariah and she felt half-dead already. She didn't feel she belonged with the living anymore, but equally she felt one stained such as her didn't belong amongst the blessed dead either. One day her parents would join her and how could she face them? And though she would face Tartaros if that is what the gods chose for her, the thought tormented her in her nightmares. Oh gods- the nightmares! Would she be mounted on a wheel like Ixion? Maybe she would be torn in two by childbirth over and over just to heal and suffer like Prometheus.

Or maybe, she feared this more than the others, or maybe I'll birth a terrible monster like Pasiphae. Some horrible abomination. Maybe the worst is yet to come...

And as though her thoughts themselves teased the Fates, her water broke.

VI. Aphrodite's Sacred Tree

Myrrha's wails echoed over the hills and she prayed some shepherd would come to her aid, but there was no one to hear her. There was no one around for miles. For hours she labored and fought through her body ripping open inch by inch, but worse was that she was completely alone. So many women, noble and enslaved alike, died in childbirth with the best by their side, and she was utterly alone in godforsaken country. She knew she'd lost the right to have her mother beside her, but she wished that at least Hippolyte were here. She'd never not been with her. She hoped that her father had at least spared her.

After laboring too long, her strength was failing her. It was clear there was something wrong. The space between life and death grew thin. Desperate for something, anything other than terribly cruel fate she threw up a prayer to the gods.

"Please gods, hear me, hear me now! I know I cannot go on living, but I also know I'm too wretched for the blessed dead."
Tears rained down her cheeks.
"I know I deserve to be punished, but please," she cried, "I'm so afraid."

She drew in a rasping breath, sobs wracking her chest, tears sparkling, and wailed a final plea to the gods:

"If ever I have pleased you
with fragrant smoke from my altar,
please, I beg you,
take pity on your supplicant,
and my beautiful son."

But she hadn't been alone, for before she'd even finished her prayer a woeful Aphrodite had turned her eyes towards the tragic princess and begun a metamorphoses. The Fates had already made their decree that Myrrha had come to an end, but there was something yet the golden goddess could do to help. Aphrodite always answered Myrrha's prayers, despite what some may say.

Princess Myrrha of Cyprus threw her hands up in prayer with the last drop of her strength, and as she did Aphrodite's blessing took root. Myrrha's legs sunk deep into the soil, her toes spread in the dirt into long and spindly roots. Her arms stretched out towards the sky into powerful branches still praying for salvation. Her fingers fanned out into a canopy of rustling leaves, bark spread over her skin, and her body twisted into a dark trunk. With the last of her human sight she saw glorious Aphrodite, Cyprian Queen, flying to her aid with a train of nymphs behind her. Beautiful goddesses leapt from their trees, flowers flying in their hair. She realized she was in a field of myrtle trees, Aphrodite's sacred grove. With a final sigh, the tears in her eyes hardening into a glistening resin, she turned her face up towards the sky and became the Myrrh tree, beloved by Aphrodite, and the fragrant resin from the tree was forever after offered upon the goddess' altars.

VII. The Birth of Adonis

The nymphs beat their breasts in sorrow for the Princess of Cyprus and Aphrodite held Myrrha's leaves softly against her cheek in sorrow. She knew heartbreak in the death of every worshiper, yet her princess was profound amongst them. But the goddesses couldn't grieve long. Myrrha was gone, but the wood around Myrrha's pregnant belly groaned and creaked before finally tearing open. Cradled within the myrrh tree's hardened womb, surrounded in fragrant resin, was a beautiful baby boy.

The nymphs received him with open arms, laying him gently in a supple bed of wild lettuce, while Aphrodite gathered myrtle branches from her grove. For each branch she took a hundred grew back in its place. The nymphs were immediately in love with the child, who they all agreed must have a touch of the gods in him to be so beautiful. Perhaps Myrrha too, since she'd taken so well to dryad life. Lured by the beautiful odor of the resinous myrrh, the happy nymphs took the fragrant tears from her bark to anoint her beautiful child.

Still Aphrodite stayed by the tree, sighing and touching it here and there tenderly, hanging crowns of myrtle from the branches. Hoping to cheer up their goddess, the nymphs brought the sticky babe to their Queen, dropping him straight in her lap with such lack of ceremony the goddess burst into a giggle. Immediately the baby giggled back, the scent of myrrh filling her nose, and that was all it took for this mere mortal to capture the Goddess of Love's heart. She swaddled him in her sacred veil, crowned him with myrtle and named him Adonis, the Lord, an exemplar of beauty among men.
My Adonis.

Aphrodite, like the nymphs, noted the extreme beauty of the child, almost as if he were from a god. The goddesses feared once the other immortals caught sight of him, his fate may near as tragic as his mother's. Aphrodite held the babe to her breast. For Myrrha's sake she refused to let that happen. She would protect him. She would hide him. But where?

And then the golden goddess had a golden idea. With someone who would not betray her to an Olympian. With the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone.

But I shall continue the story in another song.