THE FLOS ADONIS.

The Flos Adonis, a blood-red flower of the Anemone tribe, is one of the many plants which, according to ancient story sprang from the tears of Venus and the blood of her coy favorite.

    Rose cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase
    Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn

Shakespeare.

Venus, the Goddess of Beauty, the mother of Love, the Queen of Laughter, the Mistress of the Graces and the Pleasures, could make no impression on the heart of the beautiful son of Myrrha, (who was changed into a myrrh tree,) though the passion-stricken charmer looked and spake with the lip and eye of the fairest of the immortals.  Shakespeare, in his poem of Venus and Adonis, has done justice to her burning eloquence, and the lustre of her unequalled loveliness.  She had most earnestly, and with all a true lover’s care entreated Adonis to avoid the dangers of the chase, but he slighted all her warnings just as he had slighted her affections.  He was killed by a wild boar.  Shakespeare makes Venus thus lament over the beautiful dead body as it lay on the blood-stained grass.

    Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost! 
    What face remains alive that’s worth the viewing? 
    Whose tongue is music now?  What can’st thou boast
    Of things long since, or any thing ensuing? 
    The flowers are sweet, their colors fresh and trim,
    But true sweet beauty lived and died with him.

In her ecstacy of grief she prophecies that henceforth all sorts of sorrows shall be attendants upon love,—­and alas! she was too correct an oracle.

    The course of true love never does run smooth.

Here is Shakespeare’s version of the metamorphosis of Adonis into a flower.

    By this the boy that by her side lay killed
    Was melted into vapour from her sight,
    And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled,
    A purple flower sprang up, checquered with white,
    Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
    Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.

    She bows her head, the new sprung flower to smell,
    Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath,
    And says, within her bosom it shall dwell
    Since he himself is reft from her by death;
    She crops the stalk, and in the branch appears
    Green dropping sap which she compares to tears.

The reader may like to contrast this account of the change from human into floral beauty with the version of the same story in Ovid as translated by Eusden.

    Then on the blood sweet nectar she bestows,
    The scented blood in little bubbles rose;
    Little as rainy drops, which fluttering fly,
    Borne by the winds, along a lowering sky,
    Short time ensued, till where the blood was shed,
    A flower began to rear its purple head