It would be idle, perhaps, to lay
much weight on evidence drawn from the calendar of flowers, and in
particular to press an argument so fragile as the bloom of the rose.
Yet so far as it counts at all, the tale which links the damask rose
with the death of Adonis points to a summer rather than to a spring
celebration of his passion. In Attica, certainly, the festival fell
at the height of summer. For the fleet which Athens fitted out
against Syracuse, and by the destruction of which her power was
permanently crippled, sailed at midsummer, and by an ominous
coincidence the sombre rites of Adonis were being celebrated at the
very time. As the troops marched down to the harbour to embark, the
streets through which they passed were lined with coffins and
corpse-like effigies, and the air was rent with the noise of women
wailing for the dead Adonis. The circumstance cast a gloom over the
sailing of the most splendid armament that Athens ever sent to sea.
Many ages afterwards, when the Emperor Julian made his first entry
into Antioch, he found in like manner the gay, the luxurious capital
of the East plunged in mimic grief for the annual death of Adonis;
and if he had any presentiment of coming evil, the voices of
lamentation which struck upon his ear must have seemed to sound his
knell.
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