Yet it may be true that
in their simple minds the thought of the reviving spirit of
vegetation was blent with the very concrete notion of the ghosts of
the dead, who come to life again in spring days with the early
flowers, with the tender green of the corn and the many-tinted
blossoms of the trees. Thus their views of the death and
resurrection of nature would be coloured by their views of the death
and resurrection of man, by their personal sorrows and hopes and
fears. In like manner we cannot doubt that Renan's theory of Adonis
was itself deeply tinged by passionate memories, memories of the
slumber akin to death which sealed his own eyes on the slopes of the
Lebanon, memories of the sister who sleeps in the land of Adonis
never again to wake with the anemones and the roses.
XXXIII. The Gardens of Adonis
PERHAPS the best proof that Adonis was a deity of vegetation, and
especially of the corn, is furnished by the gardens of Adonis, as
they were called. These were baskets or pots filled with earth, in
which wheat, barley, lettuces, fennel, and various kinds of flowers
were sown and tended for eight days, chiefly or exclusively by
women.
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