The Death Of Adonis

Fragments 108, 110, 115, 117, 116, 111, 114, and 113 combined. This is the lamentation-song For Adonis — woe for Adonis, woe! Thus wailed Aphrodite in anguish-throe, As she strove to hold him back from death: 'Let thine heart not faint, O love! Be strong! O me, it burns me, thy failing breath! It kindles through all my being a fire! My heart is aflame with despairing desire!' She calls to her Eros of golden wing, She bids him steep in the ice-cold spring Fine linen, and lay on Adonis' brow: — 'O love, let its coolness revive thee now! . . . Vain, vain! — his eyes see me no more; They are fixed in a gaze upon Hades' door! They close — he sleeps — not the sleep of the dead! Hush, stir not a pebble with heedless tread! No, no! this is death! Now remaineth to me No sweetness on earth — nor honey nor bee!'