Adonis sweet Adonis, how her eyes sighed at your heavenly face,
Unlike the sun who comes and goes, never did Aphrodite’s love go away,
Her gushing heart enwrapped in pangs of love, her immortal blood it raced,
When every morn, you walked the forest, why could you not stay?
She wept and gasped for thee, panting and longing your embrace,
But how your modest chastity detested her more and more each day,
A lover’s game she thought, an animal’s game you sought, how she threw herself into a daze,
Your heart she clutched, her heart you notched and sent it shooting into the cold and dark grey,
Set down your bow and lie with me Adonis and to thee every night I shall stroke thy face and praise,
Away from me! You cried in gross detest as you leaped from tree to tree and stuck to thy way,
How her tears wailed beneath the ground, yet how you loved to hunt for days and days,
Until one eve, Ares cried out from his bedchambers, Aphrodite, my love, where art thou, how my heart yearns for thee, where do you stray?
And there, Ares saw, innocent Adonis chased by capricious Aphrodite, possessed for Adonis’ body she did survey,
A match sparked and jumped ablaze as fire burned within Ares’ breast, his jealous eyes congealed in craze,
A bloody and flaming path Ares left in his stead,
From god to man, from man to boar, he razed the ground in bold behest,
Breathing geysers of wrath, no room for mercy, not even Zeus could plead,
For Ares to see his wife with a mortal, his pride could not rest,
Run sweet Adonis, away from Aphrodite, for Ares you cannot please,
Artemis watched, she too jealous of Adonis’ skillful hunting, and so the winds she turned west,
And brought together Adonis and boar, and boar doth charge and Adonis his bow he raised,
Into the eyes of rage, Adonis saw, the face of Ares in that boar’s mighty gaze,
Blood and tears, did Adonis lay, mauled and ripped inside,
In his final breath he cried, To the gods how I prayed and obeyed,
Yet in their lust, it is I, innocent Adonis, who here will die,
Silly gods, it was I, who became your prey,
A bloody tragedy of love here presides,
Aphrodite mourned and sobbed, O’ Ares what have you done, my handsome Adonis you slay,
In your ill-tempered rage, you left me aside,
A man I finally loved, greatly in all intensity,
How his mortal face twas so divine,
Gentle, sweet, and comely in all propensity,
Now a soulless corpse here lie, his blood depart and unto my breast I shall pour like wine,
A grief so great and sorrow so deep, his death hath driven me to insanity,
And as she cried, with blade, stabbed herself again and again, yet could not die,
From boar to man, from man to god, Ares scoffed and left her to her emotional complexity,
Foolish Aphrodite, you worshipped a man, why not next raise a shrine?
Come with me to bed and I shall be your holy high amenity,
And Ares returned to reside alone in his bedchamber and listened to Aphrodite scream and whine,
Such are the woes of ambivalent and silly divinities,
Gods conceived by man, for man, yet be the death of man, all deceitful duplicities
Image credit: Venus and Adonis, 1729, Francois Lemoyne