Abstract
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. Fostered by the sun’s heat, the plants shot up rapidly, but having no root they withered as rapidly away, and at the end of eight days were carried out with the images of the dead Adonis, and flung with them into the sea or into springs.
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© 1990 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Frazer, J.G. (1990). The Gardens of Adonis. In: The Golden Bough. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00400-3_33
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00400-3_33
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-00402-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-00400-3
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