Мирра және оның трагедиялық тарихы

Character in Greek mythology
the Greek myth

Myrrha (Greek: Μύρρα, Mýrra), also known as Smyrna (Greek: Σμύρνα, Smýrna), is the mother of Adonis in Greek mythology. She was transformed into a myrrh tree after having intercourse with her father, and gave birth to Adonis in tree form. Although the tale of Adonis has Semitic roots, it is uncertain where the myth of Myrrha emerged from, though it was probably from Cyprus. The myth details the incestuous relationship between Myrrha and her father, Cinyras. Myrrha falls in love with her father and tricks him into sexual intercourse. After discovering her identity, Cinyras draws his sword and pursues Myrrha. She flees across Arabia and, after nine months, turns to the gods for help. They take pity on her and transform her into a myrrh tree. While in plant form, Myrrha gives birth to Adonis. According to legend, the aromatic exudate of the myrrh tree are Myrrha's tears. The most familiar form of the myth was recounted in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and the story was the subject of the most famous work (now lost) of the poet Helvius Cinna. Several alternate versions appeared in the Bibliotheca, the Fabulae of Hyginus, and the Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis, with major variations depicting Myrrha's father as the Assyrian king Theias or depicting Aphrodite as having engineered the tragic liaison. Critical interpretation of the myth has considered Myrrha's refusal of conventional sexual relations to have provoked her incest, with the ensuing transformation to tree as a silencing punishment. It has been suggested that the taboo of incest marks the difference between culture and nature and that Ovid's version of Myrrha showed this. A translation of Ovid's Myrrha, by English poet John Dryden in 1700, has been interpreted as a metaphor for British politics of the time, linking Myrrha to Mary II and Cinyras to James II. In post classical times, Myrrha has had widespread influence in Western culture. She was mentioned in the Divine Comedy by Dante, was an inspiration for Mirra by Vittorio Alfieri, and was alluded to in Mathilda by Mary Shelley. In the play Sardanapalus by Byron, a character named Myrrha appeared, whom critics interpreted as a symbol of Byron's dream of romantic love. The myth of Myrrha was one of 24 tales retold in Tales from Ovid by English poet Ted Hughes. In art, Myrrha's seduction of her father has been illustrated by German engraver Virgil Solis, her tree metamorphosis by French engraver Bernard Picart and Italian painter Marcantonio Franceschini, while French engraver Gustave Doré chose to depict Myrrha in Hell as a part of his series of engravings for Dante's Divine Comedy. In music, she has appeared in pieces by Sousa and Ravel. She was also the inspiration for several species' scientific names and an asteroid.

The myth of Myrrha is closely linked to that of her son, Adonis, which has been easier to trace. Adonis is the Hellenized form of the Phoenician word "adoni", meaning "my lord". Around this time, the cult of Adonis is noted in the Book of Ezekiel in Jerusalem, though under the Babylonian name Tammuz. Adonis originally was a Phoenician god of fertility representing the spirit of vegetation. It is further speculated that he was an avatar of the version of Ba'al, worshipped in Ugarit. It is likely that lack of clarity concerning whether Myrrha was called Smyrna, and who her father was, originated in Cyprus before the Greeks first encountered the myth. However, it is clear that the Greeks added much to the Adonis Myrrha story, before it was first recorded by classical scholars. The Latin Myrrha originated from the Ancient Greek múrrā, but, ultimately, the word is of Semitic origin, with roots in the Arabic murr, the Hebrew mōr, and the Aramaic mūrā, all meaning "bitter" as well as referring to the plant. Regarding smyrna, the word is a Greek dialectic form of myrrha. In the Bible, myrrh is referenced as one of the most desirable fragrances, and though mentioned alongside frankincense, it is usually more expensive. Several Old Testament passages refer to myrrh. In the Song of Solomon, which according to scholars dates to either the tenth century B. C. as a Hebrew oral tradition or to the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century B. C., myrrh is referenced seven times, making the Song of Solomon the passage in the Old Testament referring to myrrh the most, often with erotic overtones. In the New Testament the substance is famously associated with the birth of Christ when the magi presented their gifts of "gold, frankincense, and myrrh". but rather by the characters in the stories. and before he turns to the tale of Venus and Adonis. As the myth of Myrrha is also the longest tale sung by Orpheus (205 lines) and the only story that corresponds to his announced theme of girls punished for forbidden desire, it is considered the centerpiece of the song. Ovid opens the myth with a warning to the audience that this is a myth of great horror, especially to fathers and daughters:

The story I am going to tell is a horrible one: I beg that daughters and fathers should hold themselves aloof, while I sing, or if they find my songs enchanting, let them refuse to believe this part of my tale, and suppose that it never happened: or else, if they believe that it did happen, they must believe also in the punishment that followed. According to Ovid, Myrrha was the daughter of King Cinyras and Queen Cenchreis of Cyprus. Ovid says that Cupid was not to blame for Myrrha's incestuous love for her father, Cinyras; he comments that hating one's father is a crime, but that Myrrha's love was a greater crime, and blames it instead on the Furies. Over several verses, Ovid depicts the psychic struggle Myrrha faces between her sexual desire for her father and the social shame she would face for acting on it. Afraid of death and tired of life, and pregnant as well, she begged the gods for a solution, and was transformed into the myrrh tree, with the sap thereof representing her tears. Later, Lucina freed the newborn Adonis from the tree. ultimately dying in Egypt. For the second possible parentage of Adonis, Apollodorus quotes Hesiod, who postulates that Adonis could be the child of Phoenix and Alphesiboia. He elaborates no further on this statement. For the third option, he quotes Panyasis, who states that King Theias of Assyria had a daughter called Smyrna. Smyrna failed to honor Aphrodite, incurring the wrath of the goddess, by whom was made to fall in love with her father; and with the aid of her nurse she deceived him for twelve nights until her identity was discovered. Smyrna fled, but her father later caught up with her. Smyrna then prayed that the gods would make her invisible, prompting them to turn her into a tree, which was named the Smyrna. Ten months later the tree cracked and Adonis was born from it. In the Metamorphoses by Antoninus Liberalis, written somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd century A. D., had a daughter named Smyrna. Being of great beauty, she was sought by men from far and wide. She had devised many tricks in order to delay her parents and defer the day they would choose a husband for her. Smyrna had been driven mad and it was on the wish of Zeus that the child was brought up and named Adonis. which might reflect the role the Sun has in the myrrh's production, but nevertheless this version was far from being a popular one.

In music, Myrrha was the subject of an 1876 band piece by John Philip Sousa, Myrrha Gavotte and in 1901, Maurice Ravel and André Caplet each wrote cantatas titled Myrrha. Caplet finished first over Ravel who was third in the Prix de Rome competition. The competition required that the candidates jumped through a series of academic hoops before entering the final where they were to compose a cantata on a prescribed text. Though it was not the best musical piece, the jury praised Ravel's work for its "melodic charm" and "sincerity of dramatic sentiment". Musical critic Andrew Clements writing for The Guardian commented on Ravel's failures at winning the competition: "Ravel's repeated failure to win the Prix de Rome, the most coveted prize for young composers in France at the turn of the 20th century, has become part of musical folklore." Mirra remains Alaleona's most ambitious composition and though the music tended to be "eclectic and uneven", it showed "technical enterprise". More recently, Kristen Kuster created a choral orchestration, Myrrha, written in 2004 and first performed at Carnegie Hall in 2006. Kuster stated that the idea for Myrrha came when she was asked by the American Composers Orchestra to write a love and erotica themed concert. The concert was inspired by the myth of Myrrha in Ovid's Metamorphoses and includes excerpts from the volume that "move in and out of the music as though in a dream, or perhaps Myrrha’s memory of the events that shaped her fate," as described by Kuster.

The Metamorphoses of Ovid has been illustrated by several artists through time. In 1563 in Frankfurt, a German bilingual translation by Johann Posthius was published, featuring the woodcuts of renowned German engraver Virgil Solis. The illustration of Myrrha depicts Myrrha's deceiving her father as well as her fleeing from him. In 1717 in London, a Latin English edition of Metamorphoses was published, translated by Samuel Garth and with plates of French engraver Bernard Picart. The illustration of Myrrha was entitled The Birth of Adonis and featured Myrrha as a tree delivering Adonis while surrounded by women. In 1857 French engraver Gustave Doré made a series of illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy, the depiction of Myrrha showing her in the eighth circle of Hell. In 1690, Italian Baroque painter Marcantonio Franceschini depicted Myrrha as a tree while delivering Adonis in The Birth of Adonis. The painting was included in the art exhibition "Captured Emotions: Baroque Painting in Bologna, 1575 1725" at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California which lasted from December 16, 2008 through May 3, 2009. Normally the painting is exhibited in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (English: Dresden State Art Collections) in Germany as a part of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (English: Old Masters Picture Gallery). In 1984, artist Mel Chin created a sculpture based on Doré's illustration of Myrrha for the Divine Comedy. The sculpture was titled "Myrrha of the Post Industrial World" and depicted a nude woman sitting on a rectangular pedestal. It was an outdoor project in Bryant Park, and the skin of the sculpture was made of perforated steel. Inside was a visible skeleton of polystyrene. When finished, the sculpture was 29 feet tall.

Several metamorphosing insects' scientific names reference the myth. Myrrha is a genus of ladybug beetles, such as the 18 spot ladybird (Myrrha octodecimguttata). Libythea myrrha, the club beak, is a butterfly native to India. Polyommatus myrrha is a rare species of butterfly named by Gottlieb August Wilhelm Herrich Schäffer found on Mount Erciyes in south eastern Turkey. Catocala myrrha is a synonym for a species of moth known as married underwing. In total the United Kingdom's Natural History Museum lists seven Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) with the myrrha name. Myrrh is a bitter tasting, aromatic, yellow to reddish brown gum. It is obtained from small thorny flowering trees of the genus Commiphora, which is a part of the incense tree family (Burseraceae). There are two main varieties of myrrh: bisabol and herabol. Bisabol is produced by C. erythraea, an Arabian species similar to the C. myrrha, which produces the herabol myrrh. C. myrrha grows in Ethiopia, Arabia, and Somalia. A large asteroid, measuring is named 381 Myrrha. It was discovered and named on January 10, 1894 by A. Charlois at Nice. The mythical Myrrha inspired the name and her son, Adonis, is the name given to another asteroid, 2101 Adonis. Using classical names like Myrrha, Juno, and Vesta when naming minor planets was standard custom at the time when 381 Myrrha was discovered. It was the general opinion that using numbers instead might lead to unnecessary confusion.