Myrrha

See also: myrrha

Translingual

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Proper noun

Myrrha f

  1. A taxonomic genus within the family Coccinellidae – certain ladybirds.

Hyponyms

References

English

Birth of Adonis, an engraving by Bernard Picart, et al. for Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book X

Etymology

From Latin Myrrha, from Ancient Greek Μύρρα (Múrrha).

Proper noun

Myrrha

  1. (Greek mythology) The daughter of Cinyras, king of Cyprus, who tricks her father into having sexual intercourse with her and escapes the king's wrath by being transformed into a myrrh tree, later giving birth to Adonis.
    • 1975, Karl Galinsky, Ovid's Metamorphoses: An Introduction to the Basic Aspects, page 89:
      Byblis lies motionless in mute desperation and her transformation is told only briefly, whereas Myrrha herself asks for her metamorphosis, gives a speech (10.483-7), and Ovid leads us step by step through her transformation (10.489-502).
    • 1977, Marcel Detienne, The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology, page 63:
      The resemblance between this Myrrhina and the Myrrha who seduces her father is all the greater in that in one of the versions of the myth of Adonis, his mother is transformed by metamorphosis into not a myrrh tree but a sprig of myrtle.
    • 2006, David M. Robinson, Closeted Writing and Lesbian and Gay Literature: Classical, Early Modern, Eighteenth-Century, page 175:
      In the succeeding book, Ovid depicts another woman tortured by abnormal but not impossible passion: Myrrha, in love with her father, Cinyras.

Synonyms

  • (daughter of Cinyras and mother of Adonis): Smyrna
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