Dyrope, Venus and Adonis, and Apollo and Hyacinthus

We should be Careful

We usually are given terrible consequences that harm us, when not careful. Take into consideration the myth of Dyrope. Amused by nature, she was gathering flowers, with her sister and son in her arms, for the thrones of the nymphs. Pretty much distracted, she gathered a few purple flowers, which resulted out to be the nymph Lotis. She was terrified of what she had done, as soon as she realized the blood coming up of the flower’s stem.

Then, she tried to run and disappear and forget the scene, but she was stuck to the floor—like a plant. She couldn’t move anymore. Dyrope, weeping, told all her family how much they loved them, and learned from her mistake.

The Goddess Venus was one day playing with her son, Cupid, and one of his arrows accidentally struck her. Though she tried to remove it, the effect was now in action, and the Goddess immediately fell in love with Adonis. She followed him everywhere. One day, when Adonis was hunting, Venus warned him of being careful with nature and its dangerous creatures. Nevertheless, Adonis wasn’t the one struck by the love arrow, and he paid no attention whatsoever to what Venus had to say.

He did die in the end, because of a wild boar. If Venus and her son had been more careful, Venus would have never fell for Adonis, therefore never feeling sorry for his violent death.

Finally, in comes Apollo and Hyacinthus. The God, amused by this particular human, would take the pleasure to help him and follow him everywhere he’d go. They once were playing with quoits, and Apollo, who was probably to jolly to realize and think about what could happen, threw his hard. Hyacinthus, then, eager to catch it, ran after it; but the quoits bounced and struck him.

We know for sure Apollo didn’t mean to kill his beloved friend. But we understand that if not careful, something we don’t really want to happen can happen after all.

In our culture today, we feel bothered by the fact that parents or any elders are trying to protect us. Maybe they are overprotecting…or maybe they don’t want us to end up death. Yet, as much different from Ancient Greece, we play with balls and dolls, not with any type of arrow or quoits—or wild beast.