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Adonis
 Adonis

The Myth of the Dying God in

the Italian Renaissance

Carlo Caruso
 Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway

London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2013

© Carlo Caruso, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.

Carlo Caruso has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as Author of this work.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining

from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or
the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-4725-3882-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

 Contents

List of illustrations vii

Acknowledgements viii
Abbreviations x
Preface xi

Introduction 1

1 An ancient myth revisited: Adonis as citrus tree 6

Pontano and the myth of Adonis 6
The solar myth in Pontano’s Urania 8
The Garden of the Hesperides 11
Competition with the ancients 12
The search for the Hesperides 14
Adonis as citrus tree 16
New myths out of ancient verse 18

2 Adonis and the Renaissance idyll 21

The legacy of Pontano 21
The pitfalls of inventiveness 24
Adonis and the vernacular idyll: the eclogue 28
Adonis and the vernacular idyll: the stanzaic poem 32
Ovid’s Adonis in translation 36

3 Adonis in sixteenth-century mythography 39

Early attempts at a new mythography 40
Lelio Gregorio Giraldi’s pagan gods 43
Natale Conti’s explanation of myths 45
The solar myth of Adonis in decorative cycles 47

4 Giovan Battista Marino’s Adone (i): From pastoral to epic poem 49

Marino’s life and works 51
An outline of the Adone 55
Origin and growth of the ‘grand poem’ 58
Transgressive pastorals 60
Jean Chapelain’s defence of the Adone 62
vi Contents

The poem and the myth 65

From myth to contemporary chronicle 70

5 Giovan Battista Marino’s Adone (ii): The king’s poem 73

The poem and the court 74
Binet’s Adonis and Le Breton’s Adonis 77
‘Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child’ 84
‘The king never dies’ 86
Adonis as the born-again king 88
The king’s heart 91

6 The seventeenth-century aftermath 95

The legacy of Marino’s Adone 95
Marino’s Adone and the Index of Forbidden Books 97
Adonis and the theological debate 100
Return to the Hesperides – Epilogue 102

Notes 111
Bibliography 169
Index of manuscripts 195
Index of principal passages cited 197
Index of names 205
 List of illustrations

1 G. B. Marino, L’Adone (Paris: Olivier de Varennes, 1623). Title page

(Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal) 50
2 C. Binet, Merveilleuse rencontre… Adonis… Les Daufins (Paris: Fédéric Morel,
1575). Title page (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale) 78
3 G. Le Breton, Adonis. Tragedie françoyse (Rouen: Raphaël du Petit Val, 1611).
Title page (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale) 80
4 P. P. Rubens, ‘The Triumph of Time and Truth with Louis XIII and Maria de’
Medici’ (Paris, Louvre) 93
5 C. Bloemaert after Domenichino, ‘The Tale of Leonilla’, engraving, from G. B.
Ferrari, Hesperides (1646) 105
6 ‘Fingered or multifarious citron’ (Malum citreum digitatum seu multiforme),
etching and engraving, from G. B. Ferrari, Hesperides (1646) 106
7 ‘Childing citron-lemon’ (Limon citratus alterum includens), etching and
engraving, from G. B. Ferrari, Hesperides (1646) 106
8 ‘Differently-shaped, multi-childing citron-lemon’ (Aliae formae citrati limonis
alios includentis), etching and engraving, from G. B. Ferrari, Hesperides (1646) 107
9 ‘Foetus-bearing orange’ (Aurantium foetiferum), etching and engraving, from
G. B. Ferrari, Hesperides (1646) 108
10 ‘Hermaphrodite or horned orange’ (Aurantium hermaphroditum seu
corniculatum), etching and engraving, from G. B. Ferrari, Hesperides (1646) 109
11 ‘Misshapen orange’ (Aurantium distortum), etching and engraving, from G. B.
Ferrari, Hesperides (1646) 109
 Acknowledgements

‘To hurt no one and give everyone their due’ (Inst. 1.1.3) is a mandate that also applies
to scholarship. But just as in the realm of the law, it is no easy mandate to fulfil.
Anyone spending years over one’s work is likely to receive an incalculable number of
suggestions and stimuli, many of which become, virtually unnoticed, a constituent of
one’s thoughts; and yet, these stimuli are often no less effective than those which are
more readily acknowledged. My first and most general expression of thanks goes to
all those from whom I received valuable feedback without my necessarily recognizing
it as such.
The institutions I have worked in since I developed an interest in the early modern
revival of the Adonis myth include the Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, and
the Universities of Zurich, Reading, St Andrews, Warwick, Siena and Durham, all of
which have in various ways supported my enquiries. A grant from the former Arts
and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) and a Christopherson-Knott Fellowship of
the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University provided me with the necessary
leisure to conduct a substantial part of my research. The School of Modern Languages
and Cultures and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Durham University backed
the project both with research leave and financial help towards the editing of the
volume.
Libraries remain the centre of scholarly life for any committed student of the
Humanities. In grateful acknowledgement of the assistance I received at every visit, I
would like to single out the Bodleian Library, the Taylor Institution and the Sackler
Library, Oxford; the British Library and the library of the Warburg Institute, London;
the National Library of Scotland and the University Library, Edinburgh; the Biblioteca
Universitaria and the Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati, Siena; the Bibliothèque
Nationale and the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris; the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome; the Biblioteca
Provinciale, Pescara; and Durham University Library. The great digital collections –
Internet Archive, Gallica, the digital section of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Jstor,
Persée, Digizeitschriften, Poeti d’Italia in lingua latina, Biblioteca Italiana, and the
programmes of digitalization variously converging towards Google Books – have
made life considerably easier for all scholars, especially (but not only) for those who
cannot always rely on the proximity of well-stocked libraries.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help of colleagues, editors and publishers who
have allowed me to reproduce material for this book. I wish in particular to thank
Stefano Carrai for authorizing the reuse of my chapter ‘Dalla pastorale al poema:
l’Adone di Giovan Battista Marino’, originally published in La poesia pastorale nel
Rinascimento, ed. by Stefano Carrai (Padua: Antenore, 1998), pp. 349–77, parts of
which appear now in Chapter 4; likewise I thank Ingo Gildenhard and Andrew Zissos,
 Acknowledgements ix

together with the Managing Director of Legenda, Graham Nelson, for permission to
reproduce the content of my chapter ‘Adonis as Citrus Tree: Humanist Transformations
of an Ancient Myth’, in Transformative Change in Western Thought: A History of
Metamorphosis from Homer to Hollywood, ed. by Ingo Gildenhard and Andrew Zissos
(Oxford: Legenda, 2013), pp. 252–72, in the Introduction and in Chapters 1 and 2.
I am grateful to all those who have liberally devoted a significant portion of their
time to discuss the subject of this book. These include Kathryn Banks, Federico Casari,
Paola Ceccarelli, Andrew Laird, Joseph North, James Russell, Lorenzo Sacchini and
Jonathan Usher. Among the many scholars and friends to whom my debt is acknowl-
edged in the notes I wish to single out here Ottavio Besomi, Clizia Carminati and
Emilio Russo. Special thanks go to Ingo Gildenhard for a number of considerable
improvements to the text. The staff at Bloomsbury, and in particular Kim Storry of
Fakenham Prepress Solutions, are to be thanked for their courtesy and forbearance.
Adriana Caruso and Fanny Lombardo have helped towards the compilation of the
Indices. I owe a singular debt of gratitude to Fiona and Peter Macardle for their
extensive expertise and kindness. To my wife and colleague Annalisa Cipollone, I
acknowledge the most useful and helpful observations I received in the course of
my research and to her I attribute some of the most incisive insights the reader may
encounter in these pages.
 Abbreviations

Atallah, Adonis
Atallah, W., Adonis dans la littérature et l’art grecs. Paris: Klinksieck, 1966.
Detienne, Les jardins d’Adonis
Detienne, M., Les jardins d’Adonis. La mythologie des aromates en Grèce. Paris:
Gallimard, 2001 (1st edn 1972).
DBI
Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960-.
EI
Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti. Milan-Rome: Treves Tumminelli
Treccani-Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1929–39, 36 vols and Appendice I.
Frazer, Adonis Attis Osiris
James G. Frazer, Adonis Attis Osiris. Studies in the History of Oriental Religion. London:
Macmillan, 1919, 2 vols.
RE
Pauly (von), A. F. and Wissowa, G. (eds), Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1893–1980, 84 vols.
Ribichini, Adonis
Ribichini, S., Adonis: aspetti orientali di un mito greco. Rome: Consiglio nazionale delle
ricerche, 1981.
Roscher
Roscher, W. H. (ed.), Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie.
Leipzig: Teubner, 1884–1921, 10 vols.
Tuzet, Mort et résurrection d’Adonis
Tuzet, H., Mort et résurrection d’Adonis. Étude de l’évolution d’un mythe. Paris: Corti,
1987.
 Preface

‘Why should one bother with Adonis?’ is the opening sentence of a book by Hélène
Tuzet, published in 1987. The author’s admission that the story may at first glance
look tenuous appears to concede the legitimacy of the doubt.1 The narrative core of
the Adonis myth does look rather thin, after all – a supremely handsome youth born
of incest, seduced by Venus, killed in his prime by a boar and finally turned into, and
reborn as, an anemone flower. The figure of Adonis is admittedly ancillary, inseparable
from that of his mistress, and does not rank highly in the hierarchy of ancient deities,
nor can its standing be forced upwards without patently forcing the issue. The vulgate
representation of him as a passive ‘toy boy’, unenthusiastically subservient to the
goddess of Love, is suggestive of a handsome but overall shallow character.
Yet Adonis has been a popular figure among the poets of all ages. Sappho,
Theocritus, Bion of Smyrna, ps.-Moschus and Ovid among the ancients, and in the
modern age Pontano, Ronsard, Spenser, Shakespeare, Marino, La Fontaine, Shelley,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Leconte de Lisle, d’Annunzio, Cavafy (at least by way of
allusion), Wilfred Owen and Ted Hughes have sung their fascination for young and
fragile male beauty overshadowed by untimely death.
Scholars, too, have felt drawn to Adonis’ bland but strangely attractive figure. Since
the Hellenistic Age, his simple story has evoked older and more arcane narrations of
ephebic lovers and primeval ‘Mother Goddesses’, of irrepressible sensual love tragi-
cally intertwined with death, of feats of demise and regeneration connected with the
life cycle and the cultivation of crops. Was Adonis the shadow of distant and more
largely looming deities, such as the Sumerian Dumuzi, the Babylonian Tammuz or
the Egyptian Osiris? Could his story provide an interpretative key to those otherwise
unfathomable figures, which the peculiar turn of the Western mind had allowed to
recede into some sort of prehistory of human thought once famously described as
‘before philosophy’?2 And what kind of relationship, if any, existed between the figure
of Adonis and the partly analogous figure of Christ (notably with regard to the death-
and-resurrection element)? The line of thought generated by such questions, which
have been persistently asked from Late Antiquity to the present day, culminated
in James G. Frazer’s felicitous characterization of Adonis as a ‘dying god’. Frazer’s
comprehensive view embraced a spectacularly diverse array of divine or semi-divine
characters, beliefs and rituals across the globe, and may be said to have crowned fifteen
hundred years of scholarly interest in the myth of Adonis.3
Confidence in replying affirmatively to the questions highlighted above has
diminished considerably over the past hundred years. A conviction has prevailed that
such common traits as are shared by the myth of Adonis with its cognate Eastern
forerunners are more likely to be the product of later conflation, generated by syncre-
tistic thought, than of direct filiations, and that such relationships are, at any rate,
xii Preface

much more complex and problematic than previously imagined.4 Scholars have thus
tended to strip the Adonis myth bare of the accretions accumulated over the centuries
and to review the evidence in a new light – Marcel Detienne’s rejection of the received
notion of the fertility myth for its exact opposite is a classic case in point.5 The ever-
contentious issue of Adonis’ revival or ‘resurrection’ has seen some vehement attacks
against such a prerogative, with modern theologians reigniting the disputes of the
early Church Fathers.6 But Frazer’s category of ‘dying and rising gods’, and more
generally the comparative approaches used, have also been vindicated as legitimate,
after a reconsideration of the main framing questions.7 The literary evidence has been
revisited with important results, and an Oxyrhynchus papyrus has permitted a fairly
recent release of a new elegiac fragment where Adonis is mentioned.8
In any case, this book is not concerned with what the myth of Adonis may have
been like in its pristine form. As the subtitle suggests, the emphasis is placed on its
revival in the Italian Renaissance (which is here understood to include the early
Baroque Age as well) over a period of one-and-a-half centuries. The ‘return’ of classical
myths in the Italian Renaissance was characterized by a combination of erudite
enquiries and literary appropriations, often leading to original reformulations and
reinterpretations of the myths themselves. Analogies, rather than differences, guided
the reappropriation of such myths. Many aspects that one regards today as mutually
exclusive, often for cogent chronological reasons, used to coexist happily in the early
modern age, and even influenced one another. On the other hand, only selected
aspects, notably those which presented a marked literary appeal, may be said to have
been genuinely ‘revived’. Therefore, this book aims not so much to peel back these
reworkings in the search for the Adoniac myth’s inner core, but to assess the layers of
meaning that early modern authors and mythographers deposited over the ‘original’
story, forging new narratives and new meanings for their readers.
The case of Adonis is, in many respects, exemplary. According to the myth,
he was the lover of Venus and the most attractive of young males. As such, he
remained a paragon of ephebic beauty and, because of his status as either a shepherd
or a hunter, featured in Renaissance pastoral and mythological idylls – all in all, a
decorative presence, which was occasionally used for instrumental purposes. Giovan
Battista della Porta (1535–1615), advising in his Magia naturalis (Natural Magic) on
‘How women could bring forth beautiful children’, suggested – in the footsteps of
the Elder Pliny – that ‘in the bed-chambers of great men ... the images of Cupid,
Adonis, and Ganymede’ should be displayed in full view, so ‘that the wives, while
lying with them, may turn their attention to and have their imagination strongly
captured by those pictures, and continue to reflect on them daily while pregnant, so
that the conceived child may eventually resemble them’.9
In other circumstances, however, when a gifted poet turned his attention to the
theme, ambitions rose to greater heights. Two of the boldest innovators of Italian
Renaissance poetry, Giovanni Pontano (1429–1503) and Giovan Battista Marino
(1569–1625), dealt with the Adoniac myth at different points in time and with
different aims. In their hands, the timid figure of the ephebe acquired the independent
status of a protagonist and became associated with a wide range of unexpected topics:
the cultivation of citrus trees, French dynastic propaganda, and Christian imagery.
 Preface xiii

The myth’s reappearance in such uncommon guises fuelled debates on the uses of
ancient sources and their translation into new literary works and genres; on the
function and legitimacy of erotic imagery and allegory; and last but not least on the
boundaries defining the degree and nature of the miscegenation of pagan myths and
Christian doctrine in literary works.

In the following pages I shall assume knowledge of such common equivalences as

Zeus/Jupiter, Aphrodite/Venus, Hera/Juno, Persephone/Proserpine, etc. I have used
both forms, in relation primarily to context, rather than adhering systematically to
one or the other.
In a number of cases I have consciously departed from the current English practice.
In referring to ‘Caterina de’ Medici’ and ‘Maria de’ Medici’, for example, I have
preferred the Italian over the otherwise more common frenchified forms ‘Catherine
de Médicis’ and ‘Marie de Médicis’, as the two Queens of France are here mentioned
always in connection with their Italian provenance.
The early modern reception of a myth demands the student to attend to the actual
circulation of texts. Thus the date of a first printed edition is often of crucial impor-
tance – even though the circulation of manuscripts may have remained buoyant for
the entire period under consideration here. When the title of a work is followed in the
text by the indication of a date between brackets, this must be understood as the date
of the first edition for the work in question, unless otherwise stated.
I have adopted a mixed régime as regards quotations, since texts in different
languages have been quoted from early printed books and manuscripts as well as
more recent editions. In all such cases where I thought that slight (mostly minimal)
adaptations would not detract, I have aimed to simplify matters by adopting modern
orthographical conventions (such as, e.g. v for u, or et for &), and by providing
more helpful punctuation where needed. Changes of greater consequence have been
indicated in the notes.
When writing up this book, I quickly realized that classicists and early modernists
represent two cohorts of potential readers which do not necessarily overlap. I therefore
compromised as to the level of detail required when addressing the critical bibliog-
raphy on my subject. On several occasions, the unfolding of the argument suggested
further lines of enquiry which it seemed absurd not to mention, at least in passing: in
all such cases I have tried to give rough indications that might help point the reader
in the right direction. In other circumstances I have not mentioned standard works
on the topics I was discussing, simply because they were tangential to my argument.
This is of course no justification for any important omission on account of ignorance
or lack of discrimination, or both.
 Introduction

Ancient mythology was perpetuated in the West by three different means: ‘through
its presence in ancient literature and in all literature formed on that model, through
the polemics of the Church Fathers, and through its assimilation in symbolic guise to
Neoplatonic philosophy’.1 The myth of Adonis is no exception to this rule.
According to the best-known version of the myth, Adonis was the offspring of King
Cinyras of Cyprus and his daughter Myrrha (alternatively, the offspring of King Theias
of Assyria and his daughter Smyrna, or even of King Phoenix and Alphesiboea), who
fell insanely in love with her father and lured him into sleeping with her, while taking
care to conceal her identity during their night-time assignations. When her father
discovered the plot, Myrrha barely escaped his wrath by requesting the intervention
of the gods, who responded by turning her into a myrrh tree. The baby born of the
incestuous relationship was extracted from the bark of the tree and raised by the forest
nymphs. As a youth of unsurpassed beauty, Adonis attracted the attention of Venus.
He surrendered rather passively to her seductive arts, and indulged with her in an idle
life of sensual pleasures until his decision to engage in boar hunting. The hunt resulted
in the beast killing the inexperienced Adonis. After having lamented his untimely
departure, Venus transformed him, or rather his blood, into an anemone flower.2
This, in essence, is the version that obtained universal and enduring success
thanks to Ovid’s popular adaptation of the story (Met. 10.298–739), which readers
have enjoyed uninterruptedly since its composition and publication.3 Ovid’s version
does not however take account of Adonis’ infancy, which is prominent in the earliest
reported testimonies of the story as given in Apollodorus’ Library (3.14.4). Rescued
from the myrrh tree by order of Aphrodite/Venus and subsequently handed over
to Persephone/Proserpine, Adonis became the object of a quarrel between the
two goddesses as to whom he should be ultimately entrusted. An agreement was
eventually reached that he should spend one third of the year with Proserpine and
the rest with Venus.4 Apart from fleeting references in poems and the writings of
mythographers and scholiasts, this aspect of the story does not seem to have inspired
any surviving narrative of note.5 It must have been very well known, however, for it
laid the foundation of the allegorical interpretation of the myth, according to which
Adonis’ periodical disappearance and reappearance would represent, or at least be
ideally linked to, the sun’s seasonal journey and the life-cycle of vegetation, and where
time spent with Proserpine would broadly correspond to winter and that spent with
Venus to spring and summer.
The other relevant texts for the diffusion of the Adonis story are by the Greek
Bucolic poets: Theocritus’ fifteenth Idyll, Bion’s Lament for Adonis, ps.-Moschus’
2 Adonis

Lament for Bion (which develops ‘Adoniac’ themes), and the short poem The Dead
Adonis included in the Corpus Theocriteum.6 These texts refer to the Adoniac cult,
the annual mourning ritual commemorating the youth’s premature death, in addition
to despondent commentaries on the human condition as compared and contrasted
with that of flowers and plants. Here, the element of mourning is dominant, even
though revival was expected every spring. In these works Ulrich von Wilamowitz-
Moellendorff perceived a poetic expression of universal grief for the loss of ‘youth and
beauty’, Aphrodite being given the role of desolate lover and Great Mother alike. The
ancient populations of the Eastern Mediterranean, Wilamowitz wrote, saw reflected
in Adonis’ death the sudden and violent climate changes generated by the seasonal
cycle in their geographical regions, whereby vegetation is periodically revived and
destroyed by an excess of its very source of life: heat.
In the lands of the south, nature dies in summer. The lush, burgeoning spring
vegetation succumbs to the very heat that had awakened it to brief and luxuriant
life. Even today this is felt – by anyone capable of feeling – to be violent and
premature, the very death of youth and beauty.7
The very notion of ‘heat’ recalls the myth’s relationship with the rising of the Dog Star
(Canicula), when both humans and animals, and especially beasts (like boars) are
prone to indulge their lewd impulses, driven insane by unhealthy passions.8
The threnodies on the death of Adonis were institutionalized in the Adonia, the
annual commemorations of the dead youth, which involved the ritual cultivation of
the so-called ‘Gardens of Adonis’ – shallow pots, or rather shards of pottery, where
fragile herbs were grown, only to wither rapidly under the unrelenting rays of sun in
summer, recalling the young hero’s premature fate. Whether confined to the private
sphere or expressed in sumptuous and crowded festivals, the cult of Adonis, which
essentially concerned women, was subordinate to that of his mistress.9 From Sappho
to Ammianus Marcellinus, references to the Adonia allude to female cults in Athens,
Cyprus, Byblos, Alexandria and Antioch.10
The female nature of the cult, as well as its erotic appeal, was further accentuated
by a number of pseudo-etymologies variously connected with the name of Adonis.
Apart from the traditional view that assumes a Semitic origin (from Hebr. ’ādōn ‘lord’,
frequently mentioned yet far from validated),11 a much more evocative role was played,
at different points in time, by derivations from hēdonē ‘pleasure’, or else hadus ‘sweet’
(incidentally the very first word – almost a keynote – of Theocritus’ idylls),12 often in
combination with perfume and music. Hence Fulgentius could claim that ‘adon was
Greek for sweetness [suavitas]’, while Remigius of Auxerre, in his commentary on
Martianus Capella’s De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (On the Marriage of Philology
and Mercury), was able to associate Adonis with Gr. adō ‘I sing’.13
Presumably because of the association with the world of women, the figure of
Adonis became the target of a number of derogatory comments. Derisive observa-
tions about Adonis were already common in antiquity. The ‘Gardens of Adonis’ were,
according to both Plato and Plutarch, a typical example of pointlessness; to Epictetus,
of immaturity.14 ‘Sillier than Praxilla’s Adonis’ appears to have been the ancient equiv-
alent of our ‘beauty without brains’.15 When in the Macedonian city of Dio, Hercules
 Introduction 3

saw people flooding out from a temple and was told that they had been worshipping
Adonis; his dismissive comment was ‘Nothing sacred’.16 Moreover, since accounts of
the Adonia were often linked, no matter how reliably, to sacred prostitution practised
at shrines dedicated to Venus, Adonis’ already dubious reputation suffered greatly
from such stories, especially in a world increasingly permeated, and regulated, by
principles of Christian morality.17
The spread of the Christian faith engendered new occasions of cultural conflict.
Association with other Sun cults brought Adonis dangerously close to the figure of the
Hebrew God, and his cyclic disappearances and reappearances – allegorically interpreted
as death followed by resurrection – to that of Christ. This similarity drove the Church
Fathers anxiously to denounce any such juxtaposition as fallacious and misleading.
The reaction of the Church authorities was prompted in particular by a crucial passage
in Ezekiel, where one of the ‘major abominations’ of the morally decayed Jerusalem is
identified with a group of women lamenting the death of Tammuz (Adonidem in the
Vulgate). ‘Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was
toward the North; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz’ (Ez. 8.13–14).
This is followed by the sight of people ‘with their backs toward the temple of the Lord,
and their faces towards the East’, worshipping ‘the sun towards the East’ (Ez. 8.16).18
The extreme response of the Church Fathers is evidence for Adonis’ change of
status. Pagan authors such as Plutarch, Pausanias, Lucian, Athenaeus, Ammianus
Marcellinus, Macrobius and Martianus Capella, among others, stressed similarities
between the cult of Adonis and those of comparable Babylonian, Egyptian and
Anatolian gods or demi-gods like Tammuz, Osiris and Attis. Regeneration through
death and rebirth, connected with sacrificial rites of fertility and the cult of the Sun,
appeared to be a common characteristic of these and other figures, who were progres-
sively populating the new syncretistic pantheon.19 Plutarch proposed a substantial
correlation between Adonis and Dionysus, as both appeared to be expressions
of Nature’s regenerative power (Symp. 4.5.3, 671 B-C). The anonymous author of
the Orphic Hymn To Adonis, Proclus, Ausonius, Macrobius, Iohannes Lydus and
Martianus Capella insisted on the many interchangeable names and avatars as the
product of one sole essence, commonly identified with the Sun (Hēlios).20 The relevant
passage in Macrobius’ Saturnalia (1.21.1–6), arguably the most influential source for
the allegorical interpretation of the Adonis myth in the early modern age, falls within
the wider discussion of the Sun’s numerous manifestations (Sat. 1.17–23). Influential,
yet somewhat confusing; for if, as Macrobius maintains, ‘Adonis … is the sun’ and the
killer boar ‘represents winter’, then his interpretation must be considered at variance
with that of Adonis as a victim of the sun’s excessive heat.21
The tendency in Late Antiquity towards syncretistic monotheism is, in all likelihood,
at the root of the Macrobian allegory.22 The hymn to the Sun in Martianus Capella’s De
nuptiis is a further and most eloquent example of such a tendency.
Solem te Latium vocitat…
Te Serapin Nilus, Memphis veneratur Osirim,
dissona sacra Mithram Ditemque ferumque Typhonem;
Attis pulcher item, curvi et puer almus aratri,
4 Adonis

Hammon et arentis Libyes ac Byblius Adon.

Sic vario cunctus te nomine convocat orbis. (2.188, 191–2)
Latium calls you the Sun … the Nile adores you as Serapis, Memphis as Osiris; as
Mithras, and Dis, and fierce Typhon in differing ceremonies; similarly [you are]
handsome Attis, and the sacred child of the curved plough [i.e. Triptolemus], and
Ammon of burning Libya, and Adonis of Byblos. Thus the whole world invokes
you under different names.
The principle of analogy which drove this process of conflation operated like a
centripetal force. It was said of Hellenistic and late-antique authors and mythographers
that they, more easily than not, ‘surrendered to the obsession for conciliation and
syncretism’, and left authors of later ages ‘working on some sort of concordance which
results from the juxtaposition of fragments they themselves derived from previous
concordances …’.23 This may perhaps be said of other ages as well, including our own. It
is possible that this is simply the way in which the transmission of such materials works.
Subsequent to the decline of the period known as Late Antiquity, interest in Adonis
seems to have diminished. If one makes an exception for the exegesis of the relevant
passages in Martianus Capella and in Book Ten of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, nothing
particularly significant appears to have emerged for a period of over eight centuries –
although research in this field has admittedly been far from exhaustive.24 Adonis’ lack
of status during this long period is conveniently summarized in Jerome’s periphrastic
designation of him as a mere lover of Venus, Veneris amasius.25 On the other hand,
the allegorical tradition of commentaries is in itself of some relevance, and may have
produced new associations and new meanings, but whether by chance or by design
it would be difficult to tell. John of Garland’s thirteenth-century Integumenta Ovidii,
for instance, which was presumably written with the double intent of memorizing the
poem’s content as well as highlighting its allegorical significance, offers the following
abridged account of Ovid’s take on Myrrha (Met. 10.298–502), the apples of the
Hesperides with Atalanta and Hippomenes turned into lions (Met. 10.560–707), and
Adonis (Met. 10.503–59, 708–39).
Rem miram mirare novam Mirram per amorem [rubr. ‘De Mirra’]
In mirram verti quam dat amarus amor.
Ex auro poma tria sunt genitalia, fervens [rubr. ‘De Ypomene
Cum leo luxuries, fertur uterque leo. et Athalanta’]
Nobilitas, species, sapientia sunt tria poma
Aurea, que triplici pectora dote trahunt.
Flos breviter durans iuvenilis dicitur etas [rubr. ‘De Adoni’]
Que cito discedens ut levis umbra fugit.26 (413–20)
A wonderful thing, to watch the new Myrrha, turned because of love into myrrh,
the product of bitter love. The three golden apples are genitals; [they stand for]
burning lust when the [sun enters the sign of the] lion; both lions are said [to
signify the same]. Nobility, beauty and wisdom are three golden apples which win
the hearts with their triple dowry. The ephemeral flower means youth, which flees
like a light shadow that departs rapidly.27
 Introduction 5

When reading vernacular literatures, one finds that there, too, the exegetical tradition
has more to offer than the lyric or narrative treatment of the subject. The Adonis
inset episode in the Roman de la Rose, included in the later section by Jean de Meun
(1268–78?), is nothing but a shortened version of the Ovidian story, focused on Venus’
anxious warnings about the dangers of chasing wild beasts (Roman de la Rose, 15687;
cf. Ovid, Met. 10.542–52) and on Adonis’ failure to listen to her, with the bathetic
conclusion that one ought to follow good advice.28 There is little more to be gleaned
from the Adonis story of the Ovide moralisé (10.1960–3953), where, however, the key
element is enhanced by the four explanations that follow the story. The second account
aims to extract the story’s anagogical sense and is particularly striking. Myrrha’s
passion for her father is interpreted there as the love of the Virgin Mary for God the
Father, Adonis as the Saviour, the boar as the Jews responsible for Christ’s death, and
Adonis’ metamorphosis into the flower as the Resurrection.29
A noticeable change occurred when ancient mythological lore was revived in
new works of antiquarian erudition, among which Giovanni Boccaccio’s Genealogie
deorum Gentilium (The Genealogies of the Ancient Gods, ca. 1355–70) stands out as a
most authoritative example. Arranged like a long gallery of portraits following genea-
logical patterns, Boccaccio’s encyclopaedic repertoire was to establish itself as the
standard work on classical mythology for almost two centuries.30 It was Boccaccio’s
minute attention to detail, complemented with a euhemeristic approach of both pagan
(mainly Ciceronian) and Christian inspiration, which secured unprecedented prestige
for his work, despite its patent faults and extravagant misunderstandings.31 But apart
from the content, it was the design of Boccaccio’s Genealogies that exercised a tangible
influence on the perception of the Adonis myth – in fact, of all ancient myths – and
inspired poets and writers of the early Italian Renaissance to new productions. By
assigning to each character a section, however small, of their own, Boccaccio ensured
they were all granted, at least potentially, equal or almost equal dignity. Minor
mythical personages were thus offered a degree of autonomy they had never enjoyed
in ancient literature. An immediate consequence was a flourishing production of ‘new’
myths in both Latin and vernacular poems, where characters from secondary episodes
of Ovid’s Metamorphoses or from such ‘minor’ works as Statius’ Silvae, the ps.-Ovidian
Nux, the poems of Ausonius (or surrogates thereof), were deliberately placed at the
centre of new narrations, usually of limited extent. In the second half of the fifteenth
century, reputed scholars like Domizio Calderini and Angelo Poliziano went so far as
to declare that such smaller formats became modern poets admirably, for they, unlike
the ancients, would not be capable of successfully sustaining their inspiration over the
span of longer and more ambitious poems.32
General persuasive arguments of this kind, with Boccaccio placing a renewed
emphasis on Macrobius’ interpretation of the Adonis myth as an allegory for the sun’s
seasonal cycle, provided the handsome youth with the essential requisites to attract the
attention of the literary world once again.33 From that moment onwards, the somewhat
colourless Veneris amasius went through an extraordinary transformation, which was
to culminate with James G. Frazer’s interpretation of Adonis as one of the archetypical
‘dying gods’.
 1

An ancient myth revisited: Adonis as citrus tree

At the end of the fifteenth century the story of Adonis caught the eye of a truly gifted
poet in the person of Giovanni Pontano (1429–1503), who produced the first highly
personalized revisitation of the Adoniac myth in the modern age.
Like many other fifteenth-century humanists, Pontano pursued a political career
in the service of an Italian potentate. A native of Cerreto di Spoleto, a charming hilltop
village in the Umbrian valley of the river Nera, Pontano moved to Naples in 1454, where
he progressed through the ranks to the eminent position of secretary and minister of
the Aragonese kings (1486). His political career came to an end in the aftermath of the
French conquest (and subsequent loss) of Naples in 1494–5. Thus unburdened of the
heavy duties of a busy court, Pontano was free to channel all his energies into literary
activity. He would survive the demise of his office for only eight years; yet the quantity
and quality of the work he produced during this period outclassed his previous and by
no means insignificant production, and remained unequalled among the humanists of
his time.1 Long after Pontano’s death his sometime pupil and friend Iacopo Sannazaro
still remembered the old man bursting with daimonic energy while indignant at his
younger colleagues’ apathy. ‘When dear old Pontano wanted to challenge us while he was
producing verse after verse, he was wont to say: “You men of straw, what are you doing?”.’2

Pontano and the myth of Adonis

Pontano’s prodigious activity, as witnessed by his contemporaries, receives further
confirmation from the available manuscript evidence. Many works he had drafted
in the 1460s were brought to maturity and saw the light of day no earlier than the
following century, having undergone substantial changes and frequent restyling. The
chronology of such revisions is not always known or clear; it is therefore difficult to
ascertain the dating of any specific attention Pontano may have devoted to classical
myths in general and to the myth of Adonis in particular.3 The presence of Adonis can
be detected in the presumably ‘earlier’ sections of works like De amore coniugali (On
Marital Love, 1467–84, revised 1490s) and Eridanus (1482–4, revised 1490s). Such
appearances, however, look rather conventional: in them, Adonis tends to conform to
his usual background role as Venus’ lover, even though Pontano’s inventive approach
to ancient myths is already revealing itself.4 Conversely, some of the shorter poems
 An ancient myth revisited: Adonis as citrus tree 7

collected under the titles of Tumuli (Tombs, viz. ‘Epitaphs’) and Iambici (Iambic poems),
datable with reasonable accuracy to the last decade of the fifteenth century, suggest that
by this time Pontano had come to explore a different aspect of the myth. The imagery
dominating the Tumuli is one of pathetic contrast between the graves as symbols of the
bleak coldness of death and the plants beside them as tokens of perpetually renewable
life.5 In the Iambici the ephemeral life of flowers and herbs is compared with the
longer and (only apparently) happier life of human beings, who are however denied
the privilege of a new birth.6 Such moving variations on the ancient theme of death
affecting the whole of the human race, yet sparing plants (no matter how humble) for
they are bound to revive every spring, show Pontano as a keen reader of Hellenistic
bucolic poetry, where such a theme is closely associated with the Adonis myth.
When observed in relation to these ancient sources, Pontano’s readings can perhaps
be ascribed a somewhat firmer chronology. Eighteen idylls by Theocritus, including
Idyll 15 on the Adoniazusae, were first published in Milan in 1480. Shortly afterwards
Pontano spent a period of two years in Ferrara (1482–4), where, in the circle of Battista
Guarino, Theocritean poetry had been fashionable for over twenty years.7 A further
crucial moment for the growing popularity of the Greek Bucolics came in 1495, when
the first printed edition of the Corpus Theocriteum appeared at the press of Aldo
Manuzio in Venice with a dedication to Guarino, Manuzio’s old teacher. It included
among others Theoc. 15, the Anacreontic poem The Dead Adonis on the guilty boar
put on trial by Venus (often, though not by Manuzio, ascribed to Theocritus), Bion’s
Lament for Adonis, and ps.-Moschus’ thematically related Lament for Bion (given as
anonymous in the Aldine print).8 The following passage from the Lament for Bion in
particular must have proved inspirational for Pontano:
Alas, when in the garden wither the mallows, the green celery, and the luxuriant
curled anise, they live again thereafter and spring up another year; but we men, we
that are tall and strong, we that are wise, when once we die, unhearing sleep in the
hollow earth, a long sleep without end or wakening. Lapped in silence therefore
wilt thou lie beneath the ground … (98–105, tr. A. S. F. Gow).9
Clearly reminiscent of this old lament is Pontano’s dirge for the death of his son Lucius
in 1498:
Foliis quid heu, amarace, heu quid floribus
Nudata squales maestula? Heu quid languida
Arentibus comis et horrido sinu,
lugubri amictu fles, misella amarace?
…
Deest enim, te qui rigabat …
His tu viresces et novam indues comam,
beata amarace, foliis novis, novo
amictu; at ego senex subarescam miser
umore vacuus …10 (Iambici, 5.18–21)
Alas, why, amaracus, why, alas, are you languishing, sad and barren of your leaves
and flowers? Why, alas, are you crying, your foliage withered, your bosom barren,
8 Adonis

in such mournful fashion, sad little amaracus? … He who watered you is now
gone … You will live again with a new crown, happy amaracus, with new leaves
and a new attire; but I, poor old man, emptied of my vital sap, I shall wither …
The fragile and now neglected marjoram plant (amaracus), dried up by the heat after
the death of the poet’s son had interrupted its watering, also bears a revealing likeness
to the short-lived herbs of the Gardens of Adonis. 11

The solar myth in Pontano’s Urania

At the turn of the new century it became clear that Pontano’s interest in the Adonis
myth had increased over the years, as Adonis features in two of the three poems
posthumously published by Aldo Manuzio in 1505, Urania and De hortis Hesperidum
libri duo (Two Books on the Garden of the Hesperides).12
Conceived shortly after 1469 and progressively expanded, Urania was declared
ready for the press more than thirty years later.13 The poem represents the culmination
of an illustrious tradition initiated by Poggio’s rediscovery of Manilius’ Astronomica in
1417 and continued by one of Pontano’s mentors, Lorenzo Bonincontri.14 Bonincontri’s
poem, Rerum naturalium et divinarum sive de rebus coelestibus libri tres (Three Books
on Natural and Divine, or Celestial Matters), provided a much-admired model for
the future author of Urania, and the editorial work done by Bonincontri for the 1484
Roman edition of Manilius proved of such quality as to win the praise of no less
demanding a reader than A. E. Housman.15 Pontano for his part considered Urania his
most challenging poetic enterprise, so much so that he came to be regularly associated
with that poem in the mind of his admirers.16 Manuzio, while soliciting the privilege
of being Pontano’s publisher, hailed the poem as ‘a divine piece’.17 Pontano’s long-time
friend and posthumous editor Pietro Summonte, writing to Manuzio about his own
editorial plans in Naples, promised to leave Urania for Manuzio to publish ‘as a work of
paramount importance’, and in dedicating his edition of Pontano’s lyrics to Sannazaro
openly declared that Urania stood at the pinnacle of his late friend’s production.18
Both Manilius’ Astronomica and Pontano’s Urania share an equal number of
books as well as broadly similar subject matter, even though the latter poem never
becomes quite as technical as the former.19 Urania deals with three main topics: the
planets (Book 1), the fixed stars (Books 2–4), and the stars as patrons of the various
regions and peoples of the Earth (Book 5). In Book 1 the author proceeds to describe
the celestial bodies according to the traditional Ptolemaic sequence: the Moon,
Mercury, Venus, the Sun. After a series of myths connected with the sun-god Apollo
two short digressions follow, designed to highlight the relations of both Mercury
and Venus with the Sun.20 The transition between the two episodes is secured by a
thematic link of a kind that readers of Ovid’s Metamorphoses will recognize at once.
Following Macrobius, and indeed Ovid, Pontano claims that Argos is the sky and his
hundred eyes the stars, which are destined to die out as soon as the rising sun-god
Apollo vanquishes them with his radiant light (Ur. 1.471–3 ‘Phoebo exoriente …
candenti lampade victa / emoriuntur’).21 The hint at an image of death evoked by the
 An ancient myth revisited: Adonis as citrus tree 9

catch-word emoriuntur (‘they die out’), combined with the subsequent echoing of a
line from Ovid (Ars am. 1.75 ‘Nec te praetereat Veneri ploratus Adonis’, ‘You mustn’t
omit to remember Adonis, bewailed by Venus’), offers the prompting for the mournful
story of the young hero.
Nec deploratum Veneri linquamus Adonim,
Venantem quem durus aper sub dente peredit.
Non illum fontes nec amici flumina Nili
Infletum voluere. (Ur. 1.474–7)
Let us not forget Adonis, bewailed by Venus, devoured while hunting by the cruel
boar’s tusk. Neither did the springs nor the waters of the friendly Nile wish to leave
him unlamented.
The lines that follow present a female figure that seems like an artful combination
of Venus, Nature and Mother Earth, shedding tears on the untimely death of her
paramour. For seven full days, the swollen river, urged by its irrepressible grief,
joins her in mourning by flooding the neighbouring countryside and laying waste
plants, animals and human beings alike. Trees and shrubs, too, lament Adonis’ lot;
and the myrtle – on account of its being sacred to Venus and, because of a probable
etymological wordplay with myrrh, also representative of Myrrha as well – strives
in vain to follow the funeral procession by repeatedly and piteously stretching its
branches.22
Ter myrtus conata sequi miserabile funus,
Ter radice retenta sua est, ter brachia flexit,
Ter frustra lentos conata est flectere ramos. (Ur. 1.485–7)
Thrice did the myrtle attempt to follow the sad cortège, thrice was it held back by
its roots; thrice did it stretch its arms, and thrice did it attempt to flex its pliant
branches in vain.
This image, too, stems from Ovid: it harks back to the plants drawn away from their
roots by Orpheus’ song in Met. 10.86–105.23 But the characteristic threefold iteration
recalls further Ovidian and Virgilian passages, and the resulting effect is one of sophis-
ticated mosaic-like design. The myrtle stretching its branches is an imitation of Medea
stretching her arms to the stars (Met. 7.188–9 ‘sidera sola micant: ad quae sua bracchia
tendens, / ter se convertit, ter …’). Also Ovidian is the construction ter conata followed
by the bisyllabic infinitive of a deponent verb, sequi in Pontano, loqui in Ovid (Met.
11.419 ‘ter conata loqui, ter fletibus ora rigavit’; Her. 4.7–8 ‘Ter tecum conata loqui ter
inutilis haesit / lingua …’). Virgilian, as well as Ovidian, are the three vain attempts
to move, made especially memorable by two famous lines which occur twice in the
Aeneid: ‘ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum’ and ‘ter frustra comprensa manus
effugit imago’ (Aen. 2.792–3 and 6.700–1) – both moreover referring to the shades of
deceased persons, Creusa and Anchises, and therefore thematically appropriate in a
funeral context.
Yet the main novelty resulting from Pontano’s combinatory technique resides in
those stretched branches which, as is subsequently made clear, are but the shrub’s
10 Adonis

longer shadows cast by the receding autumn sunlight. The death of Adonis is presented
here as the progressive disappearance of the sun from the autumn and winter horizon,
and in this respect Pontano’s narrative is an elegant rephrasing in smooth hexameters
of the allegory expounded at length and at the characteristic slow pace in Macrobius’
Saturnalia. There Adonis stands allegorically for the sun, the boar that kills him for
winter, and Venus for the earth’s boreal hemisphere ‘going into mourning when the
sun, in the course of its yearly progress through the series of the twelve signs, proceeds
to enter the sector of the lower hemisphere’.24
As already mentioned in the Introduction, Macrobius had interpreted the Adonis
myth as an allegory for vegetal regeneration in harmony with the changing of the
seasons, while suggesting a comparison between Adonis and the Egyptian god Osiris
(as well as Attis), which is essentially what Pontano also does.25 Yet Macrobius was not a
source Pontano would have been comfortably ready to acknowledge. Macrobian prose
offended his finely tuned humanist ear; it combined a lack of linguistic and stylistic
refinement with inappropriate sententious tones when dealing with Virgilian matters.
How did that barbarian, born under distant skies and unable to express himself in
acceptable Latin, dare to pass judgement tanquam praetor, like a magistrate, on the
greatest of all Roman poets?26 Moreover, because of his frequent use of Greek, Macrobius
was likely to be implicitly relegated by Pontano – as he would be later by Erasmus – to the
unflattering category of graeculi.27 Pontano was willing to improve on his source, and
no one was better qualified than he to perform the job. The old Senecan ideal of allusive
as well as elusive imitation, according to which references to one’s sources were to be
made palatable yet not immediately recognizable even for a highly perceptive reader,
had already, and very effectively, been adopted and promoted by Petrarch. Now it was
being further refined by Pontano, who was genuinely believed by his contemporaries
to embody the humanist ideal of the ‘Poet as Proteus’, Poëta Proteus alter, graced by an
uncanny ability to adapt metamorphically, and even excel, his own models.28
The effectiveness of Pontano’s technique may be appreciated in his transformation
of Macrobius’ account of Venus recovering from the sad winter months.
Sed cum sol emersit ab inferioribus partibus terrae, vernalisque aequinoctii trans-
greditur fines augendo diem: tunc est Venus laeta et pulchra, virent arva segetibus,
prata herbis, arbores foliis. (Sat. 1.21.6)
But when the sun has come forth from the lower parts of the earth and has crossed
the boundary of the spring equinox, giving length to the day, then Venus is glad
and fair to see, the fields are green with growing crops, the meadows with grass
and the trees with leaves (tr. P. V. Davies).
Ac veluti virgo, absenti cum sola marito
Suspirat sterilem lecto traducere vitam
Illius expectans complexus anxia caros,
Ergo, ubi sol imo victor convertit ab Austro,
Tum gravidos aperitque sinus et caeca relaxat
Spiramenta, novas veniat qua succus in haerbas,
Et tandem complexa suum laetatur Adonim. (Ur. 1.500–6)
 An ancient myth revisited: Adonis as citrus tree 11

But as a maiden waiting anxiously for the affectionate embrace of her absent
spouse, all the while sighing and leading a lonely and sterile life on her bridal bed,
then, as soon as the victorious sun rises above the southern horizon, she reveals
her florid bosom, and unlocks her inner pores, and lets the sap of life flow into the
tender blades, rejoicing at last in the arms of her Adonis.
The stock of Macrobius’ dreary prose is revived by Pontano’s grafting onto it the
striking Virgilian image ‘et caeca relaxat / Spiramenta, novas veniat qua succus in
haerbas’ (‘[the Earth] unlocks her inner pores, whereby the sap flows into the tender
blades’), which is lifted verbatim from two lines of the Georgics (1.89–90), yet not
without a twist. In Virgil the picture is one of rustic vividness, referring as it does to
the soil releasing its stored-up moisture when stubble is burnt in the fields. In Urania
those very words are skilfully made to convey a description of the Great Mother in
Cytherean attire, her sensuous body being gradually resuscitated by the warmth of
spring to give birth to a glorious celebration of Nature’s regenerative powers.29

The Garden of the Hesperides

In one of his last great works written on the cusp of the new century, De hortis
Hesperidum sive de cultu citriorum libri duo (The Garden of the Hesperides, or The
Cultivation of Orange Trees, in Two Books), Pontano produced yet another reinterpre-
tation of the Adonis myth, which was in due course to become extremely influential.
The subtitle of the work is misleading, as the poem in fact deals with the culti-
vation of three different varieties of citrus trees: oranges (the ‘sour’ variety, bot. Citrus
aurantium), citrons (Citrus medica) and lemons (Citrus limonum).30 The title contains
an allusion to the mythical garden situated in the African Atlas, where golden apples
were grown under the surveillance of a dragon and three nymphs, the Hesperides.
The raiding of the Garden of the Hesperides had constituted the eleventh labour of
Hercules, who after killing the dragon had carried off the precious fruits to Greece.31
With characteristic boldness, Pontano repudiated the classical myth and turned it into
an aition intended to explain the presence of citrus trees on the Neapolitan shore.
He declared their extraordinary fruits to be the genuine issue of the mythical golden
apples of the Hesperides, and their noblest variety, the orange, to be the plant into
which Adonis had been transformed by Venus after succumbing to the fury of the
boar.
The selection of the subject matter found its justification in a combination of literary
and geo-political reasons. As for the latter: while first and foremost aimed at glorifying
the citrus groves of Naples, Pontano’s Horti Hesperidum also evoked another celebrated
citrus-studded Riviera, that of Lake Garda, by ways of a dedication to the ruler of
its shores, the Marquis of Mantua Francesco Gonzaga.32 A letter sent to Gonzaga
by Pontano on 13 September 1500 reveals that by that date the poem was virtually
complete, and only in need of revision. In the letter the poet asked, somewhat dryly,
for further patience: ‘I have several things dedicated to your name, but the works of
the intellect require frequent and lengthy labor limae. Let Your Excellency therefore be
12 Adonis

patient. If polished they will both honour you and their author; if uncouth, the opposite
would occur.’33 Gonzaga features in the poem as a war hero, with the introductory
lines eulogizing him as the leader of the Italian coalition forces that fought the French
at the battle of the Taro (1495), an indecisive event for which both sides had claimed
victory.34 In honouring Gonzaga Pontano was accepting an invitation issued to him in
1499 by Giovan Battista Spagnoli, called ‘il Mantovano’ (Mantuanus), to participate in
the celebration of the Mantuan warrior and ruler; Mantuanus himself had already sung
the praises of Gonzaga in the five books of his poem Triumphus.35 It must have been
an invitation difficult to resist. One cannot help wondering whether Pontano’s prompt
acceptance was somehow influenced by the need to clear his own name of the accusa-
tions that had followed his final actions as minister of the Aragonese kings in 1495.
Since that fateful year when the French had occupied Naples, rumours had circulated
of Pontano kow-towing to the conquerors with excessive zeal.36 Now however, in a
changed, if volatile, political situation, Pontano showed himself ready to dedicate his
Horti Hesperidum to the sometime enemy of the French, while explicitly lamenting
the ‘violent rule of the Brigands’ and ‘the profanation of the Penates’ in Naples,37 and
even wishing in the final peroration that Gonzaga might one day restore the Neapolitan
kingdom to its independence.38 The two motifs of the war hero and the presence of
citrus trees on Lake Garda were elegantly intertwined by suggesting that an interest
in gardens and orchards was not irreconcilable with martial virtues, as Hercules’
successful attempt to release the Garden of the Hesperides from the dragon seemed to
prove (Hort. Hesp. 1.46–55).
It is doubtful that Pontano’s effort to ingratiate himself with the ruler of Mantua
was successful. Such a courteous invitation was presumably wasted on a recipient like
Francesco Gonzaga – a professional soldier plagued by syphilis, made for and used to
a lifestyle quite different from the one portrayed in Pontano’s elegant verse.39 But, again
presumably, it was not wasted on Gonzaga’s wife, Isabella d’Este, that grande dame of
the Italian Renaissance, who was so influential in everything pertaining to the realm
of poetry and art in Mantua. In that very year of 1499, Isabella was soliciting Pontano’s
revered opinion about a statue of Virgil that was to be erected in Mantua; she asked
also for the text of an inscription to be carved on its basement.40 The Virgilian inspi-
ration of the Horti Hesperidum, openly declared at the beginning of the poem (Hort.
Hesp. 1.9), is a clear token of allegiance to Mantua, Virgil’s birthplace, no less than to
Naples, Pontano’s home and Virgil’s resting place. It would be no surprise should it one
day be discovered that Isabella had an active role in the choice of the poem’s subject.

Competition with the ancients

The Virgilian model features prominently in both the invention and execution of
Pontano’s Hesperides. Citrus trees were the new matter Pontano poured into the
ancient mould of a didactic poem on husbandry in emulation of Virgil’s Georgics.
Competition with the ancients was once again the main driving force behind his
new accomplishment.41 More specifically, two passages from Virgil’s Georgics must
have played a decisive role in motivating Pontano’s emulative approach. Virgil had
 An ancient myth revisited: Adonis as citrus tree 13

famously declared that he was leaving orchards for others to sing (G. 4.144–8). In
fulfilment of such auspices, Columella had already responded by producing Book Ten
of his De re rustica in hexameters – where, however, citrus trees are not mentioned;
nor are they recorded in the anonymous treatise De arboribus liber (On Trees), tradi-
tionally ascribed to Columella in the Renaissance and transmitted together with
the De re rustica by manuscripts and early printed editions.42 Furthermore, Virgil’s
invitation was presumably read by Pontano in the light of another passage from the
Georgics, where the citron or Median tree – the only variety of citrus recorded in the
ancient sources – is mentioned (G. 2.126–35). There, Virgil claims that the citron is
worth being compared with the bay tree, for which it could easily be mistaken were
it not for its scent.
This was an enticing but also problematic passage, as the ancient readers already
knew. Servius thought the tree to which Virgil was referring was not a citron tree (in G.
2.131). Virgil’s comparison is in fact inaccurate, as it is based on a misunderstanding
(presumably generated by a corrupt reading) of a passage from Theophrastus’ Historia
plantarum (4.4.2), the work on which the Roman poet relied for most of his botanical
information. Virgil may have never seen a citron tree after all – and Renaissance
readers were quick to realize that.43 Whether Pontano also identified Virgil’s blunder
remains a matter open to debate. He certainly was aware of what the Elder Pliny
had stated, that even citron trees had only been familiar to the Romans as pot plants
imported from Media (HN 12.7.14–16).44 Another source with which Pontano was
undoubtedly familiar, Macrobius, had reported from Oppius’ lost work De silvestribus
arboribus (On Woodland Trees) the distinction between a variety of citron tree (citrea
malus) that grew in Italy and another, called ‘Persian [tree]’ (Persica [malus]), which
grew in Media (Sat. 3.19.3–5) – unless the latter was merely a peach tree. At all events,
the ancient sources seemed to confirm the ancients’ ignorance of the most valuable
varieties of citrus trees, namely oranges and lemons, the existence of which appears
to have come to the attention of the Europeans only after the arrival of the Arabs,
who were almost certainly responsible for their introduction or reintroduction in the
West.45 But in addition, there was the intriguing suggestion, made by no less an author
than Virgil, that citrus trees could be compared with, and therefore be a match for, bay
trees. There was adequate scope for Pontano to add an original chapter to the Virgilian
topic of orchards, especially given the renewed preoccupation with the aesthetic
qualities of country life that characterized the second half of the Italian Quattrocento,
and inspired in its literature a vigorous revival of the georgic and bucolic genres.46
Like other poets such as Hesiod, Virgil, Columella, Walahfrid Strabo and Petrarch,
Pontano was himself a passionate gardener and an accomplished horticulturalist,
who enjoyed working in his orchard on the hill of Antignano overlooking the bay of
Naples. It is therefore legitimate to ask of him the same question that R. A. B. Mynors
once asked of Virgil: ‘How much about husbandry did he already know?’.47 The answer
is easily provided. The Horti Hesperidum delivers not just first-rate Latin poetry but
also detailed accounts of specific cultivation techniques, and even some little gems
such as what appears to be one of the earliest allusions to ‘sweet oranges’ or portogalli,
thus named after the Portuguese crew of Vasco da Gama that first came upon them
(Hort. Hesp. 1.343–63).48 The ‘sweet orange’ (Citrus sinensis) is the tree, then still
14 Adonis

unknown to the Western world, from which all the currently commercialized varieties
of orange derive.49 News of its discovery was passed on in private letters by Italian
members of Vasco da Gama’s crew on their return home in 1499.50 When one year
later Pontano announced to the future dedicatee that his poem was finished and only
in need of some polish, the passage on the sweet oranges may have already been there;
at any rate it must have been inserted before Pontano’s death, which occurred on 17
September 1503.51 The Horti Hesperidum is among the earliest texts, almost certainly
the first published text in verse, to report on the existence of the newly discovered
variety of oranges.52
Had Pontano any direct predecessor in this unusual reformulation of the Adonis
myth? A source might emerge one day showing him clearly indebted to a previous
author; no such source, however, has yet been identified. Given Pontano’s fondness for
literary ‘crossing’, one is tempted to surmise that he devised his topic independently
through his usual blend of ancient and modern sources.
One thing is certain: Pontano did take pride in the originality of his own approach
to the matter. In a passage of his dialogue Aegidius (last revised 1501 or later), the
then still unpublished Horti Hesperidum is introduced as an object of admiration on
the part of contemporary scholars, and in a fashion that casts considerable light on
the nature of the poem itself.53 One of the characters in the dialogue, Hieronymus
Carbo (Girolamo Carbone), is asking for the opinion of another interlocutor, Puccius
(Francesco Pucci), about the topic of didactic poetry. Puccius obliges by citing
Virgil, Columella and Lucretius, as well as expanding on the masterful Virgilian and
Lucretian ‘art of beginning’.54 At this point Hieronymus incidentally mentions that he
is looking forward to Pontano’s forthcoming poem ‘on the nature of oranges, on the
rarity of such trees and on their cultivation, which no-one has [yet] put on record’ (a
nemine tradito). The absolute novelty of the subject-matter is further confirmed by
another interlocutor, Thamyras (Piero Tamira), as well as Puccius.55 The interesting
element here is that both Thamyras and Puccius are purposedly called upon in their
role as pupils of two great humanistic schools, Pomponio Leto’s in Rome and Politian’s
in Florence respectively. Both of them attest to their teachers’ omission in dealing
with oranges while commenting on the crucial Virgilian passage of G. 2.126–35.56
The statement can be easily validated through direct scrutiny of the texts in question.
Neither Leto’s commentary on the Georgics, elaborated in the years 1469–71 and
published for the first time in an unauthorized edition at Brescia in 1490, nor Politian’s
unpublished lecture notes for the course on the Georgics, which the humanist had
delivered in the Florentine Studio in 1483–4, contain any reference to orange trees.57

The search for the Hesperides

Pontano’s self-reference in Aegidius betrays the highly erudite nature of his endeavour,
performed in competition not just with poets but also with scholars. The idea of
amalgamating citrus trees, the Hesperides and the Adonis myth into one single
narrative was undoubtedly a brilliant one; its originality and complexity, however,
suggests that it must have dawned on Pontano only gradually.
Another random document with
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 15. by the words of the Lord] i.e. the king’s command was
recognised to be in accordance with the Divine will. Read by the
word; the plural words is probably only a textual error.

¹⁶And the priests went in unto the inner part of

the house of the Lord, to cleanse it, and
brought out all the uncleanness that they
found in the temple of the Lord into the court
of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took
it, to carry it out abroad to the brook Kidron.
16. the priests] The work was so divided between priests and
Levites that only the priests went into the house.

unto the inner part of the house] Render, within the house. The
reference is not to the Holy of Holies specially, but to the whole
interior of the house.

uncleanness] compare verse 5; Isaiah xxx. 22.

to the brook Kidron] The brook Kidron is the deep valley on the
east of Jerusalem separating it from the Mount of Olives; 2 Samuel
xv. 23; John xviii. 1. It was treated as an unclean spot, compare xv.
16.

¹⁷Now they began on the first day of the first

month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the
month came they to the porch of the Lord;
and they sanctified the house of the Lord in
eight days: and on the sixteenth day of the
first month they made an end.
17. to sanctify ... and they sanctified] Two periods of eight days
each were spent in “sanctifying,” the courts apparently requiring
eight days and the house itself eight days.

¹⁸Then they went in to Hezekiah the king

within the palace, and said, We have cleansed
all the house of the Lord, and the altar of
burnt offering, with all the vessels thereof, and
the table of shewbread, with all the vessels
thereof.
18. the table of shewbread] Compare iv. 8 (note), 19; 1
Chronicles xxviii. 16—“the tables of shewbread.”

¹⁹Moreover all the vessels, which king Ahaz in

his reign did cast away when he trespassed,
have we prepared and sanctified; and, behold,
they are before the altar of the Lord.
19. cast away] According to xxviii. 24, “cut in pieces”; compare 2
Kings xvi. 17. The reference is probably to the “bases” and the “sea.”

have we prepared] Render, have we set up. Ahaz had taken

away the supports both of the laver and of the sea (2 Kings xvi. 17).

20‒24 (not in 2 Kings).

The Sevenfold Sacrifice for the Reconciliation of the
People.

The ritual of the sin offering is fully given in Leviticus iv. Ahaz had
broken the covenant, and Hezekiah’s sin offering was intended to
atone for the breach.

²⁰Then Hezekiah the king arose early, and

gathered the princes of the city, and went up
to the house of the Lord. ²¹And they brought
 seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven
lambs, and seven he-goats, for a sin offering
for the kingdom and for the sanctuary and for
Judah. And he commanded the priests the
sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of the
Lord.
21. they brought] As the sacrifice was not for an individual but for
a whole people the offering on this occasion consisted of seven of
each of four different sacrificial animals, the bullocks, rams, and
lambs being used for the burnt offering (verses 22 and 24), and the
he-goats for the special sin offering (verse 23).

for the kingdom] i.e. for the kingly house.

for the sanctuary] i.e. for the Temple (compare Leviticus xvi. 16),
but probably inclusive of the personnel of the Temple, i.e. the priests
and Levites, since otherwise they would have been passed over in
the great sin offering.

on the altar of the Lord] Not on the altar of Ahaz (2 Kings xvi.
11).

²²So they killed the bullocks, and the priests

received the blood, and sprinkled it on the
altar: and they killed the rams, and sprinkled
the blood upon the altar: they killed also the
lambs, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar.
22. received the blood] In basons with which they dashed (not as
the text “sprinkled”) the blood against the altar. This dashing was
different from the sprinkling with the finger.
 ²³And they brought near the he-goats for the
sin offering before the king and the
congregation; and they laid their hands upon
them: ²⁴and the priests killed them, and they
made a sin offering with their blood upon the
altar, to make atonement for all Israel: for the
king commanded that the burnt offering and
the sin offering should be made for all Israel.
23. brought near] i.e. to the king and the people.

and they laid their hands] “they” = the representatives of the

people, for whom the sacrifice was to be offered, compare Leviticus
iv. 15.

25‒30.
The Levitical Service of Music.

²⁵And he set the Levites in the house of the

Lord with cymbals, with psalteries, and with
harps, according to the commandment of
David, and of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan
the prophet: for the commandment was of the
Lord by his prophets.
25. and of Gad ... and Nathan] Neither of these prophets is
elsewhere said to have had a part in inciting David to the
organisation of the Temple music with which the Chronicler credits
him. Their names are introduced in order to emphasise the value of
the musicians of the Temple, whose service is thus declared to have
arisen through the inspiration of prophets; compare 1 Chronicles
xxviii. 19.
 ²⁶And the Levites stood with the instruments of
David, and the priests with the trumpets.
26. with the instruments] LXX. ἐν ὀργάνοις. Compare 1 Chronicles
xxiii. 5.

²⁷And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt

offering upon the altar. And when the burnt
offering began, the song of the Lord began
also, and the trumpets, together with the
instruments of David king of Israel. ²⁸And all
the congregation worshipped, and the singers
sang, and the trumpeters sounded; all this
continued until the burnt offering was finished.
27. and the trumpets] Compare 1 Chronicles xv. 24 (note).

together with the instruments of David] Render perhaps, even

according to the guidance of the instrument of David, i.e. led (or
“accompanied”) by them.

²⁹And when they had made an end of offering,

the king and all that were present with him
bowed themselves and worshipped.
29. bowed themselves and worshipped] i.e. first bowed down (on
their knees) and then completely prostrated themselves.

³⁰Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes

commanded the Levites to sing praises unto
the Lord with the words of David, and of
Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with
 gladness, and they bowed their heads and
worshipped.
30. to sing praises] Since (1) the Hebrew word for “Psalms”
means “Praises,” and (2) the words of David and Asaph are specially
mentioned in this verse, it is clear that the Chronicler by this phrase
means “to sing Psalms.”

31‒36 (not in Kings).

A Great Sacrifice of Burnt Offerings and Thank Offerings.

³¹Then Hezekiah answered and said, Now ye

have consecrated yourselves ¹ unto the Lord,
come near and bring sacrifices and thank
offerings into the house of the Lord. And the
congregation brought in sacrifices and thank
offerings; and as many as were of a willing
heart brought burnt offerings. ³²And the
number of the burnt offerings, which the
congregation brought, was threescore and ten
bullocks, an hundred rams, and two hundred
lambs: all these were for a burnt offering to the
Lord.
¹ Hebrew filled your hand.

31. answered and said] i.e. answered the thoughts or expectation

of the people as expressed by the Sacrifices and the Songs;
compare Job iii. 2 (Revised Version).

ye have consecrated yourselves] Hebrew “filled your hand”;

compare xiii. 9; Exodus xxviii. 41.
 sacrifices and thank offerings] The phrase means simply the
special type of sacrifices which were termed “thank offerings.” The
fat of such offerings was burnt on the altar, the breast and right thigh
were reserved for the priests, but the remainder belonged to the
offerer and was used for a joyous meal (Leviticus vii. 12 ff.). The
burnt offering was entirely consumed on the altar, no portion being
kept by priests or offerer (Leviticus i. 1‒13): hence such sacrifices
represented a greater cost and are accordingly said to be given by
those who were “of willing heart,” i.e. conspicuously pious and
generous.

³³And the consecrated things were six

hundred oxen and three thousand sheep.
33. the consecrated things] The term was applied (1) to gold and
other valuables offered in the Temple; compare xv. 18; 1 Chronicles
xviii. 8‒11; (2) to those parts of the various sacrifices which were
assigned to be eaten by the priests; Leviticus xxi. 22 (“the holy
[bread]”), xxii. 2, 3, 15 (“the holy things”). Here the reference is more
general, i.e. to the thank offerings (verse 35) themselves.

³⁴But the priests were too few, so that they

could not flay all the burnt offerings: wherefore
their brethren the Levites did help them, till the
work was ended, and until the priests had
sanctified themselves: for the Levites were
more upright in heart to sanctify themselves
than the priests.
34. the priests] According to Leviticus i. 5 f. the task of flaying the
sacrifice was to be performed by the offerer. Either this passage
marks a later stage in the customary ritual, or perhaps this occasion
was regarded by the Chronicler as exceptional because the offerings
were brought on behalf of the “congregation” in general. The verse
presents other difficult features. Who were the priests who had not
yet sanctified themselves? What is the significance of the evident
contrast between the attitude of the priests and that of the Levites, to
the disadvantage of the former? It would seem that there were
priests who had deliberately or slackly failed to comply with
Hezekiah’s injunction (verses 4, 5) and were therefore still ritually
unclean from the pollution of the previous reign. In general we infer
that the Levites had either been less deeply involved in the idolatries
of Ahaz or at least were more zealous than the priests for the
restoration of the worship of Jehovah alone. Possibly this tradition
may truly represent the historical facts; or it may be an inference
derived from 2 Kings xvi. 16 where the subservience of the high-
priest Urijah to king Ahaz is mentioned (so Kittel). Less probable is
the view of Benzinger that this verse has been added by the
Chronicler to the midrashic source upon which he is here depending,
and that it represents merely the Chronicler’s personal predilection
for the Levites as distinct from the priests.

³⁵And also the burnt offerings were in

abundance, with the fat of the peace offerings,
and with the drink offerings for every burnt
offering. So the service of the house of the
Lord was set in order.
35. with the fat] Compare vii. 7; Leviticus iii. 3, 17.

the peace offerings] i.e. the thank offerings (verse 31).

drink offerings] compare Numbers xv. 5, 7, 10. The offering was

to be of wine, and the quantity used was to correspond with the size
of the animal sacrificed.

was set in order] i.e. was re-established.

 ³⁶And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people,
because of that which God had prepared for
the people: for the thing was done suddenly.
36. that which God had prepared for the people] It was God, not
Hezekiah, who had done it all.

suddenly] In the very first year of Hezekiah’s reign (verse 3).

Chapter XXX.
1‒12 (not in 2 Kings).
Hezekiah Invites all Israel to keep the Passover.

From verse 2 it appears that this Passover took place in the first
year of Hezekiah while the Northern Kingdom was still standing. The
invitation to share in it at Jerusalem which Hezekiah is here (verse 1)
said to have sent to north Israel is opposed to all historic probability.
The Chronicler, however, was little likely to be troubled by that
difficulty, even if he had observed it (see note, verse 5). Furthermore
it is a plausible suggestion that the references to Ephraim,
Manasseh, etc. in verses 1, 10, 11, 18 really reflect conditions of the
Chronicler’s own circumstances, regarding which see the note on xv.
9. It is therefore a mistake to suggest that the date may be wrong
and that the Passover really took place in the sixth year of Hezekiah
after the fall of Samaria on the ground that the invitation would then
be more credible.

¹And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah,

and wrote letters also to Ephraim and
Manasseh, that they should come to the
house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the
 passover unto the Lord, the God of Israel.
²For the king had taken counsel, and his
princes, and all the congregation in
Jerusalem, to keep the passover in the
second month.
2. in the second month] The Law allowed such a postponement;
compare Numbers ix. 10, 11.

³For they could not keep it at that time,

because the priests had not sanctified
themselves in sufficient number, neither had
the people gathered themselves together to
Jerusalem. ⁴And the thing was right in the
eyes of the king and of all the congregation.
3. at that time] In the first month.

⁵So they established a decree to make

proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-
sheba even to Dan, that they should come to
keep the passover unto the Lord, the God of
Israel, at Jerusalem: for they had not kept it in
great numbers ¹ in such sort as it is written.
¹ Or, of a long time.

5. to make proclamation] A phrase characteristic of the

Chronicler.
 from Beer-sheba even to Dan] i.e. the extreme points of the
undivided kingdom of David and Solomon. “The existence of the
North Kingdom is either ignored or more probably the writer
assumed that it had already fallen” (Curtis). On the origin of the
phrase and the order in Chronicles (Beer-sheba to Dan not Dan to
Beer-sheba, as in 2 Samuel xxiv. 2, etc.) see Hogg in the Expositor,
1898, pp. 411‒421.

they had not kept it in great numbers in such sort as it is written]

The statement applies to Israel, not to Judah; for the first time an
attempt is made to draw Israel en masse to a regular Passover at
Jerusalem.

⁶So the posts went with the letters from the

king and his princes throughout all Israel and
Judah, and according to the commandment of
the king, saying, Ye children of Israel, turn
again unto the Lord, the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the
remnant that are escaped of you out of the
hand of the kings of Assyria.
6. the posts] Literally “the runners.”

the remnant that are escaped of you out of the hand of the kings
of Assyria] The phrase applies most naturally to the final downfall of
Samaria through Shalmaneser and Sargon (722‒721 b.c.), but it is
possible of course to interpret it of the repeated disasters at the
hands of the Assyrians in the time of Tiglath-pileser some ten years
earlier.

⁷And be not ye like your fathers, and like your

brethren, which trespassed against the Lord,
 the God of their fathers, so that he gave them
up to desolation ¹, as ye see.
¹ Or, to be an astonishment.

7. to desolation] Render, as margin, to be an astonishment;

compare xxix. 8 (same Hebrew word).

⁸Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers

were; but yield yourselves ¹ unto the Lord, and
enter into his sanctuary, which he hath
sanctified for ever, and serve the Lord your
God, that his fierce anger may turn away from
you.
¹ Hebrew give the hand.

8. yield yourselves] Literally “give the hand”; compare 1

Chronicles xxix. 24 “submitted themselves”).

sanctified for ever] Compare vii. 16.

⁹For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your

brethren and your children shall find
compassion before them that led them
captive, and shall come again into this land:
for the Lord your God is gracious and
merciful, and will not turn away his face from
you, if ye return unto him. ¹⁰So the posts
passed from city to city through the country of
Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun:
 but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked
them.
9. shall find compassion] Compare Psalms cvi. 46 (a similar
phrase in Hebrew).

¹¹Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh

and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and
came to Jerusalem.
11. of Asher] Asher is somewhat strange. The parallel with verse
10 alone suggests that we should read of Ephraim; and this is the
more probable if the real significance of the reference is for the
Chronicler’s period (see the head-note, and xv. 9). It is not likely that
Judaism at that time could claim many adherents in the old territory
of Asher (see Hölscher, Palästina, p. 32).

humbled themselves] So xxxiii. 12.

¹²Also in Judah was the hand of God to give

them one heart, to do the commandment of
the king and of the princes by the word of the
Lord.
12. Also in Judah was the hand of God] i.e. the mighty working of
God, which brought some penitents from far parts of Israel,
manifested itself in Judah also.

the commandment of the king ... by the word of the Lord] The
king’s command was according to God’s command in the Law.

13‒27 (not in 2 Kings).

Hezekiah’s Great Passover.
 It seems clear that the story of Hezekiah’s Passover has been
composed by the Chronicler on the analogy of Josiah’s grand
celebration of that feast (see xxxv. 1‒19), which the present festival
even surpasses in some respects—viz. in its scope (for all Israel and
strangers, whereas Josiah’s was for Judeans only) and in its
duration (for two weeks, Josiah’s for one). Josiah’s Passover was
famous because of the account of it in Kings. Doubtless the
Chronicler felt that a celebration of that feast was incumbent upon a
great reforming monarch, and he has therefore credited Hezekiah
with observing it.

¹³And there assembled at Jerusalem much

people to keep the feast of unleavened bread
in the second month, a very great
congregation.
13. the feast of unleavened bread] In the “Passover” were united
two separate “feasts,” (1) the eating of the lamb on the fourteenth of
Nisan, (2) the eating of unleavened bread from the fourteenth to the
twenty-first of Nisan. The combined Feast was sometimes called “the
Passover” and sometimes (as here) “the feast of unleavened bread”;
compare Exodus xii. 1‒14 and 17‒20, and note that the intervening
verses, 15, 16, bind the two feasts into one celebration.

¹⁴And they arose and took away the altars that

were in Jerusalem, and all the altars for
incense ¹ took they away, and cast them into
the brook Kidron.
¹ Or, vessels.

14. the altars] Compare xxviii. 24.

 ¹⁵Then they killed the passover on the
fourteenth day of the second month: and the
priests and the Levites were ashamed, and
sanctified themselves, and brought burnt
offerings into the house of the Lord. ¹⁶And
they stood in their place after their order,
according to the law of Moses the man of
God: the priests sprinkled the blood, which
they received of the hand of the Levites.
15. the second month] Compare verses 2, 3.

were ashamed] Of their former backwardness; compare verse 3,

xxix. 34.

¹⁷For there were many in the congregation that

had not sanctified themselves: therefore the
Levites had the charge of killing the passovers
for every one that was not clean, to sanctify
them unto the Lord.
17. of killing the passovers] “Passovers” (plural rare) = “Paschal
victims”; compare verse 15, xxxv. 8 (“passover offerings”).

¹⁸For a multitude of the people, even many of

Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and
Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did
they eat the passover otherwise than it is
written. For Hezekiah had prayed for them,
saying, The good Lord pardon every one ¹
 ¹ Or, him that setteth his whole heart.

18. of Ephraim, etc.] The list of tribes given here does not agree
with the list in verse 11, but in both cases it may be that the
Chronicler merely wished by his list to designate men of the Northern
Kingdom as opposed to those of the Southern. He could not make
the distinction by using the term “Israel” here, for in Chronicles
“Israel” as a rule is not used in opposition to “Judah”; compare xi. 3
(note). (For a somewhat different view, see the head-note on verses
1‒12 and xv. 9.)

otherwise than it is written] i.e. they were allowed to partake of

the Passover meal, although not purified according to the regulations
of the Law.

¹⁹that setteth his heart to seek God, the Lord,

the God of his fathers, though he be not
cleansed according to the purification of the
sanctuary.
18, 19. The good Lord pardon every one that, etc.] In Hebrew
verse 18 ends abruptly with the word “pardon.” Probably the Revised
Version is correct in disregarding the Hebrew division. The phrase
“the good Lord” is not found elsewhere, and another suggestion is
to transpose the adjective and read (verse 18) ... “The Lord pardon
the good: (verse 19) even every one that,” etc. The LXX., however,
supports the order of the Hebrew text.

²⁰And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and

healed the people.
20. healed the people] By prevention; no plague was allowed to
break out among them, although uncleanness in the sanctuary had
been threatened with death; Leviticus xv. 31.
 ²¹And the children of Israel that were present
at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened
bread seven days with great gladness: and
the Levites and the priests praised the Lord
day by day, singing with loud instruments unto
the Lord.
21. with loud instruments] Literally “with instruments of strength.”
It is better to read “with all their might” (as 1 Chronicles xiii. 8). The
change in Hebrew amounts only to the dropping of the smallest letter
(yōd).

²²And Hezekiah spake comfortably unto all the

Levites that were well skilled in the service of
the Lord. So they did eat throughout the feast
for the seven days, offering sacrifices of peace
offerings, and making confession ¹ to the Lord,
the God of their fathers.
¹ Or, giving thanks.

22. spake comfortably] i.e. with kindly and appreciative words.

For the phrase compare Isaiah xl. 2.

making confession] Or, as margin, “giving thanks.”

²³And the whole congregation took counsel to

keep other seven days: and they kept other
seven days with gladness.
23. other seven days] Compare vii. 9 (Solomon’s Dedication
Feast).
 ²⁴For Hezekiah king of Judah did give to the
congregation for offerings a thousand bullocks
and seven thousand sheep; and the princes
gave to the congregation a thousand bullocks
and ten thousand sheep: and a great number
of priests sanctified themselves.
24. sanctified themselves] Compare xxix. 34.

²⁵And all the congregation of Judah, with the

priests and the Levites, and all the
congregation that came out of Israel, and the
strangers that came out of the land of Israel,
and that dwelt in Judah, rejoiced.
25. the strangers] i.e. men of alien descent dwelling in Israel with
certain conceded, not inherited, rights, and with most of the
obligations of the native Israelite. LXX. οἱ προσήλυτοι Compare ii. 17;
1 Chronicles xxii. 2 for the unfavourable side of a “stranger’s”
position.

²⁶So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for

since the time of Solomon the son of David
king of Israel there was not the like in
Jerusalem.
26. since the time of Solomon] For Solomon’s great festival, see
v. 2 ff.

there was not the like] Compare what is said of Josiah’s

Passover; xxxv. 18 (note).
 ²⁷Then the priests the Levites arose and
blessed the people: and their voice was heard,
and their prayer came up to his holy
habitation, even unto heaven.
27. the priests the Levites] So in xxiii. 18, but only in these two
places in Chronicles The phrase is Deuteronomic, and implies that at
the stage of ritual development represented in Deuteronomy all
Levites were potentially priests. Such was not in any case the view
of the Chronicler, and perhaps we ought to read “the priests and the
Levites” both here and in xxiii. 18.
 Chapter XXXI.
1 (compare 2 Kings xviii. 4).
Destruction of Idolatrous Symbols.

¹Now when all this was finished, all Israel

that were present went out to the cities of
Judah, and brake in pieces the pillars ¹, and
hewed down the Asherim, and brake down the
high places and the altars out of all Judah and
Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh,
until they had destroyed them all. Then all the
children of Israel returned, every man to his
possession, into their own cities.
¹ Or, obelisks.

1. the pillars ... the Asherim] Compare xiv. 3 (note).

in Ephraim also] It is obviously assumed that the Northern

Kingdom had come to an end; compare xxx. 6, 9.

2‒21 (not in 2 Kings).

Organisation of the Priests. Tithe.

If the Temple had been desecrated and closed by Ahaz, it would

follow that the organisation of its Priests and Levites had fallen into
confusion. The Chronicler therefore makes Hezekiah the restorer of