Meaning of myrrha | Babel Free

Definitions

1. myrrh
   archaic, uncountable
2. The daughter of Cinyras, king of Cyprus, who tricks her father into having sexual intercourse with her and escapes the king's wrath by being transformed into a myrrh tree, later giving birth to Adonis.
   Greek

Examples

“Byblis lies motionless in mute desperation and her transformation is told only briefly, whereas Myrrha herself asks for her metamorphosis, gives a speech (10.483-7), and Ovid leads us step by step through her transformation (10.489-502).”

“The resemblance between this Myrrhina and the Myrrha who seduces her father is all the greater in that in one of the versions of the myth of Adonis, his mother is transformed by metamorphosis into not a myrrh tree but a sprig of myrtle.”

“In the succeeding book, Ovid depicts another woman tortured by abnormal but not impossible passion: Myrrha, in love with her father, Cinyras.”

CEFR level