#hyginus

Metamorphoses, by Ovid

The poem about Myrrha can be found in Book X, starting in line 298, under the title Myrrha Transformed to a Tree. It consists of Orpheus telling an audience of the origin of the myrrh tree.

Myrrha had her pick among suitors, but who she really wanted was her father, Cinyras, King of Cyprus. She knows that her desire is wrong, although she also knows that it's not technicaly a crime:

"Ah, may the sacred rights of parents keep this vile desire from me, defend me from a crime so great—If it indeed is crime. I am not sure it is— I have not heard that any god or written law condemns the union of a parent and his child."

And complains she wasn't born in a land where mothers and son, as well as fathers and daughters, can get together:

"But it is said there are some tribes today, in which the mother marries her own son; the daughter takes her father; and by this, the love kind Nature gives them is increased into a double bond. Ah wretched me! Why was it not my fortune to be born in that love-blessed land?"

Cinryas comes to asks Myrrha which of the suitors she wants to marry and she cries in her father's arms, saying that she wants a husband like him, to which he replies that she's a loving daughter. That night, knowing she would have to a pick a husband soon, Myrrha decides that, since she can't wed her father, it's better to hang herself.

As she prepares to do so, a maid enters and room and stops her. The maid asks what's upsetting Myrrha, and, at first, she refuses to answer. Eventually, Myrrha confesses her love for Cinryas and the maid promises to help.

Luckly for Myrrha, her mother is away celebrating the festival of Ceres (Demeter), so Cinryas is drunk and alone. The maid tells him that a beautiful girl is interested in being his mistress and, furthermore, she's Myrrha's age. Cinryas gets interested and tells the maid to bring in the girl. Even thought she felt great guilt, that night Myrrha goes to her father's bedroom.

Officially, it's said that Cinryas doesn't recognizes Myrrha, but I call that bullshit. He must have wanted his daughter in some level, as I believe he had accepted this girl only because she was Myrrha's age. And he then he goes on to call the 'unknown girl' "daughter"? As if he's roleplaying her being Myrrha.

He chanced to call her “daughter,” as a name best suited to her age; and she in turn, endearing, called him “father”, so no names might be omitted to complete their guilt.

She returns to Cinryas room many nights, and they always have sex in the dark, until one day Cinryas decides to light the room and see the face of his new mistress. In shock, he learns that it's Myrrha he has been sleeping with. This reminds me of Eros and Psyche, when Psyche hides a candle so she can see her husband and then tragedy ensues.

Upon seeing Myrrha, Cinryas gets his sword and tries to kill her, but she runs. For nine months she wanders the land while pregnant, until she's too tired and begs the gods to help her. They anwser by transforming her into a myrrh tree.

The baby she conceived with her father is birthed from her tree form with the help of the goddess of childbirth and grows to become a beautiful man, handsome enough to win the love of Venus (Aphrodite), which is a poem of it's own.

"That son of sister and grandfather, who was lately hidden in his parent tree, just lately born, a lovely baby-boy is now a youth, now man more beautiful than during growth."

So this thing about incest-babies being always 'deformed' and 'retarded' is a modern invention. These ancient stories have the offspring of incestuous unions as being beautiful enough to marry a King or a Goddess and strong and wise enough to become a leader themselves.

Fabulae, by Hyginus

Another ancient collection of tales, the Fabulae by Hyginus, written circa 1 AD (before Metamorphoses) gives a similar account to the previous one in the Chapter 58:

Smyrna was the daughter of Cinyras, King of the Assyrians, and Cenchreis. Her mother Cenchreis boasted proudly that her daughter excelled Venus in beauty. Venus, to punish the mother, sent forbidden love to Smyrna so that she loved her own father. The nurse prevented her from hanging herself, and without knowledge of her father, helped her lie with him. She conceived, and goaded by shame, in order not to reveal her fault, hid in the woods. Venus later pitied her, and changed her into a kind of tree from which myrrh flows; Adonis, born from it, exacted punishment for his mother's sake from Venus.

Chapter 242 of the same book says that Cinyras killed himself once he discovered he laid with his daughter.

Bibliotheca, by Apollodorus

Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, written around 1st century AD, is a collection of Greek poems and stories, and it was attributed to Apollodorus, until they realized it hadn't been him to write it and so it became Pseudo-Apollodorus. But anyway, I bring up this texts because it offers three possible origins for Adonis in Book III, chapter XIV. Two of them are not relevant for us, but the third one is. Using Panyasis as his source, Pseudo-Apollodorus, says that Adonis was the son of Thias, King of Assyria, and his daughter, Smyrna.

In consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, for she did not honor the goddess, this Smyrna conceived a passion for her father, and with the complicity of her nurse she shared her father's bed without his knowledge for twelve nights. But when he was aware of it, he drew his sword and pursued her, and being overtaken she prayed to the gods that she might be invisible; so the gods in compassion turned her into the tree which they call smyrna (myrrh).

Metamorphoses, by Antoninus Liberalis