Byblos

Milton refers to the ancient belief that on one day annually the river flowed red with the blood of Adonis, beloved of Venus, who had been killed by a boar on Mount Lebanon. Lucian tells the story, and explains that the river really was by the winds. {De Dea Syr. 6-8.) The modern explanation is that the river gets its red color from colored with dust carried the earth at time of high water. Adonis, Garden of. Comus 999; P. L. 9. 440; 2 Defens. 6. 257. (See also Alcinous, Hesperian, Solomon.) The garden of Adonis apparently belongs to post-cla ical mythology, the only cla ical reference being the following in Pliny: “Ab his super est revert i ad hortorum cur am et suapte natura memorandum et quoniam anti quit as nihil prius mirata est, quam Hesperidum hortos ac regum Adonidis et Alcinoi itemque pensiles, sive illos Semi ram is sive A yrise rex Syrus Milton may have gained from Pliny his idea fecit.” (19. 4.) of a ociating the garden of Adonis with that of Alcinous and that of the Hesperides. Jonson a ociates it with the gardens of the Hesperides, the Insulae For tuna tae, and Man Old of his Humor 4. 6.) ch004.xhtml t 23