Incest!

The story of Pomona and Vertumnus was totally unpredictable to me. Actually, I think it was the story of Myrrha and her father, Cinyras, which surprised me. Again we find ourselves in the circumstance of there being a main story and a story within that one. The big story was about a god called Vertumnus who was desperately in love with Pomona, a wood nymph whose only care was that of the plants and trees and who ‘kept aloof from any suitor’. He dressed up as anything he could think up in an attempt of getting her to fall in love with him, but he failed each time. Once, while dressed up as an old lady, he sat her down and proceeded to say how foolish she was to ignore Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and to tell her the story of Myrrha:

Myrrha was a young girl who, like Pomona, had many suitors but ignored every one of them. One day Aphrodite, tired of being disregarded, cursed Myrrha with an undying passion for none other than her father, Cinyras. The girl suffers from this, thinking that just thinking about it is an unholy crime. Finally, she can resist it no more and with the help of a nursemaid convinces her father to be blindfolded and do it with a ‘pretty girl [who] adores’ him, without knowing that it really is his daughter. After repeating this three times, Cinyras grows curious and takes of his blindfold. When he sees who it is, he looks at Myrrha for a long time, as if refusing to believe it, and then tries to drown her. She escapes and suffers an unbelievable amount, she prays to the gods to ‘change [her]; make [her] something else; transform [her] entirely’. Some say that she turned into a tree, others that she gave birth to a boy named Adonis, others say that she dissolved into tears and into the river.

When he finishes the story, Pomona seems unmoved, but she tells Vertumnus to ‘take off that idiotic dress’ and ‘that ridiculous wig’. Then she goes of with him in his natural form, no disguises needed.

From the mini-story of Myrrha and her father all I can say is how unfair it was for Myrrha. The only reason she was cursed with this was because she didn’t respond to any of her suitors or to Aphrodite’s offers. I think this only reflects on today’s society, where being single or not having a boyfriend is so frowned upon. I find this totally ridiculous, and I find even sadder that you hear so many beautiful, young girls lying or feeling ashamed about not having someone, even though it doesn’t make you a better person, a worse one, or has any difference in you whatsoever. It is perfectly okay to decide for yourself if you want to love somebody or if you don’t, and you shouldn’t let yourself be affected by what other people think or what they say is right. In the story, Myrrha believes that what she wants is so wrong because ‘we have laws’, I find this totally wrong even though, in this case, I agree that incest love is not so normal.

The main story I think has one lesson: be yourself no matter what (and no matter how cliché and self-help book-y it sounds). Pomona paid no attention to Vertumnus when he was wearing all those disguises and acting like all those different people, but in the end she gives him a chance when he is just being himself. No disguises needed.