Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Cinyras.
The gallery
Myrrha and Cinyras
Antonio Zanchi, 17th century
Zanchi's Warsaw canvas stages Ovid's Cypriot horror: Cinyras and his daughter Myrrha — the king-priest of Aphrodite caught in the incest that will birth Adonis from the myrrh-tree.
Myrrha and Cinyras
Virgil Solis, 16th century
Solis' Metamorphoses woodcut reduces the Cypriot scandal to a print: Cinyras and Myrrha as a standard Ovid plate — the father whose unknowing crime seeds Adonis' birth.
Cinyras Tries to Kill His Daughter Myrrha
Unknown, 17th–18th century
A Rijksmuseum theatrical print shows Cinyras turning on Myrrha once he knows — the Cypriot king between Aphrodite's cult, incestuous darkness, and the chase that ends in her arboreal metamorphosis.