Adonis River

A river in Phœnicia, which always runs red at the season of the year when the feast of Adonis is held. The legend ascribes this redness to sympathy with the young hunter; others ascribé it to a sort of minium, or red earth, which mixes with the water.

“Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

In amorous ditties all a summer’s day,

While smooth Adonis from his native rock

Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood

Of Thammuz yearly wounded.”

Milton: Paradise Lost, Book 1, line 445, etc.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.