Like many a youth, I lived fast. However, I’m still not dead; when I do go, I hope my corpse is at least presentable.

While the phrase ‘Live fast, die young and have a good looking corpse’ is often attributed to James Dean (an actor who accomplished all three of these goals), he took it from a movie based on a book by African-American author Willard Motley called Knock On Any Door. However, as is often the case, this archetype of wild, doomed youth is both ancient and persistent. In the modern era, we have the so called 27 club – a list of musicians who all died at the age of 27. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all shed their mortal coils at this age between 1969 and 1971. More recent additions include Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. However, this tradition goes back to antiquity, to Aphrodite’s doomed mortal lover, Adonis.

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).

Ten months afterwards the tree burst and Adonis, as he is called, was born, whom for the sake of his beauty, while he was still an infant, Aphrodite hid in a chest unknown to the gods and entrusted to Persephone. But when Persephone beheld him, she would not give him back. The case being tried before Zeus, the year was divided into three parts, and the god ordained that Adonis should stay by himself for one part of the year, with Persephone for one part, and with Aphrodite for the remainder. However Adonis made over to Aphrodite his own share in addition; but afterwards in hunting he was gored and killed by a boar.

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.14.4

That’s the myth, in a nutshell. But to get a real feeling for the loss of Adonis, we need to turn to Plato’s tenth muse, Sappho of Lesbos (c. 630 – c. 570 BCE). Here is her Lament for Adonis

Ah, for Adonis!
See, he is dying,
Delicate, lovely,
Slender Adonis.

Ah, for Adonis!
Weep, O ye maidens,
Beating your bosoms,
Rending your tunics.

O Cytherea, [another name for Aphrodite, who had a cult center in Cythera]
Hasten, for never
Loved thou another
As thy Adonis.

See, on the rosy
Cheek with its dimple,
Blushing no longer,
Thanatos’ shadow.

Save him, O Goddess!
Thou, the beguiler,
All-powerful, holy,
Stay the dread evil.

Ah, for Adonis!
No more at vintage
Time will he come with
Bloom of the meadows.

Ah, for Adonis!
See, he is dying,
Fading as flowers
With the lost summer.

The Poems of Sappho, by John Myers O’Hara, [1910]

*

What’s the take away? Some archetypes just won’t die, even if living them means death. On that note, live slow, die old, and you can still have a good looking corpse. It’s a genuine prayer, that alas, will go unheeded by far too many youth…