There has been a time in everyone’s life, when they fall for someone they barely know. I’m not talking about seeing a stranger at a Starbucks and suddenly realizing your undoubted love for him. I’m talking about people you see every day, and no matter how much you like them or would love to get to know them, they barely even know you exist. It’s like you’re just a crushed tiny bug on their windshield: practically nonexistent.
Vertumnus is in love with Pomona, even though he barely talks to her and his attraction is most likely based purely on looks and what he has observed from afar. Stalker potential? Possibly.
He may disguise himself as a farmer who loves agriculture and adores flowers and plants (Pomona’s only visible interests) or pretend to be an ordinary fisherman with a penchant for tanned skin and gorgeous hard-working hands, and yet she pays him no mind.
Finally, he decides to do the smart thing, and instead of dressing himself in a disguise as a guy, he decides to change his approach to a more effective result by dressing like an old lady, and ‘subtly’ informing her that she has to be more open and that keeping to herself is a “ sad violation of nature.” He recommends this guy named Vertumnus, of course, and when she asks the point of it all, he drives into the story of Cinyrus, Myrrah, and Aphrodite.
Myrrah has never loved, and she, like Pomona, keeps to herself. That is until Aphrodite tells her to stop being such a wimp and to admit that she is indeed in love, with her own father, Cinyrus. She tries to deny her love, of course by saying that it’s her father and that it would be against the law.
The first word that comes to my mind is: incest. I guess you can’t really control your feelings, but your own flesh and blood? Do you seriously want to take the risk of having deformed four-eyed children because you just so happened to fall in love with your own father? Judgmental, I am not. I like to think of myself more as being a realist.
Oh my god, I’m sorry but this thing has seriously got me thinking whoever wrote this was in love with their father themselves, or else why go to such lengths to bring this upon us any way? The mom leaves, and then the maid tells Cinyras that pretty girl is waiting for him. “Is she attractive?”
So not only do we have a girl that is attracted to the man that gave her life, but a man is willing to cheat on his wife with no second thoughts. This is truly inspiring.
They do it once. They do it twice. They do it again. Of course, Cinyrus is blindfolded throughout the entire time or else he would go completely insane, which we find when he takes off the blindfold one night and sees his lover’s true identity. So he decides to drown her. How loving.
She runs away and begs the gods to transform her entirely and they grant her wish: she melts.
Back with Pomona and Vertumnus, the story he just told her went nowhere. I don’t even understand how that pointless tale relates to his situation in getting Pomona to notice him.
Pomona notices his wig and tells him to take it off. Free from every disguise, Vertumnus is exposed as who he really is. And Pomona notices him for that and is happy with him.
I guess there’s a teaching in this story, and if there’s not, well I’ll just go on as if it was meant to be that way. We are who we are for a reason. If we want someone, we should let them see us as who we are and have them appreciate us for our own true beings. And if they can’t appreciate it, well then they are not worth it.
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