Who Mourns For Adonis?

I am conducting an English-speaking tour of the museum for some American tourists. We are in the Greek history section where we have several very famous and beautiful statues from the period.

Me: “This is the statue of Adonis, the ancient Greek god of beauty and desire.”

I am interrupted by one of the tourists, a middle-aged woman.

Tourist: “Nu-uh! That’s a man!”

Me: “Yes, Adonis was a male god.”

Tourist: “Ain’t no man gonna be a god of beauty. That’s the… uh… the Venus!”

Me: “Venus was the Roman goddess of beauty and love, and her Greek counterpart would have been Aphrodite.”

Tourist: “No! No man is going to be beautiful! That’s just wrong!”

Me: “I… uh… Well, I am sorry, ma’am, but that’s what the ancient Greeks believed.”

Tourist: “I bet he was one of those men who dressed up as women! That’s wrong!”

I let her rant for a while as she was not being too loud and I could continue the tour, only for my heart to sink as we progressed along the tour and got to another famous statue: Hermaphroditus, the god of hermaphrodites and effeminates.

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