An anemone for Adonis

Reni

[Parts of this have been edited for readability with a bit added.]

Metamorphoses 10 closes with the pathos of the immortal goddess Venus losing her beloved Adonis. Thus end the tales of Orpheus, with the death of Venus's young lover mirroring the singer's loss of Eurydice at the beginning of this book.

Orpheus's Venus creates the anemone from Adonis's blood with nectar - from the Greek, nektar, said to derive from "overcoming death." The mention of the pomegranate - punica granatum - recalls the seeds eaten by Proserpina, whose tale, sung by Calliope, closed the first five books of the poem.

The linking of Orpheus, Venus, Adonis, and Proserpina is probably quite intentional.

The myth of Proserpina, the most extensive Latin version of which is by Claudian (4th century AD), is closely connected with that of Orpheus and Eurydice. In Virgil's writings; it is Proserpina, as Queen of Hades, who allows Orpheus to enter and bring back to life his wife Eurydice after she is killed by a venomous snake.[5] Proserpina played her cetra to quiet Cerberus,[6] but Orpheus did not respect her order never to look back, and Eurydice was lost. (WP: Proserpina)

See also the Orphic Hymn to Adonis:

Rejoicing in the chace, all-graceful pow'r,
Sweet plant of Venus, Love's delightful flow'r:
Descended from the secret bed divine,
Of lovely-hair'd, infernal Proserpine.

Here's the ending of Book 10:

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When, from the heights, she saw the lifeless body lying in its own blood, she leapt down, tearing her clothes, and tearing at her hair as well, and beat at her breasts with fierce hands, complaining to the fates. “And yet not everything is in your power” she said. “Adonis, there shall be an everlasting token of my grief, and every year an imitation of your death will complete a re-enactment of my mourning. But your blood will be changed into a flower. Persephone, you were allowed to alter a woman’s body, Menthe’s, to fragrant mint: shall the transformation of my hero, of the blood of Cinyras, be grudged to me?” So saying, she sprinkled the blood with odorous nectar: and, at the touch, it swelled up, as bubbles emerge in yellow mud. In less than an hour, a flower, of the colour of blood, was created such as pomegranates carry, that hide their seeds under a tough rind. But enjoyment of it is brief; for, lightly clinging, and too easily fallen, the winds deflower it, which are likewise responsible for its name, windflower: anemone.’

punica granatum

questaque cum fatis "at non tamen omnia vestri
iuris erunt" dixit. "luctus monimenta manebunt          
semper, Adoni, mei, repetitaque mortis imago
annua plangoris peraget simulamina nostri;
at cruor in florem mutabitur. an tibi quondam
femineos artus in olentes vertere mentas,
Persephone, licuit: nobis Cinyreius heros        
invidiae mutatus erit?" sic fata cruorem
nectare odorato sparsit, qui tinctus ab illo
intumuit sic, ut fulvo perlucida caeno
surgere bulla solet, nec plena longior hora
facta mora est, cum flos de sanguine concolor ortus,              
qualem, quae lento celant sub cortice granum,
punica ferre solent; brevis est tamen usus in illo;
namque male haerentem et nimia levitate caducum
excutiunt idem, qui praestant nomina, venti.'