- M. C. Cooke on the "Lotos of the Ancients," in "Popular Science Review," vol. x., p. 262.
This plant has a sacred character amongst the Hindoos, and also in China and Ceylon. It was at one time plentiful in Egypt, whence it has now totally vanished. The representations given of it upon the monuments of ancient Egypt are far less common than those of the Nymphaea, equally with which it is to be found on the monuments of India. It serves for the floating shell of Vishnu and the seat of Brahma. Sir W. Jones writes of it, that "the Thibetans embellish their temples and altars with it; and a native of Nepal made prostration before it on entering my study, where the fine plant and beautiful flowers lay for examination." Thunberg affirms that the Japanese regard the plant as pleasing to the gods, the images of their idols being often represented sitting on its large leaves. In China the Shing-moo, or holy mother, is generally represented with a flower of it in her hand, and few temples are without some representation of the plant. Undoubtedly two plants are sculptured on the monuments and paintings in India, but they are easily distinguished from each other by their form. The one is a lotus, or Nymphaea, and the other is the Nelumbium. The former is dedicated to Soma, the latter to Lakshmi, the Indian Venus, the goddess of beauty, and, as the most sacred flower, may be offered to all the gods. The conclusion to be arrived at from close investigation is, that the sacred lotos of Egypt was the Nymphaea, whilst the sacred lotos of India was, and still is, the Nelumbium. The latter was the symbol of fertility in Egypt as in India, and the god Horus, the personification of the rising sun, was decorated with a wreath of its flowers and buds, and was sometimes figuratively represented as a lotus springing from the waters. There are few plants richer in association than water lilies. Their flowers are yellow in the ponds of Northern Europe, white or yellow in England, blue and fragrant in Persia and Cashmere, and red in Southern India. The Egyptian lily is white, tinted with rose, and that of India is said to have been similar, till it was stained by the blood of Siva, wounded by the Hindoo Cupid Kamadeva. It is the latter that is alluded to in Lalla Rookh:—
As bards have seen him in their dreams Down the blue Ganges laughing glide Upon a rosy Lotos wreath.
- “Gardener’s Chronicle,” July 1, 1876, p. 7.
From Egypt and India we pass to Greece and Rome, yet it is not our intention to linger here, as but little importance can be attached to the flowers of Greek and Roman mythology. They never held the same position as in the former countries, and the majority of allusions are only such as relate to the legendary origin of certain plants. This may be illustrated by the beautiful youth Narcissus, who saw his image reflected in a fountain, and became enamoured of it, but finding that he could not reach it, grew desperate, and killed himself. His blood was changed into the flower which still bears his name. The nymphs raised a pile to burn his body, but only found a beautiful flower.
Fig. 86.—Daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus).
<!-- image -->Daphne fleeing from Apollo, and fearful of being caught, implored the assistance of the gods, who changed her into a laurel. Apollo crowned his head with the leaves, and for ever ordered that the tree should be sacred to his divinity. At a festival in honour of Apollo, which was held every ninth year, laurel boughs were carried in procession.
- Ovid “Metamorphoses,” iii., v. 346.
Adonis, the favourite of Venus, was fond of hunting: and in an encounter with a wild boar was so wounded that he died. The legend states that the grief of Venus was so great, that, as she wept over his dead body, the blood was transformed into roses, and the tears of the goddess herself into the anemone or "wind-flower."
Alas the Paphian ! fair Adonis slain, Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain. But gentle flowers are born, and bloom around From every drop that pours upon the ground; Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose, And, where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows.
In the sacred rites of Ceres, the Athenian matrons strewed their couches with the leaves of the chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus) for the purpose of banishing impure thoughts, and hence the tree is said to have derived its name. It is added that the ancient physicians regarded the plant as an agent in securing chastity.
- Bion, Idyl I., 62.
The dedication of the fruits of the earth to the gods in the numerous festivals, of the vine to Bacchus, and even of flowers, offer so few points of interest that we may leave their investigation to more loving hands. There is, nevertheless, an illustration of an old mythic story, which, whilst it demolishes all the poetry of the Promethean legend, exemplifies how a very simple circumstance could be transformed by the imagination into a romance.
The Ferula of the ancients was the Ferula communis of Crete, an umbelliferous plant, which may be compared with our wood angelica, or hog-weed. Tournefort writes: "The hollow of the stem is occupied by pith, which, being well dried, takes fire like a match, without injuring the outer portion, and is therefore much used for carrying fire from place to place. Our sailors laid in a store of it. This custom is of the highest antiquity, and may explain a passage in Hesiod, where, speaking of the fire that Prometheus stole from heaven, he says that he brought it in a Ferula, the fact being probably that Prometheus invented the steel that strikes fire from flint, and used the pith of the Ferula for a match, teaching men how to preserve fire in these stalks." Alluding to this passage, Sir Wm. Hooker says—"that is, Prometheus invented the tinder-box." Unpoetical as such an explanation is, it undoubtedly comes very near the truth, and reduces a very romantic story to the poor level of an ordinary mechanical invention.
The transition from Greece and Rome to the early monkish legends associated with the Christian faith is not a very abrupt one, and if in some cases they may seem trivial, they will serve to show how minds but partially relieved from paganism exhibited a tendency to revert to the old mythical stories, and invest plain facts or simple precepts with the accessories of a pagan age. Teaching by fable or parable is a privilege which orientals have ever taken advantage of, and against it no just complaint can be made, provided that the fables are taught as fables, and not as absolute fact. This may be illustrated by a legend of the Cedar of Lebanon, which is thus recorded:—
"When Seth, the son of Adam, was sent by his dying parent to fetch the 'oil of mercy' from Paradise, he saw from the gate of that glorious garden, which an angel opened for him without permitting him to enter, a Cedar of Lebanon, with branches borne high towards Heaven. The tree seemed to typify the great disaster of Adam's early career. It stood there stricken and leafless, and yet suggesting hope—for the legend is of Christian origin—since a child in glittering raiment was seated on its top, the symbol of hope for all future generations."
This ancient legend—the dream, perhaps, of a Syrian hermit—shows that the cedar of Lebanon, the timber-tree of the temple built on Zion, was held in high estimation, and exercised the fancy. The story proceeds that Seth received from the angel three seeds of that tree which he beheld still standing upon the spot where sin had been first committed, but standing there blasted and dead. He carried the seeds home, placed them in the mouth of the dead Adam, and so buried them. And here the natural history of the legend is at fault, for the three seeds, ripened on the same tree in Paradise, produced three trees of different kinds. The truth is, the cedar of Lebanon, the cypress, and the pine, which grew from those seeds, were held in equal estimation by the recluse who dreamt this legend, and therefore the same marvellous, though inconsistent origin, was claimed for them all. Their future history is curious. Growing on the grave of Adam, in Hebron, they were afterwards most carefully protected by Abraham, Moses, and David. After their removal to Jerusalem, the Psalms were composed beneath them; and in due time, when they had grown together and united into one giant tree, they or it—for it was now one tree, a cedar of Lebanon—was felled by Solomon for the purpose of being preserved for ever as a beam in the Temple. But the design failed; the king's carpenters found themselves utterly unable to manage the mighty beam. They raised it to its intended position, and found it too long; they sawed it, and it then proved too short; they spliced it, and again found it wrong. It was evidently intended for another, perhaps a more sacred office, and they laid it aside in the Temple to bide its time. While waiting for its appointed hour, the beam was on one occasion improperly made use of by a woman named Maximella, who took the liberty of sitting on it, and presently found her garments on fire. Instantly she raised a cry, and, feeling the flames severely, she invoked the aid of Christ, and was immediately driven from the city and stoned, becoming in her death a pro-Christian martyr.
In the course of an eventful history the predestined beam became a bridge over Cedron, and, being thrown into the Pool of Bethesda, it proved the cause of its healing virtues. Finally, it became the Cross, was buried in Calvary, exhumed by the Empress Helena, chopped up by a corrupt church, and distributed. Little more can be said for this than that it reads like a wild dream, and, like most dreams, with very little moral at the end of it. Undoubtedly both Jews and Christians look upon the cedar of Lebanon with feelings very much akin to veneration, as the Hindoos look upon their own cedar, the deodar (Cedrus deodara), but veneration is one thing, and adoration is another, neither being improved by an admixture of superstition.
The apple has a widely extended mystical history. "The myths concerning it," as Mr. Conway has indicated, "meet us in every age and country. Aphrodite bears it in her hand as well as Eve. The serpent guards it, the dragon watches it. It is celebrated by Solomon; it is the healing fruit of Arabian tales. Ulysses longs for it in the gardens of Alcinous; Tantalus grasps vainly for it in Hades. In the prose Edda it is written that Iduna keeps in a box apples which the gods, when they feel old age approaching, have only to taste to become young again. It is in this manner that they will be kept in renovated youth until the general destruction. Azrael, the Angel of Death, accomplished his mission by holding it to his nostril; and, in the folklore, Snowdrop is tempted to her death by an apple, half of which a crone has poisoned, but recovers life when the apple falls from her lips. The golden bird seeks the golden apples in many a Norse story, and when the tree bears no more, 'Frau Bertha' reveals to her favourite that it is because a mouse gnaws at the tree's root. Indeed, the kind mother-goddess is sometimes personified as an apple-tree. But oftener the apple is the tempter in Northern mythology also, and sometimes makes the nose grow so that the pear alone can bring it again to moderate size."