» —a iIiTtv
H n r lH I
- I iii:
i
i#£i : •
pure light of Ormuzd, whose word was first carved on this noble
tree. Parsi traditions tell of a Cypress planted by Zoroaster himself,
which grew to wondrous dimensions, and beneath the branches
of which he built himself a summer-house, forty yards high and
forty yards broad. This tree is celebrated in the songs of Firdusi
as having had its origin in Paradise. It is not surpising, therefore,
that the Cypress, a tree of Paradise, rising in a pyramidal form,
with its taper summit pointing to the skies, like the generating
flame, should be planted at the gates of the most sacred fire-
temples, and, bearing the law inscribed by Zoroaster, should stand
in the forecourt of the royal palace and in the middle of pleasure
gardens, as a reminiscence of the lost Paradise. This is the reason
why sculptured images of the Cypress are found in the temples and
palaces of Persepolis; for the Persian kings were servants of
Crmuzd. Sacred Cypresses were also found in the very ancient
temple of Armavir, in Atropatene, the home of Zoroaster and his
light-worship. The Cypress, indeed, reverenced all over Persia,
was transmitted as a sacred tree down from the ancient Magi to
the Mussulmans of modern times. From Asia, the Cypress
passed to the island of Cyprus (which derived its name from the
tree), and here the primitive inhabitants worshipped, under the
Phoenician name Beroth, a goddess personified by the Cypresstree.
According to Claudian, the Cypress was employed by the
goddess Ceres as a torch, which she cast into the crater of Etna,
in order to stay the eruption of the volcano, and to imprison there
Vulcan himself. An Italian tradition affirms that the Devil
comes at midnight to carry off three Cypresses confided to the care
of three brothers—a superstitious notion evidently derived from the
facit that the tree was by the ancients consecrated to Pluto.-----
Like all the trees connecited with the Phallica, the Cypress is at once
a symbol of generation, of death, and of the immortal soul. In
Eastern legends, the Cypress often represents a young lover, and the
Rose, his beloved. In a wedding song of the Isle of Crete, the bridegroom
is compared to the Cypress, the bride to the scented Narcissus.
In Miller’s Ckrestomathie is a popular Russian song, in which a young
girl tells her master that she has dreamed of a Cypress and of a
Sugar-tree. The master tells her that the Cypress typifies a husband,
and the Sugar-tree a wife; and that the branches are the
children, who will gather around them. At Rome, according to
Pliny, they used to plant a Cypress at the birth of a girl, and called
it the dotem of the daughter. The oldest tree on record is the
Cypress of Somma, in Lombardy. An ancient chronicle at Milan
proves it was a tree in Julius Caesar’s time, b .c . 42. It is 12 1 feet
high, and 23 feet in circumference at one foot from the ground.
Napoleon, when laying down the plan for his great road over
the Simplon, diverged from a straight line to avoid injuring this
tree. To dream of a Cypress-tree denotes afllidtion and obstruction
in business.
t..
3 0 7
D a f f o d i l , D a f f o d i l l y , or D a f f a d o w n d i l l y .— -See Narcissus.
D A H L IA .—The Dahlia (Dahlia vaviahilis) is first mentioned
in a History of Mexico, by Hernandez (1651) : it was next noticed
by Menonville, who was employed by the French Minister to steal
the cochineal inseét from the Spaniards in 1790. The Abbé Ca-
vanilles first described the flower scientifically from a specimen
which had bloomed in the Royal Garden of Madrid the previous
year, and he named the plant after his friend Andrew Dahl, the
Swedish botanist. The Dahlia was introduced into England in
1789 by Lady Bute from Madrid, but this single plant speedily
perished. Cavanilles sent specimens of the three varieties then
known to the Jardin des Plantes in 1802, and the flower was very
successfully cultivated in France, so that in 1814, on the return
of peace, the improved varieties of the Dahlia created quite a sensation
among English visitors to Paris. Meanwhile, Lady Holland
had in July, 1804, sent Dahlia-seeds to England from Madrid,
and ten years after we find her husband thus writing to her ;—
The Dahlia you brought to our isle
Your praises for ever shall speak ;
Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,
And in colour as bright as your cheek.”
It is singular that this favourite flower should have been twice introduced
to England through the ladies of two of her most noted
statesmen, and that the first introduétion should mark the year
when France became revolutionized, and the second that which saw
Napoleon made Emperor of the PTench nation : it is from these
incidents that the Dahlia in floral language has been selecfted as
the symbol of “ instability.” In Germany and Russia, the flower
is called Georgina, after a St. Petersburg professor.
D A I S Y .—The legend connecfled with the Daisy, or Beilis,
runs that this favourite little flower owes its origin to one of the
Belides, who were grand-daughters of Danaus, and belonged to
the race of Nymphs, called Dryads, presiding over woodlands,
pastures, and meadows : she is said to have encouraged the suit of
the rural divinity, Ephigeus, but whilst dancing on the sward with
him, chanced to attrait the admiration of Vertumnus, the guardian
deity of orchards, and to enable her to escape from his amorous
embrace, she was transformed into the humble flower named Beilis.
Thus Rapin says :—
“ When the bright ram, bedecked with stars and gold,
Displays his fleece, the Daisy will unfold
To nymphs a chaplet, and to beds a grace,
Who once herself had borne a virgin’s face.”
Chaucer, however, who appears to have been passionately fond of
the Daisy, and never tired of singing its praises, tells us that the
Queen Alceste was changed into the flower, and that she had as
many virtues as there were florets in it.