,'l
■:PA
11
i Î
.Hg 5!
i
4 5 8 p f a n t b o ro , h e g e f f , cmiL bijrio/,
following lines, when introducing the Narcissus under its old
English name of Daffodil :—
“ Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,
Aud Daffodillies fill their cups with tears, _
To strew the lauréat hearse where Lycid lies.”
The Daffodil is supposed to be one of the flowers which Proserpine
was gathering when she was seized and carried off by Pluto (His).
The Earth, at the instigation of Jupiter, had brought forth the
lovely blossom for a lure to the unsuspecting maid. An old Greek
hymn contains the tale :—
“ lu Sicilia’s ever-blooming shade.
When playful Proserpine from Ceres strayed,
Led with unwary step, the virgin train
O’er Ætna’s steeps and Enna’s flow’ry plain
Pluck’d with fair hand the silver-blossom’d bower,
And purpled mead,—herself a fairer flower ;
Sudden, unseen, amidst the twilight glade,
Rushed gloomy Dis, and seized the trembling maid.”
Shakspeare, in ‘ A Winter’s Tale,’ alludes to the same story:—
“ O Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frightened, thou let’st fall,
From Dis’s waggon ! Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
Other accounts of a similar legend, slightly varied, state that it
was at the instigation of Venus that Pluto employed the Narcissus
to entice Proserpine to the lower world. Ancient writers referred
to the Narcissus as the flower of deceit, on account of its
narcotic properties; for although, as Homer assures us, it delights
heaven and earth by its odour and beauty, yet, at the same time,
it produces stupor, madness, and even death. It was consecrated
both to Ceres and Proserpine, on which account Sophocles
poetically alludes to it as the garland of the great goddesses.
“ And ever, day by day, the Narcissus, with its beauteous clusters,
the ancient coronet of the ‘ mighty goddesses,’ bursts into bloom
by heaven’s dew” {OEdipus Coloneus). The Fates wore wreaths of
the Narcissus, and the Greeks twined the white stars of the odorous
blossoms among the tangled locks of the Eumenides. A crown
composed of these flowers was wont to be woven in honour of the
infernal gods, and placed upon the heads of the dead. The Narcissus
is essentially the flower of Lent ; but when niixed with the
Yew, which is symbolical of the Resurreétion, it becomes a suitable
decoration for Easter :—
“ See that there be stores of Lilies,
Called by shepherds Daffodillies.”—Drayton.
Herrick, Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, all sing the praises of
the Narcissus, or Lent L ily, the Daffodil and Daffadowndily of our
forefathers,—names which they formed from the still older one of
Affodilly, a corruption of Asphodelus.
p f a n t h o t e , begeQb/, a n i. Isijrie/’, 459
N A S T U R T IU M .—According to Rapin, the Nasturtium was
once a young Trojan huntsman; but the Jesuit poet gives no details
of the metamorphosis, merely stating that
“ Shield-like Nasturtium, too, confusedly spread,
With intermingling Trefoil fills each bed—
Once graceful youths ; this last aGreciari swain,
The first an huntsman on the Trojan plain.”
Te shield-like form of the Nasturtium’s leaves and its curiously-
shaped flowers, which resemble golden helmets, have obtained for
the plant the Latin name of “ Tropeolum ” (trophy). Its old English
names were Yellow L a rk ’s-heels and Indian Cress. The seed
of the Nasturtium, according to Macer Floridus, possess a great
power to repel serpents. Linnseus has recorded that his
daughter Elizabeth Christina observed the flowers of the N a /
turtium emit spontaneously, at certain intervals, sparks like eledtric
ones, visible only in the evening.
N E E M . The Neem-tree (Azardirachta Indica) is considered
by the Indians a sacred tree, and is described by their poets as the
type of everything bitter. Its bark is used as a substitute for
Cinchona in cases of fevers.
N E L U M B O .—The Nelumbo, Sacred Lotus, or Padma {Nelumhium
speciosum), was the Sacred Bean of Egypt, the Rose
L ily of the Nile spoken of by Herodotu/ The beauty of its
blossoms, which are sometimes of a brilliant red colour, but
rarely white, hanging over broad peltated leaves considerably
above the surface of the water, render this the most lovely and
graceful of all the Water Lilies ; and at the same time it is the most
interesting on account of its remote historical associations. Four
thousand years ago the Nelumbo was the emblem of sanaity in
Egypt amongst the priests of a religion long since d e fu n a ; and the
plant itself has long been e x tina in that country, though m India
and China the flowers are held especially sacred, and the plant is
commonly cultivated. The Chinese call this sacred flower the
Lien-wha, and prize it above all others. Celebrated for its beauty by
their poets, and ranked for its virtues among the plants which, according
to Chinese theology, enter into the beverage of immortality,
this Lien-wha is to the Chinese what the Gul or Rose is t o . the
Persians; and a moonlight excursion on a tranquil river covered
with its yellow blossoms is numbered by the inhabitants of the
Flowery Land among the supreme delights of mortal existence.
(See also L o t u s and N y m p h ^ a ) .
N E T T L E . The Nettle is one of the five plants which are
stated by the Mishna to be the “ bitter herbs ” ordered to be partaken
of by the Jews at the Feast of the Passover. In Ireland,
the Nettle of Timor is known as Daoun Setan, or the Devil’s Apron ;
and in the southern parts of the island it is a common pradtice for
schoolboys, once a year, to consider themselves privileged to run
■'V >j