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Janus bore it with him to Latium ; Osiris similarly benefitted
Egypt ; and Spain obtained it through Geryon, her most ancient
monarch. Old traditions all point to Greece as the native place
of the Vine, and there it is still to be found growing wild. There
are many allusions to the Vine in the Scriptures. Noah, we find,
planted a Vineyard (Gen. ix., 20) ; enormous bunches of Grapes
were brought by the Israelitish spies out of Palestine ; Solomon
had a Vineyard at Baalhamon. “ He let out the Vineyard unto
keepers ; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring one thousand
pieces of s ilv e r” (Cant, viii., 11). The Bible contains many illustrations
borrowed from the husbandry of the Vineyard, showing
that Vine culture was sedulously pursued, and formed a fruitful
source of wealth. In Leviticus xxv., 4, 5, we find a command that
every seventh year the Vines were to be left untouched by the
pruning knife, and the Grapes were not to be gathered. Of the
ancient pagan writers who have alluded to the Vine in their works,
Cato has left abundant information as to the Roman Vine-craft,
and Columella, Varrò, Palladius, Pliny, and Tacitus have all given
details of the Vine culture of the ancients. More than sixty
varieties of the Vine appear to have been known to the Greeks and
Romans, one of which, called by Columella and Pliny the Amethystine,
has certainly been lost, for they record that the wine from its
Grapes never occasioned drunkenness.——The Elm was preferred
to an}^ other tree by the ancients as a prop for Vines, and this connexion
has led to numerous fanciful notices by the poets of all
ages. Statius calls it the “ Nuptial E lm ;” Ovid speaks of “ the
lofty Elm, with creeping Vines o’erspread ;” Tasso says :—
“ As the high Elm, whom his dear Vine hath twined
Fast in her hundred arms, and holds embraced.
Bears down to earth his spouse and darling kind.
I f storm or cruel steel the tree down cast,
And her full grapes to nought doth bruise and grind,
Spoils his own leaves, faints, withers, dies at last,
And seems to mourn and die, not for his own
But for her loss, with him that lies o’erthrown.”—Fairfax.
Beaumont tells us that—
“ The amorous Vine,
Did with the fair and straight-limbed Elm entwine.”
Cowley speaks of the “ beauteous marriageable Vine,” and Browne
writes of “ the amorous Vine that in the Elm still weaves.”
Horace, however, connecfls the Vine with the Poplar, instead of the
Elm. Milton, describing the pursuits of our first parents in Eden,
says :—
“ They led the Vine
To wed her Elm ; she, spoused, about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with her brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves.”
In the Mythologie des Plantes, we find it stated that the Persians
trace the use of wine in Persia to the reign of the blessed
Jemshid. A woman who wished to poison herself drank some
wine, thinking that it was poison ; but she only fell into a profound
sleep, and thus the Persians learnt in Jemshid’s reign the use of
the juice of the Grape. Olearius, in 1637, heard in Persia the
following legend :—To console the poor and unhappy, God sent on
earth the angels Aroth and Maroth, with the injunéfions not to kill
anyone, not to do any injustice, and not to drink any wine. A
beautiful woman, who had quarrelled with her husband, appealed
for justice to the two angels, and asked them to partake of some
wine. The angels not only consented, but, after having indulged
rather freely, began to ask other favours of the lovely woman. After
a little hesitation, she agreed to comply, provided that the angels
should first show her the way to ascend to heaven, and to descend
again to the earth. The angels assented; bxit when the woman,
who was as virtuous as she was beautiful, reached heaven, she
would not descend again to earth, and there she remains, changed
into the most brilliant star in the skies. With the Mandans,
a tribe of American Indians, the Vine is connecited with the tradition
concerning their origin. They believe that the whole nation
resided in one large village, underground, near a subterraneous
lake. A Grape Vine extended its roots down to their habitation,
and gave them a view of the light. Some of the most adventurous
climbed up the Vine, and were dehghted with the sight of the earth,
which they found covered with buffaloes, and rich with all kinds of
fruit. Returning with the Grapes they had gathered, their countrymen
were so pleased with the taste of them, that the whole nation
resolved to leave their dull residence for the charms of the upper
region. Men, women, and children, therefore forthwith proceeded
to ascend by means of the Vine, but when about half the nation
had reached the surface of the earth, a very stout woman, who was
laboriously clambering up the Vine, broke it with her weight, and
debarred herself and the rest of the nation from seeing the light of
the sun. Those who had reached the earth’s surface made themselves
a village, and formed the tribe of the Mandans, who, when
they die, expedí to return to the original settlement of their forefathers;
the good reaching the ancient village by means of the
subterranean lake, which the burden of the sins of the wicked will
not enable them to cross. Wild Vines differ in many respecits
from the cultivated Vine'; several distincft species are found in
Java , India, and America; one first found on the banks of the
Catawba, from which the famous Catawba wine is made, is now
extensively cultivated on the Ohio, or L a Belle Rivière : its pro-
du(it has been lauded by Longfellow, who sings—=
“ There grows no Vine
By the haunted Rhine,
By Danube or Guadalquiver,
Nor an island or cape
That bears such a Grape
As grown by the Beautiful Riven”
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