DANTE'S
GARDEN
BYsg^S^
ROSEMARY
California
DANTE'S GARDEN
"DIPINSE GIOTTO IN KIGURA i>i UANTE
DANTE'S GARDEN
WITH
LEGENDS OF THE FLOWERS
BY
ROSEMARY A. COTES
" Let thy upsoaring vision range at large
This garden through : for so by ray divine
Kindled, thy ken a higher flight shall mount."
GARY.
"Vola con gli occhi per questo giardino:
Che veder lui t'acconcera lo sguardo
Piu al montar per lo raggio divino."
Par. xxxi. 97.
KNIGHT & MILLET
BOSTON
TO
MY MOTHER
THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED
WITH LOVE
THE English translations of the Divina Commedia
used in this little collection of flower-legends are
taken from Gary's Vision of Dante.
The author also wishes to express her indebted-
ness to Mr. Richard Folkard's book on Plant Lore,
Legend and Lyric, from which she has derived
much valuable help, and her gratitude to Mr.
Paget Toynbee for kindly consenting to contribute
a prefatory note.
The frontispiece is due to the courtesy of
Messrs. Alinari of Florence,, by whose kind
permission their photograph of Giotto's portrait
of Dante has been reproduced.
PREFATORY NOTE
IN this little volume a collection has been
made of some of the passages in the
Divina Commedia which give evidence of Dante's
love for flowers, and trees, and all the details of
plant-life. Dante was a close observer of Nature,
and many of the most beautiful similes in his
poem are drawn from his observations of the
familiar phenomena of the garden and of the
countryside. Even the gloom of his Hell is
relieved by such pictures as those of the drooping
Howers revived after a frost by the warmth of the
sun (ii. 127-9), the slowly falling leaves and
" bare ruined choirs " of autumn (iii. 112-14), the
gale crashing through the woods and rending the
branches (ix. 67-70), the pastures covered with
the thick hoar-frost (xxiv. 1-9), the tenacious
grasp of the ivy on the tree-trunk (xxv. 58-9),
while the descriptions in the Purgatory of the
Terrestrial Paradise, with its wealth of flowers, and
foliage, and grassy river-banks, are not surpassed
for brilliancy of colouring even by the gorgeous
flower-gardens with which we are familiar in the
frescoes of Fra Angelico and of Benozzo Gozzoli.
7
PREFATORY NOTE
A special interest is added to the passages
selected by the inclusion of the legends and
traditions connected with the various flowers and
plants mentioned by Dante. It is doubtful, how-
ever, to what extent Dante was himself acquainted
with these. There is little trace in his writings
of any knowledge on his part of plant-lore l
(except, of course, such as is to be derived from
classical sources, as in the case of the mulberry,
for instance), though he was familiar enough with
the kindred lore of the " bestiaries," as is evident
from his references to the phoenix and the pelican.
Sometimes, perhaps, a point has been stretched in
order to include such flowers as the narcissus, the
veronica, and the passion flower, to which Dante
does not actually refer, but the reader will prob-
ably not be inclined to cavil on this account.
Those who know Dante only as the Poet of
Hell will, we think, be grateful to Miss Cotes for
her presentation of him here as the Poet of
Flowers, a title not inappropriate to one whose
native place was Fiorenza, the Flower-City.
PAGET TOYNBEE.
1 A possible exception is his mention of the heliotrope in
the Letter to the Princes and Peoples of Italy ; but the refer-
ence in this case is probably not, as many think, to the
flower, but to the gem, of that name.
8
CONTENTS
PAGE
DANTE'S GARDEN . . . . . . . .11
THE ROSE .........
THE OLIVE .........
THE VERONICA OR SPEEDWELL .....
THE LAUREL ... ....
THE LILT
THE PLUM
THE MARGUERITE OR DAISY 45
THE IVY 50
THE CROWN IMPERIAL 55
THE RUSH 58
THE VIOLET 62
THE FIG TREE 65
THE PINE 70
THE PASSION FLOWER 73
THE OAK 7 6
9
CONTENTS
PARE
SYRINX AND THE REED . . . . . .81
APPLE-BLOSSOM 83
THE MYRTLE ........ 87
THE FIR ......... 92
THE NARCISSUS .... .... 94
THE B:UAR-ROSE ....... 98
THE PALM ......... 100
THE VINE . . . . . . . . ,104.
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM 107
DANTE'S GARDEN
" Let thy upsoaring vision range at large
This garden through ..."
Par. xxxi. 97.
NO reader of the Divina Corn-media can fail
to notice Dante's love for all the green,
fresh, scented things of the earth, and more
especially for flowers.
Throughout the latter part of the poem we
find him continually employing flowers, in three
distinct ways. First, for their colour he con-
stantly uses them as examples of the delicate
tints he wishes to convey to the mind of the
reader. Then, for their emblematical signi-
ficance as he was accustomed to think of them
in association with the legends of the saints in
mediaeval Church history, or as adorning heathen
mythology. And lastly, for the flowers them-
DANTE'S GARDEN
selves ; for the love he bore them because they
were flowers, and because they were associated
in his mind with early aspirations of innocence
and purity.
Much in his writings leads us to imagine that
at some period of Dante's life there may have
been a garden that he knew and loved a garden
to which his thoughts recurred with all the vivid-
ness of boyish impression, when, as a banished
man, and an outcast from home and country, he
wrote of early dawn, the scented earth, the leaves
all bending in one direction as the breeze passed
over them, and the song of the birds in the
trees.
Whenever he alludes to a garden, it is always
as a place of joy and innocence, a restful oasis
in his journey from the Inferno, and eventually
realised amongst his highest conceptions of
heavenly felicity.
Dante, speaking in the person of Adam, says
of the Terrestrial Paradise
"... Dio mi post;
Nell ? eccelso giardino, ove costei
A cosi lunga scala ti dispose." 1
" God placed me in that high garden, from whose bounds
She led thee up the ladder, steep and long."
1 Par. xxvi. 109.
12
DANTE'S GARDEN
And in the same canto
" As for the leaves that in the garden bloom
My love for them is great, as is the good
Dealt by the eternal hand that tends them all."
" Le fronde onde s'infronda tutto 1'orto
Dell' Ortolano eterno, am'io cotanto,
Quanto da lui a lor di bene e porto." 1
And again, speaking of St. Dominic, he calls
him
" The labourer whom Christ in His own garden
Chose to be His help-mate."
"... Ed io ne parlo
Si come dell' agricola, che Cristo
Elesse all' orto suo, per aiutarlo. " 2
Sometimes it is the garden of the Terrestrial
Paradise, sometimes the garden of the Church,
and sometimes that most exquisite and glorious
garden of heaven itself
"... that beautiful garden
Blossoming beneath the rays of Christ."
" . . . il bel giardino
Che sotto i raggi di Cristo s'infiora," 3
the garden of which Dante says, " Heaven's
decree forecasts " that it shall be filled eventually
with all the spirits of the blest.
1 Par. xxvi. 64. "Par. xii. 70. 3 Par. xxiii. 71.
13
DANTE'S GARDEN
There is a passage in the Vita Niiova in which
Dante, after speaking of his first meeting with
Beatrice, in his ninth year, says that he went
many times in his boyhood to seek this most
youthful angel, at the bidding of Love, who had
then taken rule in his heart. May not these first
meetings have taken place in a garden ? in the
garden of Beatrice's Florentine home ?
We have ample evidence in his writings that
a garden existed somewhere in Dante's fancy,
and that thither the poet would often retire in
imagination, and wander along its paths, and
refresh his weary soul with the springing green
shoots, the leaves and herbs and flowers, which
are brought so vividly before us in the Purgatorio
and Paradiso.
Who would not have loved to roam with him
here ? What a store of legend and poesy and
fancy must have hung around the plants and
flowers of many lands in this garden of his, flowers
whose seeds had been brought by the circling
breezes from the Terrestrial Paradise.
The thought of a flower may be suggestive, as
the pages of a missal in some ancient shaded
library, whereon glow wondrous quaint illumina-
tions, and brilliant, richly-coloured borders, with
legends and old-world stories written between.
For every flower has its history, which differs
14
DANTE'S GARDEN
for each human soul that reads between the
leaves.
Dante does not mention many flowers by name,
nor any, without clear indication that he has
dreamt and thought much over its legendary
association, that to him it is not only a flower, but
also the emblem of certain virtues or saintly
qualities, or the graceful memento of some classical
legend. In everything connected with Dante's
flowers we have the mystic soul of the poet
impressed upon us the poet who sees more than
the flower whilst gazing at the flower, and to
whom the vision of its beauty opens avenues of
thought, in which the object itself at times is
swept away by the flood of fancy it produces.
In this manner we may interpret his allusions
to the narcissus, the syringa, the veronica, and
many others, where the poetical references are to
the legends rather than to the flowers associated
with the legends, yet one may suppose that the
poet at the same time had in mind the dainty
scented blossom, the green rush by the riverside,
or the wild bird's-eye imprinted with the face of
the Saviour, that ever turns its transparent petals
towards the sky, and that he indulged the double
fancy with a full appreciation of the additional
beauty suggested, by the association of the legend
with the flower.
15
DANTE'S GARDEN
The old well-known legends of the flowers,
whether mythological or ecclesiastical, may well
carry us back into Dante's garden, whither the
poet, outcast and banished, would retire from the
harsh realities of his daily life, and would wander
in fancy at early dawn, when the leaves were full
of the movement and song of the awakening bird'-,
and whence, amidst the wealth of bloom and
colour, he would select here a leaf and there a
flower for the embellishment of his immortal
poem.
THE ROSE
" No braid of lilies on their temples wreathed.
Rather, with roses, and each vermeil flower,
A sight, but little distant, might have sworn
That they were all on fire above their brows.''
" . . . di gigli
D'intorno al capo, non facevan brolo,
Anzi di rose e d'altri fior vermigli :
Giurato avria poco lontano aspetto,
Che tutti ardesser di sopra da i cigli."
Purg. xxix. 146.
IT was the dream of the poet Anacreon, that
Aurora dipped her finger-tips into the calyx
of the rose to colour them, and as translated by
St. Victor
" Des plus tendres de ses feux
Venus entiere se colore,"
Anacreon goes on to tell us how the earth first
came to produce this beautiful creation.
The wave having given birth to its glorious
B 17
THE ROSE
goddess Cypris, and Minerva having sprung from
the brain of Jupiter, Cybele could only oppose
to the beauty of these two goddesses a tiny bud
appearing upon a young shoot. But at the first
sight of the nascent rose-bud Olympus smiled,
and shed upon it nectar for dew. The young
bud, thus watered from heaven, slowly opened,
and upon its shining stem appeared the first
rose, the queen of flowers, unfolding her petals
in the summer sunshine.
To Dante the first flower in his garden is
the rose, and this not for any mythological
association, but because it represented to him
the centre of his religion and faith. To him
it is a flower full of mystery, the flower which
Solomon sang, the rose blossoming in the garden
of Paradise.
It represents in all his symbolism the Blessed
Virgin.
"... that fair flower, whom duly 1 invoke
Both morn and eve ..."
". . quel bel fior, ch'io sempre invoco
E mane e sera . . " l
and to whom his Beatrice herself is but hand-
maiden. A great governing fact in Dante's life
is his love for Beatrice, but the keynote of his
1 Par. xxiii. 88.
18
THE ROSE
existence is his love for God. He says that the
knitting of his heart to God has from the sea of
ill-love saved his bark.
He employs the rose to describe the whole
army of the saints, moving in advancing and
receding circles, like a white rose unfolding
and closing its petals. The thrones of all the
blessed
" . . in a circle spread so far
That the circumference were too loose a zone
To girdle in the sun," 1
he compares to a rose with its leaves extended
wide. The holy multitude in heaven seem to
him
"In fashion as a snow-white rose."
"In forma di Candida rosa." 2
In pictured representations of the Blessed
Virgin the lily is frequently introduced, as a fit
emblem of grace and purity; but with Dante
the lily is not sufficient. No pale colour, or the
purity of white only, can express in his glowing
imagery the mystery of humanity carried into
heaven, or, in the person of the mother of our
Lord, drawing heaven down to itself.
1 Par. XXX. 103. 2 Par. xxxi. I.
19
THE ROSE
To him the Blessed Virgin is the rose.
"... the rose,
Wherein the Word divine was made incarnate."
"... la rosa, in che'l Verbo Divino
Carne si fece." 1
These burning words do not express the pallor of
the lily, but the full, glorious, scented bosom of
the rose. Beatrice, with her eyes full of gladness,
points out to him the mystic rose, in the garden
of Paradise, blossoming under the rays of God.
In the canto before that in which Beatrice first
appears and speaks with Dante, he describes a
glorious vision of a triumphal procession of the
Christian Church. In this vision roses and lilies
both figure as crowns on the brows of the saints,
and their comparative significance in his mind is
clearly indicated.
The lily is the type of purity, only reached in
heaven ; but the rose is still first. For the rose
includes everything: light and vivid colour, and
purity above all, but purity that has blossomed
forth into the living flame of heavenly love. The
last seven spirits in the procession, who wear the
red roses, no longer need
"The braid of lilies on their temples wreathed,"
1 Par. xxiii. 73.
20
THE ROSE
but, at a little distance, it might have seemed
that
"They were all on fire above their brows," 1
enwreathed with red roses on fire with heavenly
zeal and love. This is but in the Earthly Paradise.
Later on, when Dante reaches heaven, he says
that he feels love and adoration "full blossomed"
in his bosom "as a rose before the sun,"
"... When the consummate flower
Has spread to utmost amplitude ! "
" Come il Sol fa la rosa, quando aperta
Tanto divien quant' ell' ha di possanza." 2
1 Purg. xxix. 150. 2 Par xxii. 56.
21
THE OLIVE
". . In white veil with olive wreathed
A virgin in my view appeared, beneath
Green mantle, robed in hue of living flame."
" Sopra candido vel cinta d'oliva
Donna m'apparve, sotto verde manto.
Vestita di color di fiamma viva."
Purg. XXX. 31.
" As the multitude
Flock round a herald sent with olive branch
To hear what news he brings."
" E come a messaggier che porta olivo
Tragge la gente per udir novelle."
Purg. ii. jo.
OLIVE is the sign of peace, and when Dante
encircles Beatrice's brow with olive it is a
sign that she comes as a messenger of peace from
God to him.
Most of the countries in Europe have retained
22
THE OLIVE
different versions of the ancient Hebrew and
Greek traditions of the tree of Adam.
This tree arose from the grave of our first
parent, and the three rods of which it was
composed were the olive, the cedar, and the
cypress. These three rods grew together, and
the cross of Christ was afterwards made of the
tree they produced.
Sir John Maundeville writes : " The table
ee aboven His heved that was a fote and a half
" long, on whiche the tytle was written in Ebrew,
" Grece, and Latyn, that was of Olyve ; " and in
another place he quaintly explains it : " The
" table of the tytle thei maden of Olyve ; for
" Olyve betokeneth Pes. And the storye of Noe
" witnesseth whan that Culver broughte the
" braunche of Olyve, that betokened pes made
" betwene God and man. And so trowed the
" Jewes for to have pes whan Crist was ded ; for
" thei sayd that He made discord and strife
" amonges them."
The table of the title being made of olive has
always been considered in the Church as an
emblem of peace and reconciliation between God
and man, over the dying body of Christ ; and in
many parts of Italy there still survive favourable
superstitions with regard to an olive branch.
The young girls use them for divination, and
23
THE OLIVE
the peasants believe that no witch or sorcerer
will enter a house where an olive branch that
has been blessed is suspended. In Venetia it
is considered a safeguard against storm and
lightning, and amongst the ancient songs of
Provence one called the Reaper's Grace is
yet retained in their harvest festivals of the
present day, recording the story of the tree of
Adam, and the olive of which the title-board
was made.
In Grecian and Roman mythology the olive
is dedicated to Minerva. Virgil calls her <e Oleae
Inventrix," the originator of the olive, on account
of an old tradition that she disputed the worship
of the Athenians with Neptune, and when the
god of the sea opened a salt spring in the rock
of the Acropolis to show his power, Minerva
caused a beautiful olive tree to spring from the
ground. The gods held a council, and awarded
the palm to Minerva, who became the tutelary
deity of the Athenians, and from that time their
rulers sought to turn them from warlike and
seafaring pursuits to the cultivation of the soil
and arts of peace.
Perhaps Dante remembered when he crowned
Beatrice with olive, that thus from the olive
might be said to date the glorious works of
Cimabue and Giotto, since art in Italy derived
24
THE OLIVE
its first inspiration from the earlier art and
civilisation of Greece, for which Greece was
indebted to the sacred olive branch.
An olive tree grew in the temple of Minerva.
When any Athenian went to consult the Delphic
oracle he carried a branch of olive in his hand ;
and in the laws of Solon special directions were
given for the proper mode of planting and nurtur-
ing the sacred tree.
A legend handed down fi-om the earliest times
records that when Adam was very aged he
attempted to root up a large bush, and having
strained himself in the effort, and feeling his
end approaching, he sent his son Seth to the
angel that guarded the gates of the garden of
Eden, to beg for a little of the oil of mercy from
the tree of life.
The angel refused, but sent a message to Adam
to tell him that in later days the precious oil
would be sent to his descendants, when the Son
of God should visit the earth.
He then gave Seth three small seeds to place
in his father's mouth after death, and told him
to bury Adam near Mount Tabor in the Valley
of Hebron.
This was done, and in a short time three rods
appeared above the ground a cedar, a cypress,
and an olive tree. These did not leave the
25
THE OLIVE
mouth of Adam, nor was their existence known,
till Moses received orders of God to cut a branch
from them. This branch exhaled a perfume of
the promised land, and with it Moses performed
many miracles, healing the sick, drawing water
from the rock, etc. It was on the exact spot of
Adam's grave that God appeared to Moses out of
a burning bush, supposed to have been one of
these miraculous trees.
After Moses' death the three rods remained
unheeded in the Valley of Hebron till the time
of King David, who, warned in a dream, went
and found them there. He also performed
miracles with them healing the leprous, palsied,
and blind. In some stories the three rods are
supposed to have united in one large tree, typical
of the Holy Trinity.
King David placed the young cedar tree in the
temple, where thirty years afterwards Solomon
was about to use it with the cedars of Lebanon
in the glorious restoration of the ancient build-
ings. Here the Queen of Sheba saw it, and
prophesied : " Thrice blessed is this wood on
which the sins of the world shall be expiated ! "
The Jews were indignant at the suggestion of
a degrading death in connection with the
Messiah, and cast it into the " Probatica Piscina,"
the Pool of Bethesda, where it remained till the
26
THE OLIVE
day of Christ's condemnation, when it was taken
out to make the cross. 1 During the time that
it remained in the Pool of Bethesda an angel
visited it periodically, and the water had
miraculous powers of healing all diseases.
Sir John Maundeville tells us that the church
of St. Katherine which stood in his day in the
vicinity of Mount Sinai marks the spot where
God revealed Himself to Moses, and in it were
many lamps continually kept burning. The birds
kept these lamps supplied with oil, bringing
sprays of olives in their beaks, from which the
monks distilled the oil. " For thei have of Oyle
" of Olyves ynow bothe for to brenne in here
" lampes, and to ete also ; and that plentie have
" thei, be a Myracle of God, for the Ravens and
" Crowes and the Choughes, and other Foules of
" the Countree, assemblen there every yeer ones,
" and fleen thider as in pilgrimage ; and everyche
" of hem bringethe a Braunch of the Bays or of
" Olyve in here bekes, instede of Offryng, and
" leven hem there, of the whiche the monks
" maken grete plentie of Oyle, and this is a gret
" Marvaylle."
The stories which so interested the pious and
credulous soul of Sir John Maundeville had early
taken deep root in Italy, and Dante, when he
places the olive in his garden of imagery, employs
1 See p. 28.
27
THE OLIVE
it always in its ecclesiastical significance as an
emblem of peace.
"... As when the multitude
Flock round a herald sent with olive branch
To hear what news he brings ..."
Later, in the same sense, he places the olive
as a wreath on the head of Beatrice when she
descends to him as a glorious apparition from
heaven, clothed in the colours of faith, hope, and
charity, and wearing the emblem of eternal peace
as a coronet around her brow.
Footnote to p. 27.
Speaking of the tree of knowledge, Buti says: "Of a
branch of this tree and of other wood the Cross was made,
and from that branch was suspended such sweet fruit as the
body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then Adam and other
saints had the oil of mercy, inasmuch as they were taken
from Limbo and led by Christ into eternal life."
THE VERONICA OR SPEED-
WELL
'* . . . Like a wight
Who haply from Croatia wends to see
Our Veronica, and the while 'tis shown
Hangs over it with never-sated gaze
... So gazed I then adoring."
''Quale e colui, che forse di Croazia,
Viene a veder la Veronica nostra
Che per 1'antica fama non si sazia
Ma dice nel pensier, fin che si mostra :
Signer mio Gesu Cristo, Dio verace
Or fu si fatta la sembianza vostra ?
Tale era io . . . "
Par. xxxi. 103.
OUT in the meadows in many country places
grows a little wild flower deserving a
special mention in Dante's garden, for upon its
delicate blue petals is impressed the face of our
Blessed Lord only a faint and imperfect sugges-
29
THE VERONICA OR SPEEDWELL
tion of the face, the two eyes enclosed in the M,
recording the word OMO, in the human features
no actual portrait of the Saviour ; and yet this
little plant bears the name of Veronica, and is
dedicated to the saint whose love and sympathy
preserved to us for all ages the likeness of the
face of Christ.
Dante says, in a passage in the Paradiso, when
he has just met St. Bernard, and is about to
behold a glorious vision of the Blessed Virgin,
that, " Like to one who haply from Croatia wends
to see our Veronica, and while 'tis shown hangs
over it with never-sated gaze," so he stood lost in
adoring contemplation in heaven.
This Veronica he mentions is not the flower,
but the miraculous handkerchief, with the like-
ness of the Saviour's face impressed upon it,
probably the one in Rome, which attracted vast
numbers of pilgrims from distant parts, to come
and gaze, for once in their lives, upon what
they believed to be the true features of their
Lord.
The legend of St. Veronica the most truly
womanly saint of the calendar relates that when
our Saviour was on His way to Calvary He sank
beneath the weight of the cross, and Veronica
came forward, brave and tender, ready to acknow-
ledge her allegiance amidst all His foes, and
30
THE VERONICA OR SPEEDWELL
wiped the sweat from His brow with her hand-
kerchief.
The story does not record what insults may
have been showered upon her by the rabble
around for this little act of womanly tenderness,
but we are told that a representation of the face
of our Lord appeared upon the handkerchief, and
that it was ever after treasured as a wondrous
memento of His passion. The handkerchief is
supposed to have healing qualities, and in this
particular the little medicinal field-flower veronica
shares its miraculous virtues.
Around every glorious deed in the world's
history poetical fancy has wreathed flowers of
fervent imagination. Strange, indeed, if such a
life as that of Christ should have escaped, and
such stories, though too little authenticated,
retain some touch of the fervent love of the early
Church.
The legend of St. Veronica is extended to the
little speedwell flower, said to have grown at the
Saviour's feet, and to have received some drops
falling from the sacred forehead.
The flower is of a most delicate blue colour.
The centre is white, and from it spring two
slender, ball-tipped stamens. At a little distance
the effect of eyes, nose, and mouth is faintly pro-
duced upon its petals. The devout religionist of
THE VERONICA OR SPEEDWELL.
the Middle Ages, fancying he discerned the very
face of his Lord gazing at him from the tiny
azure flower, as it might have been in a vision,
from the blue of heaven, exclaimed, "It is
Indeed the Vera Icon ! Our Veronica that has
taken root ! "
THE LAUREL
" . . O power divine!
If thou to me of thine impart so much
That of that happy realm the shadow'd form
Traced in my thoughts I may set forth to view ;
Thou shalt behold me of thy favoured tree
Come to the foot, and crown myself with leaves."
" O divina virtu, se mi ti presti
Tanto, che 1'ombra del beato regno
Segnata nel mio capo io manifest;,
Venir vedraimi al tuo diletto legno,
E coronarmi allor di quelle foglie,
Che la materia e tu mi farai degno. "
Par. \. ^^
THE favoured tree of the gods is the laurel,
the crown of the mighty conqueror and of
the poet.
The laurel was consecrated by the Greeks and
Romans to every kind of glory; philosophers,
warriors, even emperors, considered it the highest
c 33
THE LAUREL
honour to obtain the laurel wreath, and Dante
foretells, at the commencement of his Paradlso,
that he also will obtain such a crown, if the
" powers divine " whom he invokes will enable
his genius to complete his high theme.
Delphos, on the shores of the river Peneus, is
famous for its laurel trees. Dante speaks of a
wreath of the laurel as the " Peneian foliage," a
gathered to grace the triumph of a Caesar or to
deck the brows of a bard.
The beautiful nymph Daphne w r as changed into
a laurel tree. She rejected the addresses of Apollo,
in spite of the magic of his wondrous music and
the eloquence of his entreaties ; and when pur-
sued by him, she fled to the banks of the river
Peneus, and invoked the protection of her sire.
Peneus entreated the gods, who changed her into
a laurel, which became henceforth the favoured
tree of heaven. As an emblem of virtue and
the graces of the mind, it has always been pre-
eminent, and was considered a suitable crown for
beauty to place upon the brows of a conqueror,
and a meet reward for those who held intellectual
and mental pursuits in higher esteem than the
indulgences of wealth or luxury.
When Apollo reached the river's bank, and
saw nothing but a waving laurel tree where
1 Par. i. 33.
34
THE LAUREL
the beautiful Daphne should have been, he is
supposed to have broken into the following
lament :
" Puisque du ciel la volonte jalouse
Ne permet pas que tu sois mon epouse,
Sois mon arbre du moins ; que ton feuillage heureux
Enlace mon carquois, mon arc, et mes cheveux!" 1
1 Saint-Ange, Metamorphoses d'0-vide.
35
THE LILY
'... From full hands scatter ye
Unwithering lilies : ' and so saying cast
Flowers overhead, and round them on all sides."
" Fior gittando di sopra e d'intorno
Manlbus o date lilia plenis. "
Purg. XXX. 20.
THE tall white garden lily is by many sup-
posed to be dedicated to St. Joseph, and
on account of its purity and grace it is also
used in mystic representations of the Blessed
Virgin.
The lily is the emblem of purity, and in
Christian art is employed in pictures of the
Annunciation, the adoration of the Magi, and
the enthronement of the Holy Child.
It is called the Madonna lily, and seems
specially connected with associations of the
mother of our Lord. Yet the legend of the
36
THE LILY
lily does not relate to the Blessed Virgin. It is
dedicated in all ancient story to St. Catherine,
whose name (from the Greek /catfapos) signifies
pure, undefined, and who, as the inspirer of
wisdom and good counsel in time of need, may
be said to be the patron saint of those sweet
flowers
"... the lilies, by whose odour known
The way of life was followed."
" . . . li gigli
Al cui odor si prese'l buon cammino. " J
In the vision of St. Catherine, angels come
forth to meet her wearing chaplets of white
lilies ; and it was through this flower that St.
Catherine's father Costis became converted to
Christianity, when all the arguments of the saint
had failed to turn him from the errors of heathen-
ism. Until that time the lily had been a scent-
less flower, and its powerful perfume is said to
date back only as far as the fourth century, when
through a miracle wrought in a vision, Costis was
turned into the right path.
Costis was the emperor of Alexandria, and
half-brother to Constantine the Great. He was
extremely devoted to his daughtei*, whose studies
he superintended, and whose extraordinary abil-
1 Par. xxiii. 74.
37
THE LILY
ities afforded him a source of constant pride and
pleasure.
The one great grief of Catherine's early days
lay in the fact that while her arguments, drawn
from Plato, Aristotle, and the Gospels, had reduced
her seven masters to footstools at her feet, no
arguments were of any avail with her father, who
continued to worship his false gods. She prayed
much and earnestly for him ; and at length one
night Costis had a vision, in which he saw his
daughter, with a book in her hand, walking by
his side, and arguing with him, as was her wont,
from Plato. But as he refused to listen to her,
he perceived that the pathway they were pursu-
ing suddenly diverged, one part leading down a
flowery vale, and the other up a steep and stony
incline.
Catherine left his side and turned up the steep
and stony path, where she quickly disappeared
from view.
Costis stood hesitating between the two ways,
unable to make up his mind which direction to
follow, when he was attracted by a delicate and
subtle perfume proceeding, as it seemed to him,
from some distant field of white objects far up
the stony path, and dimly illumined by a light
proceeding from the summit of the hill. He
turned up the steep incline, and soon found him-
38
THE LILY
self in a garden of white lilies, stretching far up
to the portals of a golden gateway, seeming to
his enchanted gaze the very entrance to Paradise.
Sinking down bewildered and overcome with
penitence in the midst of the miraculously
scented lilies, Costis resolved to renounce from
henceforth his heathen gods, and serve the only
true Christ. As he lay thus, Catherine came
forth from the gateway, and led him by the hand
into the Golden City.
When he awoke from his vision, Costis deter-
mined to be baptized, and he soon drew a multi-
tude of his people with him into the path of
Christianity in those days, indeed, a hard and
thorny way, leading too often to the cross of
martyrdom ere the Golden City could be reached.
The scentless lily became henceforth the
sweetest among flowers, and was dedicated by
common consent to the martyred virgin, St.
Catherine.
Dante considers the rose and lily to be equally
the flowers of Paradise.
Before the purity of the lily, as in the won-
drous mystic presence of the rose, his genius fails
and trembles. When he sees the vision of the
glorious multitudes, with Beatrice in their midst,
descending from heaven and scattering lilies
around them, "A hundred ministers and mes-
39
THE LILY
sengers of life eternal/' his thoughts involun-
tarily recur to the words of the poet Virgil, and
he quotes
" Manibus o date lilia plenis,"
at this supreme moment paying the final tribute
to his faithful friend and guide, who has just left
him. From this time Beatrice alone is to guide
him forward into the higher regions he is now
approaching.
With Beatrice alone he will enter Paradise.
Dante has as yet not been fully purged from his
sins, nor does he hold himself yet worthy to gaze
upon the pure face of the lily. Its vision is
dimmed for him through tears into a flooded,
expansive light, like a pearl of unapproachable
perfection. The lily is only reached in deed and
in truth when Beatrice at length descends to
him, and then the glory of the mystic rose begins
to blend with the purity of the lily.
The rose has not yet triumphed, but Dante is
at peace, and his soul is satisfied.
Beatrice could show that in heaven may be
reached the glistening heights where earthly love
so seldom finds a foothold.
THE PLUM
" Thereat a little stretching forth my hand
From a great wilding gather'd I a branch,
And straight the trunk exclaimed : ' Why pluck'st
thou me ? ' "
" Allor porsi la mano un poco avante
E colsi un ramicel da un gran pruno,
E il tronco suo grido : ' Perche mi schiante ? ' "
///. xiii. 31.
THE wild plum tree of the fields and hedges,
growing neglected and unpruned, is the
plant to which Dante so continually alludes as
a type of all that is rude and uncared-for.
In one instance, however, he speaks of it in
a more gracious and hopeful strain, when he says
he has seen it frowning all the winter long, yet
in the spring "bearing a blossom upon its top." 1
The blossom of the plum appears before its leaf,
1 Par. xiii. 135.
4 1
THE PLUM
and upon the black and frowning twigs the
tender white of an exquisite flower is a singularly
beautiful suggestion of hope in circumstances how-
ever dark.
In Italy, where the plum is the commonest
and wildest of trees, it is natural to think of it
generally as an uncultured plant that grows out-
side the garden, in the same way that we regard
the bramble in spite of its blackberries beloved
of children as a type of ruin and neglect. Dante
places the souls of those who have done violence
to their own persons by committing suicide, in
the Inferno, imprisoned in wild plum trees, where
the Harpies build their nests, and torment the
unfortunate trees by feeding on their leaves.
The plucking of a leaf or bough causes the im-
prisoned soul intense pain, and one of the most
pathetic scenes Dante records of his visit to the
Inferno is where he by chance plucks a bough
from one of these " wildings," and the trunk cries
out and reproaches him with cruelty in thus
causing it unnecessary torture.
Virgil apologises for his pupil, and in the sub-
sequent conversation they hold with the tree (in
which the soul of Piero delle Vigne is enclosed),
the trunk informs them of the manner in which
the luckless suicidal souls are cast down into the
wood in the form of seeds, where they take root,
42
THE PLUM
" with no place assigned them," and grow into
these neglected trunks.
The plum has always been supposed to be
an ill-omened tree, and the traditions of nearly
all the European nations coincide on this point.
Tn Germany it is thought unlucky to dream of
plums, and in England there is an old rhyme
which says
" Mony sloanes
Mony groanes,"
meaning that ill-luck must be expected in a year
in which wild plums are plentiful. The Italians
generally despise this common fruit, and in Spain
the sight of a wild plum tree growing across one's
path is considered sufficient reason for postponing
a journey to a later date, lest misfortune should
overtake the traveller.
It is difficult to find a place for this plum of
ill-omen in Dante's garden, unless it be as a
type of the misfortunes that rendered so great a
part of his life barren and unlovely. It must not
infringe the fragrant borders where grow the
roses and lilies of Paradise. But in the hedge
outside, which encloses the " gold, fine silver,
scarlet, and pearl white" l of the many flowers in
his cultured borders, it may grow, and cast the
shadow of its wild branches over the " fresh
1 Purg. vii. 73.
43
THE PLUM
emerald by herbage and flowers " planted where
the poet delights to linger. 1
In early spring, when he raises his eyes and
sees a tender white blossom adorning the frown-
ing wintry boughs before a leaf has ventured
forth, the wild plum, with this little emblem of
hope and courage upon it, will serve to remind
him that no life is too hopeless for joy to blossom
in it.
Purg. vii. 75
44
THE MARGUERITE OR
DAISY
" . Amid those pearls
One, largest and most lustrous, onward drew."
" E la maggiore, e la piu luculenta
Di quelle margherite innanzi fessi."
Par. xxii. 28.
WHEN St. Augustine first came to Eng-
land, all the woods were filled with
singing-birds, and he loved to roam in them from
his monastery in Canterbury, and watch the little
brown birds engaged in their matin services, and
listen to their happy notes, while he thanked
God for the music and the singing and the
sunshine.
One day, having wandered into a wood, he
came unexpectedly out into the open, where the
sun was shining brilliantly in contrast to the dark
shadows of the trees he had left, and before him
45
THE MARGUERITE OR DAISY
lay spread a meadow filled with daisies in full
bloom.
At the sight of these hundreds of little pale
spheres, scattered over the meadow, the saint
was suddenly overpowered, and, falling upon his
knees, exclaimed, "Behold, a hundred pearls,
with the radiance of a living sun in each ! So
may the spirits of the blest shine in heaven ! "
Dante, in one of his visions in Paradise, sees
St. Benedict, St. Francis, and others, appearing
to him in
" A hundred little spheres, that fairer grew
By interchange of splendour . . . !!1
and tells us, amidst these " Margherites/' one
"largest and most lustrous," the soul of St.
Benedict, approached to speak to him. He also
speaks of the heaven of Mercury, containing many
spirits of the blest as a marguerite
"Within the pearl that now encloses us,
Shines Romeo's light ..."
" E dentro alia presente Margherita
Luce la luce di Romeo . . . " 2
On his tours round the south of England, when
St. Augustine entered a village, the children
came forth to meet him crowned with wreaths of
1 Par. xxii. 23. 2 Par. vi. 127
4 6
THE MARGUERITE OR DAISY
daisies ; and on one occasion, when preaching in
the open air to a large audience, he chose the
daisy for his text, and beckoning to a small boy
who carried a daisy-chain in his hand to come
near, he held the chain up to the assembled
multitude, and slowly drew the flowers, which
were strung together by their stalks, one from the
other.
" The sun," he said, " has imaged himself in
the centre of each of these flowers, as the Sun of
Righteousness will image Himself in each of your
hearts. From this sun in the daisy white rays spread
round. So may the rays of purity and goodness
spread around you, reflected from the light of
heaven within you. And as these flowers are
strung together in a chain, so may you in England
be united to each other, and to the holy churches
of the world, by a chain that shall never be
broken. And, unlike the feeble stems of these
daisies that a child's fingers can sever, may the
links of your chain be indissolubly connected, not
to be broken, though strained and divided in the
ages to come, until the great Creator of your
being shall bring you all safe into His everlasting
kingdom."
St. Augustine's Day is kept on May the 26th, in
the bright spring-time, and all our associations
connected with this saint, and the early days of
47
THE MARGUERITE OR DAISY
the revival of Christianity in England, lead us
to the beginning of the year and the fresh spring
flowers that rose from the chilly earth to welcome
him to our shores.
Dante also loves the spring. His thought of
heaven is of an ever-enduring springtide, and he
speaks of the flowers he saw in Paradise,
"... that with still opening buds
In this eternal springtide blossom fair,"
"... che cosi germoglia
In questa primavera sempiterna," 1
as a dream of perpetual renaissance.
In our calendars of the saints there are no less
than six St. Margarets ; and by popular tradition
the marguerite is supposed to be dedicated to one
of these. < The saint whose special day is kept in
the blooming of the moon-daisies, July 20th, the
St. Margaret of the Dragon, was the daughter of
a heathen priest of Antioch. When she embraced
Christianity, her father drove her from his house,
and she retired to the cottage-home of her foster-
mother in the country, and there lived until
her martyrdom, doing simple duties like the
simple daisy with her face ever turned heaven-
ward.
The daisy of St. Margaret the daisy conse-
1 Par. xxviii. 115.
48
THE MARGUERITE OR DAISY
crated to innocence and childhood Dante passes
over ; but to the marguerite which is a star the
daisy glorified, innocence restored after the dark
wood of experience has been traversed he re-
curs with ever-increasing joy.
49
THE IVY
"... Ivy ne'er clasped
A doddered oak, as round the other's limbs
The hideous monster intertwined his own."
" Ellera abbarbicata mai non fue
Ad arbor si, come 1'orribil fiera
Per 1'altrui membra avviticchio le sue."
Inferno, XX v. 58.
IVY in Greek Kissos, the name of the infant
Bacchus was dedicated to that god, and
used in bacchanalian revels equally with the vine.
Its property, however, was opposed to the
inebriating effects of intoxicating liquors, and in
the Middle Ages a concoction of ivy-berries taken
beforehand was supposed to prevent the possi-
bility of intoxication at a midnight carouse. The
ivy-bush outside taverns was placed there with
this idea ; and a favourite experiment was to
drink wine in an ivy cup, the ivy being thought
to have so great an antipathy to wine as to
THE IVY
separate it from the water, which immediately
soaked through the cup, leaving only the wine
behind.
There was a generally received opinion in the
Middle Ages that ivy was a favourable plant of
good omen ; it was used in the decoration of
churches, and a mediaeval carol runs thus
" Ivy is soft and meke of speech,
Ageynst all bale she is blisse:
Well is he that may hyre rech
Veni Coronaberis !
" Ivy berythe berries black :
God grant us all His blisse
For there shall we nothing lack
Veni Coronaberis 1 "
Dante uses the ivy only as a simile of a clinging
and tenacious plant, and if there was any special
legendary association in his mind connected with
it, it was probably only as applied to the bacchan-
alian feasts of the ancients. Still, the following
little story in connection with his native city
seems to find a suitable place here.
On the walls of an ancient convent some miles
out of Florence the ivy had grown continually for
centuries. A tradition had arisen that should the
ivy cease to cling around a certain patriarchal
tree in the monastic garden, the walls of the
monastery would also be divested of their
5*
THE IVY
covering, and the whole place would fall to
ruins.
It happened about the twelfth century that a
terrible pestilence raged in the neighbourhood,
but the rules of this special monastic order pro-
hibited the brothers from relaxing their regular
routine of discipline and study, even to render
assistance to the sick and dying around them.
Many acts of heroism were indeed performed by
individual members of the community in their
short hours of relaxation, but no regular system of
attendance or hospital care was instituted.
The story relates that one day a plague-stricken
family presented themselves at the gates of the
monastery and demanded admittance. They were
told that they might repair to the gardens,
where food would presently be brought to them,
and remain for shelter in one of the summer-
houses or arbours if they wished, but that it was
the hour for prayer, and no brother could be
spared to attend to them at the moment.
The wretched family dragged themselves into
the beautiful gardens, brilliant with summer
flowers in full bloom ; but no one appearing for
a full hour to relieve them, they cursed the
monastery and all its inmates, the flowers, the
fountains, and the sunny lawns, since there were
no beds where they could stretch their fevered
52
THE IVY
limbs to die in peace, refreshed by the sacred
offices of the Church. One of the men, who still
had strength to wield an axe, cut the famous ivy
stem, whose tradition was well known in the
neighbourhood, through, to the bark of the tree
it encircled, and then sank down on the ground
at its foot, to await the arrival of the tardy
brothers.
When at length, prayer being over, the monks
arrived upon the scene, such assistance as they
could render was immediately given to the un-
invited guests ; but the ravages of the pitiless
plague had already reached a stage beyond human
remedy, and before night death had relieved
the unfortunate visitors one and all from their
sufferings.
The following morning great was the con-
sternation of the prior and all the inmates of the
monastery to find the ancient ivy tree withering
upon its stem and cut through to the root. A
presentiment of coming misfortune seized the
whole community, and the aged father, calling all
the brothers of the order around him, said, " My
sons, we have failed in our duty to man, whilst
too eagerly aspiring to join with the angels in the
worship of heaven. Did not our Blessed Lord
Himself command us to render service to the
least of these His brethren, saying that He would
53
THE IVY
count it as rendered to Himself? From this time
the hours of prayer will give place to the urgent
necessity of nursing our plague-stricken neigh-
bours, and may the blessing of God accompany
our efforts."
From this time the brothers gave themselves
up zealously to nursing and good works, and great
assistance was rendered to the poor by the now
devoted ministrants from the monastery. The
plague ran its destructive course, and by degrees
penetrated to the cells where the brothers knelt
at night in prayer. One by one they succumbed
to its virulent attacks, and at length not one
remained alive of the former occupants of the
ancient monastery. Decay invaded its precincts.
The ivy on its walls withered, and at the present
day picturesque ruins beautifully situated in still
luxuriant gardens are all that remain to tell the
tale of former splendour.
54
THE CROWN IMPERIAL
" Yellow lilies . "
" I gigli gialli ..."
Par. vi. 100.
WHEN the drooping head of the tufted
crown imperial is raised, five brightly
shining drops of water may be seen within the
cup of the flower, hanging like tear-drops around
the centre.
The crown imperial grows stiffly and upright,
and the curious tuft at the top suggests the fancy
that at one time the flowers grew with their
brilliant flame or sulphur coloured petals turned
upwards to greet the morning sunshine, instead
of, as now, drooping around their stem.
When our Saviour was crucified, and darkness
fell over the earth, all the flowers bowed their
heads that they might not behold the terrible
deed. Only the crown imperial remained up-
55
THE CROWN IMPERIAL
right, gazing proudly at the sky, until an angel
came down, and, touching its haughty head with
trembling fingers, dropped tears upon its flaunting
petals.
From that time the crown imperial has ever
bowed its head, overcome with remorse and
sorrow, and the angel's tears are renewed con-
tinually in its drooping calyx.
All lilies that bow their graceful heads in every
country are dear to Dante. He mentions them
again and again in every variety, from the " yellow
lilies " of the royal standard of France, to the
white wild lilies of the meadow.
The crucifixion of Christ is also a subject very
near to the heart of Dante. He says
"Earth trembled at it, and the heaven was opened."
"Per lei tremo la terra, e'l ciel s'aperse." 1
And he speaks often of the sufferings that our
Lord underwent to gain that fair Bride, the
Church, " Who with the lance and nails was won,"
" Che s'acquisto con la lancia, e co'chiavi, "
and of the " blest limbs that were nail'd upon the
wood." 3 The lily of the crown imperial is the
flower that carries us back in memory to the
1 Par. vii. 48 (trans. Longfellow).
2 Par. xxxii. 129. 3 Par. xix. 105.
56
THE CROWN IMPERIAL
darkness and suffering of the death of Christ, as
its sister, the white lily of St. Catherine, raises
our thoughts to the beauty and purity of the
heaven that was opened to us through earthquake
and pain.
In one of his outbursts of indignation at some
of the errors of the Church, Dante makes Beatrice
complain that legends were told in the Florentine
pulpits more freely than the gospel was preached
there.
" One tells how at Christ's suffering the wan moon
Bent back her steps, and shadowed o'er the sun
With intervenient disk . . . " 1
Yet in spite of his complaints of this, and other
uncertainly authenticated tales, a curious glimpse
is afforded us into the complex character of the
man, when we find him using nearly the same
symbolism himself in another canto, where he
places the mystic eclipse in heaven, instead of on
earth, and makes Beatrice and all the heavenly
host lose splendour and light with sympathetic
indignation at St. Peter's description of the
corruption of the Church.
"And such eclipse in heaven methinks was seen
When the Most Holy suffered ! "
"E tale eclissi credo che in ciel fue,
Quando pati la suprema Possanza!" 2
1 Par. xxix. 97. 2 Par. xxvii. 35.
57
THE RUSH
"Go therefore now, and with a slender reed
See that thou duly gird him, and his face
Lave, till all sordid stain thou wipe from thence."
" Va dunque, e fa che tu costui ricinghe
D'un giunco schietto, e che gli lavi'l viso,
Si ch' ogni sucidume quindi stinghe."
Purg i. 94.
THE flowering rush is Butomus umbellatus.
The classical fable of the transformation
of the young shepherd Acis into a river, on
whose banks the flowering rush first appeared,
was probably known to Dante. The sea-nymph
Galatea was beloved by Acis, but the Cyclops,
Polyphemus, also loved her, so hurled a broken
piece of rock at Acis and slew him. From the
rock that had crushed him a river issued forth, and
from the blood of Acis arose many new kinds of
river flowers and reeds.
" The stone was cleft, and through the yawning chink
New reeds arose on the new river's brink."
58
THE RUSH
Yet to Dante the rush, like nearly every
flower or leaf he mentions, has a mystic and
spiritual significance, and he uses it in the passage
quoted above as an emblem of humility.
This plant seems to have a peculiar significance,
since it is the first green object, cool and fresh,
emerging from the lucid water, that greets
Dante's eyes when he steps forth from the dark
abyss of the Inferno into the less gloomy regions
of Purgatorio, whence he is to be led eventu-
ally to the beautiful garden of the Earthly
Paradise, as a preparation for the greater glories
of heaven.
The garden of the Earthly Paradise will be gay
with flowers, but on his first entry into Purgatorio,
where punishment is yet to be endured, no
flowers or bright colours greet his eyes. The
cool green rush, with which it is commanded
that he shall be girt, and the sight of water
the distant trembling of the ocean and the
air of the upper world, cause him sufficient joy
and relief.
He explains clearly the meaning of the rush in
the passage where he tells us that no other plant
but one of a humble and bending nature could
stand the flow of the water, no plant
"... hardened in its stalk
There lives, not bending to the water's sway."
59
THE RUSH
Dante has a particular feeling and appreciation
for the beauties of a river's bank, and some of the
passages where he describes a running stream
are so full of close and graceful observation of
nature as to lead to the idea that they may
have been written on the shores of a stream,
within sight of the little islet on whose oozy
bank, where the wave beats it, stores of rushes
grow, or possibly from some loving memory of
his boyhood.
Later, when he reaches the Earthly Paradise,
again his steps are
"Bounded by a rill, which to the left
With little rippling waters bent the grass
That issued from its brink ..."
This is the river Lethe, and he describes gazing
across its banks to a level meadow filled with
flowers on the opposite shore, as only one
could describe it to whom the scene was a
reality and no dream ; the transparency of the
water and the brown colour it takes from the
shadow of the trees overhead are most true to
nature. In Dante's garden a little river ever
flows " bruna, bruna," beneath the dark shade
of the overhanging foliage, and on its banks
the varying tints of May make perpetual spring-
tide.
60
THE RUSH
When heaven at length is reached, the shadows
disappear, and here
"... I looked,
And in the likeness of a river, saw
Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming waves
Flashed up effulgence, as they glided on
'Twixt banks on either side painted with Spring
Incredible how fair ; and from the tide
There ever and anon, outstarting, flew
Sparkles instinct with life ; and in the flowers
Did set them, like to rubies chased in gold."
"E vidi lume in forma di riviera
Fulvido di fulgore, intra due rive
Dipinte di mirabil primavera.
Di tal fiumana uscian faville vive,
E d'ogni parte si mettean ne' fiori,
Quasi rubini, ch' oro circonscrive."
Par. xxx. 61.
THE VIOLET
"... A hue more faint than rose,
And deeper than the violet .
"Men che di rose, e piu che di viole."
Purg. xxxii. 58.
" "IV /T ORE faint than rose, and deeper than
J.VJ. the violet ! " 1 Dante is speaking in
this place of the colour that the tree of know-
ledge assumed, when it suddenly burst into
flower, in one of his visions in the Terrestrial
Paradise. The word " deeper" signifies less
ethereal, with more of the life-colour, rose or
red, blended with the blue. He describes the
glorious colour of the sky at sunrise, less than
roses, and more than violet; the rose-colour of
the apple-blossom, slowly growing against the
blue of the sky, upon a leafless tree ; the colour
of the thickening shoots, pale mauve in spring,
when a faint blue mist rises, and half-conceals
the close, slender twigs at the top of the trees ;
1 See p. 64.
62
THE VIOLET
or the colour of the sunset, when pink floods the
blue of the darkening heaven.
Dante gazes, enrapt, at this vision of colour,
and, slowly, unearthly music possesses his senses.
He hears a hymn of such rare harmony as never
yet was sung by mortal voices. It seems to him
to blend into the perfect colour. The violet
notes of multitudinous vibration are too ethereal
to be retained by mortal senses, and, unable to
endure it to the end, he sinks into a deep
slumber.
Though it is certain that Dante of the thir-
teenth century could not have known definitely
the theory of colour and vibration, yet it is a curious
instance of the prophetic instinct, nay, inspiration,
of the true poet, which leads him to dream of
music blended into the rich vibrating tints of
violet light, and thus to agree with Mendelssohn,
who in later years held that violet is the supreme
colour of music.
Certain pulsations in the ether produce a faint
appearance of colour, as the harmonies of music
are produced by vibration, and if we could arrive
at the highest and purest notes beyond the
regions of human perception, where only dream-
spirits could follow us, we should be landed in a
heaven of colour, "men che di rose, e piu che
di viole."
63
THE VIOLET
Mendelssohn, the most poetical of musicians,
adopting this idea, playfully called his highest-
stringed instrument, "the Violet," pretending
that with it he could scale the regions where
sound and colour meet.
The violet is dedicated to Orpheus with his
lute, and the legend also leads us into a realm of
music. Dante only mentions Orpheus once in
his Divina Commedia, and then it is to place him
in Limbo as an unbaptized soul, in company with
many other poets and heroes of old.
When Orpheus, with his lute, charmed all the
birds and beasts, and woods and mountains, the
flowers also arose, and danced in a magic circle
round him. And when he sank down, wearied,
upon a bank to sleep, upon the spot where his
enchanted lute had fallen there sprang into bloom
the first violet, which, though the embodiment of
purest music, yet is for ever mute, and nestles
down amidst its leaves, listening to the ever-
lasting harmonies of Nature.
Footnote to p. 62.
Ruskin, Mod. Painters, iii. 226, says with regard to the
colour described by Dante: "The exact hue is that of the
apple-blossom." ... "By taking the rose-leaf as a type of
the delicate red, and then enfeebling this with the violet-
grey, he gets as closely as language can carry him to the
complete rendering of the vision,"
64
THE FIG TREE
"... For amongst ill-savoured crabs
It suits not the sweet fig tree lay her fruit."
"... Che tra li lazzi sorbi
Si disconvien fruttare al dolce fico."
Inferno , XV. 65.
IN the context of the quotation given above,
Dante makes his master, Latini, speak
somewhat bitterly of the way his pupil's work
will probably be received by his contemporaries ;
though he also makes him say
" If thou follow but thy star,
Thou canst not miss at last a glorious haven."
Dante did indeed " follow his star/' and reached
a fame which has not been dimmed by five
intervening centuries.
This is not his only mention of the fig tree, as
in a later canto of the Inferno he alludes to an
E 65
THE FIG TREE
Italian proverb, " A date for a fig," meaning that
every man will receive a due reward of his
works.
The fig tree, sweet and nourishing for food, has
many associations in biblical parable and ancient
story. In the East it is an emblem of home and
plenty. Like the vine upon the walls of a man's
house, the fig tree in his garden suggests prolific
harvests and general prosperity, and the wither-
ing of a fig tree has always been supposed to be
a sign of a coming blight in a man's fortunes.
A late traveller in Afghanistan, on his return to
India, happened to encounter an Afghan chief,
whom he had known in his travels in the North.
In order to remind the Afghan of their former
intercourse, he asked of his well-being, and
reminded him of the little house "under the
fig tree" where he had so kindly entertained
him some years before.
The chief's face fell, and in the simple phrase,
" the fig tree is withered," informed his friend of
his loss of fortune, and how, since their meeting,
his home had broken up and his family had been
scattered.
In Italy, too, the fig tree is regarded as an
emblem of prosperity ; and in the use Dante
makes of it, saying that it ill-suits the sweet
fig tree to lay her fruit among wild crabs, there
66
THE FIG TREE
is a pathetic allusion to his loss of home and the
writing of his great work on alien soil.
The fig tree has been known to live to an
extraordinary age. There are many fig trees
famous for their life of centuries, and the fruit
is not supposed to deteriorate but rather improve
with the age of the tree.
On the shores of the Adriatic are many places
celebrated for their wonderful figs. A curious
tale is told of one, which, like the submerged
forest of Chiassi, may be seen at clear tides
beneath the sea. The fishermen say that if a
man could dive and obtain a fig from this tree
he would see a vision of the end of the world.
The tree is supposed to have grown on rocky
ground some distance from the coast, and during
a volcanic eruption to have been submerged, and
only discovered many years after by a belated
fisherman on a clear summer night. He was
rowing home over the pellucid waters of the
Adriatic, tired after a long day's fishing, when
he perceived a white seagull, or some miraculous
white bird, continually diving over a certain spot
in the sea not far distant from his boat. At
length the bird, after many apparently futile
attempts, came up to the surface of the water
with something round in its beak, and the fisher-
man, overcome with curiosity, determined to
67
THE FIG TREE
ascertain what this might be. He decoyed the
bird by throwing fish after fish into the sea on the
farther side of his boat, and as the bird, attracted
by the glistening scales of the fish, turned to dive
for them, it dropped the round object into the
water. The fisherman speedily possessed himself
of it, and on examining it discovered it to be a
fig of a remarkably large size, ripe and luscious.
He rowed to the spot where the bird had
been diving, and perceived beneath the water
a magnificent fig tree laden with fruit. Sea
anemones and star fish had made their homes in
its branches, and red and white coral adorned its
roots. He tasted the fig, and instantly fell into
a trance, in which state he was taken by an angel
and shown a miraculous vision, in which it was
revealed to him that at the end of the world the
souls of the blest would find themselves on an
island in the centre of the Adriatic, where they
would await a final consummation of events.
The world appeared to him coated with an
awful covering of ice and snow. No trees,
plants, or life of any kind remained upon it.
The rivers were frozen, and even the sea 110
longer washed its icy coasts ; only on the glorious
island and in the Adriatic all was as usual. The
sun rose daily in the east, the sunset dyed the
heavens with brilliant colours, and the clear waters
68
THE FIG TREE
washed its shores. The island was supported
upon the branches of the submerged fig tree,
and as the chill of the frozen world sent an
occasional icy blast over its waving foliage, he
perceived that it slowly rose from the waters
and was received into Paradise with all its
inhabitants.
The fisherman, overcome with amazement,
recovered from his swoon to find his boat still
rocking upon the clear waves of the Adriatic, a
brilliant moon overhead, and the night far
advanced. Delighted at discovering the world
still as he had left it, and the warm Southern
breeze fanning his cheeks, he rowed home, and
afterwards spent many weeks trying to discover
the wonderful island of his vision. Neither it
nor the fig tree has ever been seen since, but this
story is a favourite tradition amongst the fisher-
men of the neighbourhood, and sometimes a
fisher-lad will come home and excuse the paucity
of his catch by saying, " I saw and followed the
white bird, but discovered nothing, and have
come home with neither fig nor fish."
69
THE PINE
"... From branch to branch
Along the piny forests on the shore
Of Chiassi, rolls the gathering melody
When Eolus hath from his cavern loosed
The southern winds ..."
". . . Di ramo in ramo si raccoglie
Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi,
Quand Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie."
Purg. xxviii. 19.
DANTE says that in the early morning, as he
wandered in the wood which led to the
Terrestrial Paradise, the little birds were all
twittering to welcome dawn in the tops of the
trees, and the rustling of the morning wind
amongst the leaves "made a burden to their
song." He compares the rustling of the wind to
the wonderful sound only to be realised by those
who have heard it of a heavy wind in a large
forest extending over many miles of country, as
he had himself heard it during his stay with
70
THE PINE
Guido da Polenta in the limitless pine woods of
Chiassi.
The sound is extraordinary. An Eolian harp
playing wild melodies mingled with the soft
brooding tone of an under-harmony, gathering in
intensity in the far distance of the inner forest,
would make a wonderful " burden " to the happy
wakening shrill twitter of the little feathered
denizens of the woods ; and the soul of the poet
Dante would strangely respond to the depths of
Nature's passion, underlying the simple joy of
mere existence in her children.
The pine tree, with its stately height and re-
sinous fragrance, shares with the fir many ancient
traditions. A legend of Sicily records that the
Saviour and His mother on their flight into Egypt
were saved from Herod's soldiers by taking refuge
in the shelter of a pine, which miraculously
opened and formed walls around them until the
danger was passed. The infant Saviour raised
His hand to bless the tree, and from that time
the form of a hand has always been apparent in
the interior of the fruit, when cut straight through.
For this reason the Sicilians hold the pine cone
in great reverence.
Dante mentions a pine cone in the 31st
canto of the Inferno, when he speaks of the large
bronze pine " that tops St. Peter's Roman fane,"
THE PINE
which once ornamented the mole of Adrian, and
being cast down by lightning, was placed on the
belfry of St. Peter's Church.
A wreath of pine was a reward in the Isthmian
games, and Ovid crowns his fauns with pine.
This tree is dedicated in classical story to Cybele
(or Rhea), the mother of the gods. Rhea loved
Atys, a Phrygian shepherd, and gave to him the
care of her temple in order that he might live in
celibacy and serve her. Atys, unfortunately, fell
in love with a nymph of the woods ; and Rhea,
infuriated with jealousy, changed him into a pine
tree, under whose shade she sat and mourned,
until Jupiter, to console her, decreed that the
tree should always remain green.
Ovid says
"To Rhea grateful still the pine remains,
For Atys still some favour she retains.
He once in human shape her breast had warmed,
And now is cherished as a tree transformed ! "
THE PASSION FLOWER
" One tells how at Christ's suffering the wan moon
Bent back her steps, and shadowed o'er the sun
With intervenient disk, as she withdrew."
" Un dice, chela Luna si ritorse
Nella passion di Cristo, e s'interpose,
Per che'l lume del Sol giu non si porse. "
Par. xxix. 97.
WHEN Dante uses the word "passion" in
connection with Christ, he uses it to
express our Lord's sufferings on the cross ; and in
this way the word has been commonly employed
in the title of the passion flower, which the legend
tells us climbed the cross and spread its tendrils
round the spots where the nails had been driven
through the hands and feet of our Blessed Lord.
The passion flower is dedicated to St. Francis of
Assisi, or rather to his bride, Dame Poverty. In
many of our lonely country places it is always
called the "poor flower." Indeed, this is its
73
THE PASSION FLOWER
general name amongst the unlettered and fast-
dying-out generation of those who keep alive the
ancient legends by the unfailing traditions handed
down from mouth to mouth amongst the people.
The countryman cuts its straggling sprays away
from the sunny side of his cottage porch, and
trains its delicate tendrils. He looks curiously at
the flower, and sees the nails, the hammer, the
soldier's lance, the five wound-prints, and the
crown of thorns all clearly marked upon its face,
and lifts the long tendrils that recall to him the
ropes with which our Saviour was bound. But
when his child asks him its name, he does not
call it the " passion flower," but the " poor
flower," and thus recalls, unconsciously, its later
story, connected with St. Francis of Assisi and his
bride Dame Poverty, and the little wood where
St. Francis had so many of his marvellous visions,
when rapt away in ecstatic communion with
heaven.
In one of these visions St. Francis saw his
bride, the Lady Poverty, standing beneath a
luminous apparition of the cross, and as he beheld
her she stretched her arms upwards, and gradually
became transformed into the image of a passion
flower, that grew up the stem and twined round
the arms of the cross, covering each hole caused
by the nails with a gleaming blossom.
74
THE PASSION FLOWER
St. Francis loved the passion flower, as he
loved his bride, Dame Poverty, and after his
death it was always associated with his name.
Dante, to whom all these ancient stories were
familiar, speaks of the bride of St. Francis as
" The dame . . . whom Francis did make his,
Before the spiritual court, by nuptial bonds ; "
and doubtless had not forgotten the legend of
the passion flower when he adds
" With Christ she mounted to the cross,
While Mary stood beneath."
"... Dove Maria rimase giuso,
Ella con Cristo salse in sulla croce." 1
Dante stands in his visionary garden before the
drooping passion flowers. The early morning dew
yet lies upon them, and he dreams of Dame
Poverty and the flowers that twined around the
cross.
1 Par, xi. 71.
75
THE OAK
"... Good beginnings last not
From the oak's birth, unto the acorn's setting."
" Che giu non basta buon cominciamento
Dal nascer della quercia al far la ghianda."
Par. xxii. 86.
DANTE employs the oak in an unusual sense,
original and unconventional. He does
not mention it as an emblem of strength or
enduring power, but rather as he had gleaned
impressions of it from his readings in the classics,
where it is continually mentioned as the mother
of mankind.
He is speaking of the weakness of human reso-
lution, and it seems to occur to him as an
additional reproach that born of so stalwart a
parent as the oak, a man should not be able to
make his good resolutions hold out from the oak's
birth even to the bearing of its first acorn.
76
THE OAK
Virgil speaks of
" The nymphs and fauns and savage men who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak." 1
And Juvenal in his sixth Satire, speaking of the
beginning of the world, says that the human race
were formed of clay, or born of the opening oak.
The ancients believed that as the oak was the
progenitor of mankind, so, as a mother sustains her
offspring from herself, the oak was bound to pro-
vide food and nourishment for the world. Ovid
tells us that the simple food of the primal races
consisted of acorns dropping from the tree of
Jove, and Homer and Hesiod both say that the
acorn was the common food of the Arcadians.
In Italy and Southern Europe the primitive
people dwelling in forests subsisted almost entirely
upon the fruit of the oak, and Dante, looking
upon it from the point of view of Italian tradition,
uses it as a type of growing life, and a parable of
time.
Beneath the spreading branches of the oak he
seems to stand, and survey life from the point of
view of the philosopher who would fain base his
judgment upon the earliest beginnings of things.
It is in Paradise where this simile of the oak
occurs to him, where human nature is raised and
1 Mneid, viii. 314-15.
77
THE OAK
glorified, where, but a few lines farther on, he
speaks of the Holy Triumph to which he hopes
one day to return, that he seems to remember
with a pitying tenderness the early ignorant
fables of the origin of human life, and to bewail
the degeneration in the strength of human will,
since the days when the early stalwart races of the
world imagined that they took their origin from
the mighty oaks of primeval forests.
LEGENDS
It is curious to note how the old Grecian belief
in the sacred and supernatural character of the
oak has lingered in Italy.
Professor de Gubernatus tells us that only
about five-and-twenty years ago, a young peasant
girl in the Campagna of Rome sought refuge
beneath an oak during a terrific thunderstorm,
and prayed to the Madonna to turn the lightning
aside. A beautiful lady appeared in answer to
her supplication, and stayed with her whilst
the storm lasted, during which time no rain
fell upon the oak, and the storm seemed to
remove itself from their neighbourhood, though
they could see it raging at a short distance round
78
THE OAK
them. This miracle was reported to the cure of
the district, who examined into it, and arranged
that the shepherdess should be received into a
convent, where, after an interval of preparation,
she was eventually canonised.
A story of the same kind is told of a Tuscan
shepherdess two centuries earlier, who was
canonised under the name of Giovanna di Signa.
In the district of Signa, near Genestra, her sacred
oak is still shown by the villagers, who kneel and
adore it. According to the legend, it sprang
from Giovanna's crook, which she drove into the
ground during a severe storm, calling all the
shepherds and shepherdesses who were out with
her to take shelter under it. A little chapel
now stands on this spot, and the oak tree over-
shadowing it has the miraculous habit of throwing
down everyone who attempts to climb it, though
it will permit pious people to cut small twigs,
which they carry home to their houses as a
protection from the effects of storms, provided at
the same time they call on the name of their
patron saint or the Blessed Virgin.
We cannot credit Dante with a knowledge of
these later traditions about the oak, but from the
earliest times, when Virgil wrote of Jove's tree,
whose roots descended to the infernal regions, 1
1 JEneid, Book iv.
79
THE OAK
tradition and legend have, hovered around its
hoary trunk. People have crept through to cure
themselves of diseases, or pegged locks of their
hair to " cross-oaks " to rid themselves of ague,
or even fed their horses with oak buttons in order
to change the colour of their coats, and supersti-
tion has played riot with these mighty trees from
the days when the Dryads and Hamadryads made
them their homes.
The oak has certainly a place in Dante's
garden, and lends the shelter of its time-honoured
traditions to the many graceful flowers of poesy
and fancy growing around its mossy roots.
80
SYRINX AND THE REED
"... Had I the skill
To pencil forth how closed the unpitying eyes
Slumbering, when Syrinx warbled (eyes that paid
So dearly for their watching) ..."
" S'io potessi ritrar come assonnaro
Gli occhi spietati, udendo di Siringa,
Gli occhi, a cui piu vegghiar costo si caro. "
Purg. xxxii. 64.
ONCE more on the shores of the little rill
that flows through Dante's garden we
are greeted by a story of the river grasses.
Syrinx fled from Pan to the river's edge, where
she was changed into a reed, from which Pan
made his pipes.
Sometimes at night, when the wind rustles
through the slender reeds sighing in the water,
one can fancy that a faint sound of music stirs
their flute-like stems. Pan, concealed in the
scented river-sedge, is playing upon his pipes,
F 81
SYRINX AND THE REED
and awakening the echoes of the night with
lamentations for his lost Syrinx.
The story of the Syrinx would well lend itself
to song ; and Dante mentions it, to express to his
readers how his own senses became sweetly over-
powered, and he sank into a slumber, as Argos did,
when Mercury sang him to sleep with the legend
of the Syrinx.
Argos, of the hundred eyes, had been given the
beautiful nymph lo to watch and keep, and
during his slumber she was stolen from him. So
entrancing was Mercury's song about Syrinx that
he forgot all his vigilance, and paid dearly for his
neglect with the loss of his eyes, which Juno
placed in the tail of her favourite peacock.
Dante alludes to this double story at the
moment when, after his wondrous vision of the
tree of knowledge, he falls into a deep slumber,
overcome by light, colour, music, and the tense
strain of interest. He says that if he had the
skill to portray how Argos fell asleep listening to
the story of the Syrinx, he could express, "like
painter that with model paints," l the manner in
which his own mind was slowly drawn from all
present things, and sweet sleep absorbed the
music in his soul.
1 Purg. xxxii. 67.
82
APPLE-BLOSSOM
" The blossoming of that fair tree, whose fruit
Is coveted by angels, and doth make
Perpetual feast in heaven ..."
" . . . Li fioretti del melo,
Che del suo pomo gli Angeli fa ghiotti
E perpetue nozze fa nel cielo."
Purg. xxxii. 73.
IN this most beautiful canto of Purgatorio,
Dante describes the blossoming of the
apple tree in the garden of the Earthly Paradise,
and the wondrous colour of the tender petals of
the apple-blossom against the sky.
The apple tree has always had a mystic signi-
ficance, in the classics its fruit is regarded as
an emblem of felicity, and the attaining of the
apple a symbol of bliss. Juno presents Jupiter
with golden apples which are kept in the gardens
of the Hesperides, and guarded by a dragon.
To Venus the apple is dedicated ; there is the
83
APPLE-BLOSSOM
fable of Atalanta and the golden apples which she
stooped to pick up, and thus lost her race ; and
the legend of the fatal apple cast by Discordia
into the council of the gods, which, adjudged
to Venus, caused the ruin of Troy.
The possession of the apple signifies bliss ; the
desire and struggle for it cause infinite misfortune.
And so in sacred lore whence these ancient
fables take their origin, the apple so desirable
a fruit in itself is the cause of the loss of
Paradise.
In an earlier canto of Purgatorio, Dante speaks
of that tree
"... by which Christ was led
To call on Eli, joyful when He paid
Our ransom from His vein . . . !>1
The tree which had caused our first parents to
sin, and thus had brought a curse upon their
descendants, which Christ expiated upon the
cross.
St. Dorothea is always represented in old pic-
tures with a basket of apples and roses in her
hand, and this on account of the legend, which
relates that, when she was on her way to execu-
tion, Theophilus, a lawyer, scoffed at her, saying,
"When you reach Paradise, you may send me
1 Purg. xxiii. 74.
84
APPLE-BLOSSOM
some of the fruits and flowers which you say you
will find there."
St. Dorothea replied, " I will do as you desire,
O Theophilus." She immediately knelt down
and prayed, and a beautiful boy appeared beside
her, with a basket in his hand containing three
magnificent roses, more exquisite than any ever
seen on earth, and three large apples. Dorothea
turned to him and said, "Take these to Theo-
philus, and tell him that I shall await him in the
garden of Paradise, where these flowers and fruits
were plucked."
She then bent her neck to the executioner,
and the angel-boy went to Theophilus with the
message and the present.
Theophilus was overcome with wonder and
amazement. He tasted the apples, and touched
the heavenly roses, and by the efficacy of the
miracle, becoming converted to Christianity, he
also obtained the crown of martyrdom, and
thus followed St. Dorothea to the celestial
gardens.
Dante's description of the apple tree in the
garden of Paradise leads us once more to his
boyhood, and his early acquaintance with the
child Beatrice. There is a savour of this sim-
plicity of childhood in the words he utters, when,
awakened from his trance, and looking around for
85
APPLE-BLOSSOM
the star that had guided him so far, he exclaims,
" Where is Beatrice ? "
She is pointed out to him seated on the root
of the apple tree, "beneath the fresh leaf," 1 with
the " associate choir " of angels surrounding her,
and the air full of melody and song.
Surely with the melody of the birds above her
and the song of spring in his heart, he had so
seen her in the garden of his innocence and
childhood, while the fresh apple-blossom fell and
rested upon her hair !
1 Purg. xxxii. 86.
86
THE MYRTLE
" A myrtle garland to enwreathe my brow. "
" Le tempie ornar di mirto."
Purg. xxi. 90.
THE myrtle derives its name from Myrtilus,
the son of Mercury, who was changed into
a myrtle bush for treachery to his master.
Myrtilus served Oenomaus as chariot-driver.
Oenomaus, proud of his own skill, made known
that he would give his beautiful daughter, Hip-
podamia, to any suitor who could win a chariot-
race against himself.
The treacherous Myrtilus, bribed by Pelops,
who had entered for the competition, withdrew
the pin from his master's chariot-wheel. Oeno-
maus was killed, and Pelops obtained the hand
of the fair Hippodamia ; but to avenge this act
of perfidy he threw Myrtilus into the sea. The
waves refused to receive the body of the traitor,
87
THE MYRTLE
and cast it upon the shore, where it was changed
into a bush, that ever after bore the name of the
perfidious Myrtilus.
The temple of Venus at Rome was surrounded
by a myrtle grove, and the Greeks adored Venus
under the title of Myrtila, who, when she arose
from the waves, was presented by the Hours with
a scarf of many colours and a wreath of myrtle.
The myrtle tree is considered the emblem of
immortality, but the ancients are said to have
regarded its berries as a type of perfidy. When
other trees have lost their foliage in the frosts of
winter, the myrtle remains green, to remind us
that life may yet lie hidden in the lap of death.
It adorns the brow of the poet, as a type of
immortal fame, and has been employed by some
writers as an emblem of Love, since where it
grows it excludes all other plants.
The name of Poet,
"That name most lasting and most honour'd,"
" Quel nome che piu dura, e piu onora," 1
was Dante's own. Yet he only mentions the
myrtle once in his Divina Commedia, and then it
is to say that the brow of the poet Statius should
have been adorned with it, in that charming
1 Purg. xxi. 85.
88
THE MYRTLE
scene where, betrayed by the lightning of a
smile, Virgil makes himself known to his fellow-
poet, and Statius attempts to embrace him, for-
getting that they are both but unsubstantial shades.
Dante's thoughts do not often turn to the
mythological fables of the myrtle tree. The love
he bears to Beatrice strong, tender, and bitter
is not a passion to play with. It drives him from
the myths of heathen tradition to the reality
of his deepest religious convictions. We never
find him comparing his love for Beatrice to any
affection inspired by a thought of Venus' myrtle
grove, but rather to the Blessed Virgin and the
rose of Paradise.
More probable is it that, when he paused
before his myrtle tree, his thoughts may have
recurred to the legend of St. Dominic, to whom
he so often alludes in the course of his poem, and
about whom there is a charming little stoiy con-
nected with the myrtle.
When St. Dominic was a child, his nurse gave
him a myrtle bush, which he kept in an . earthen
vase on the floor of his chamber, and treasured
highly.
Dante tells us that often in the watches of
the night his nurse would come and find the
little Dominic out of bed, and kneeling at his
devotions when all the household slept.
89
THE MYRTLE
One night, when thus engaged in prayer, the
thought came to him that he must offer up his
treasured plant, and obey the words of his Lord,
who said, "Sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor."
The following morning Dominic took his little
plant out into the streets, and offered it to many
passers-by. But they all smiled at the child, and
rejected his sacrifice. At length a lady, clad in
a dark-green robe, stopped him, and asked the
price of the flower.
" I will sell it for a warm, thick cloak and two
pairs of shoes," said the little Dominic. " Other-
wise I cannot part from it."
" But what do you want with these ? " said the
lady, and added, " Come with me, and I will show
you where we will take it."
They passed through many streets, and at
length arrived at the door of a house, where
they knocked, and a feeble voice inside bid them
enter. By the window, on a little couch, lay a
sick child, alone, and pale with suffering. Her
eyes were bright and beautiful, and were fixed
upon a dead flower in a broken vase by her bed-
side. She turned them as her visitors entered,
and Dominic saw for the first time the light of
approaching heaven in the eyes of a child the
look of one who is about to leave the earth, and
90
THE MYRTLE
to whom earthly things have become of small
moment.
He approached the little bed, and, bending
over her, showed her the plant.
" I have brought you a flower/' he said, smiling,
to her.
The child looked at the plant, and then at St.
Dominic. A faint flush came into her cheeks, but
she said nothing.
" It is the plant of Immortality," he continued,
" and when you look at it you will remember that
you can never die. When you grow too tired to
see it clearly, the angels will come and carry you
up to heaven in your sleep, where many myrtles
bloom, and other flowers."
St. Dominic kissed the child, and went out
with the lady into the street. She conducted
him back the way they had come ; but no sooner
had they arrived at the streets and squares known
to him, than he suddenly found himself alone
his strange guide had disappeared, and he went
on his way musing deeply.
That night the little Dominic lay awake, and
prayed till dawn.
THE FIR
"... And as a fir
Upward from bough to bough less ample spreads."
" E come abete in alto si digrada
Di ramo in ramo ..."
Purg. xxii. 133.
THE fir tree is the king of the forest, as the
birch is considered the queen. Dante
compares a tree he sees during his journey in
Purgatory, which was stately and "pleasant to
the smell," to a fir tree, and describes a stream
flowing near it to have been of " liquid crystal "-
thus carrying on his simile by conveying the mind
of the reader to the dry rocky soil and clean sand
of the high places where firs abound. In this
vision he has just been listening to the conversa-
tion of the two poets whom he most admired,
Virgil and Statius, whose speech conveyed to his
thoughts " mysterious lessons of sweet poesy/'
92
THE FIR
and here his poetry rises to a high pitch of grace
and eloquence in the little sermon on self-denial
given forth by the stately tree whose form and
fragrance reminded him of the fir.
Professor de Gubematus tells a story of a fir
tree which stood by itself at Tarssok in Russia,
and was much revered by the country people.
Many trees growing solitary have been the objects
of a regard almost like heathen worship amongst
the superstitious and uneducated, and this fir tree,
which had withstood storm and lightning for
several hundred years, had become an object of
great reverence to the Russian peasants living
near it. At length, in a gale of wind, it fell, and
great was the lamentation of the neighbourhood.
The owner of the soil refused to make any profit
from its trunk, which was eventually sold, and the
money given to the Church.
Gerade writes of firs growing in Cheshire
"since Noah's flood," which were at that time
" overturned," and the people now find them
beneath the soil, and in marshy places, and use
them for fir-wood or fire-wood.
The resinous fir, like the pine, with its fragrant
smell and stately form, was dear to the soul of the
poet, and Dante alludes to it with the tender
touch of a graceful and appreciative fancy.
93
THE NARCISSUS
'The mirror of Narcissus."
" Lo specchio di Narcisso."
Inferno, XXX. 128.
THE narcissus is dedicated to the vain youth,
beloved by Echo, who gazed at his own
image in the fountain, and was changed into the
flower that bears his name ever after to bend
over the mirror in self-contemplation. The cup
in the centre of the flower contains the " tears of
Narcissus/' as Virgil remarks, when speaking of
the bees who gather their honey from these early
spring blossoms
"Some placing within the house the tears of Narcissus." 1
There is something curiously botli repellent and
attractive about this flower. Its perfume is
* Georgic, iv.
94
THE NARCISSUS
powerful and narcotic, but after the first short
ecstasy of pleasure it soon palls upon the senses.
The narcissus is supposed to have been the
flower employed by Pluto to entice Proserpine
down into the infernal regions
". . . In that season, when her child
The Mother lost ; and she, the bloomy Spring."
" . . . Nel tempo che perdette
La madre lei, ed ella primavera. "*
And Sophocles alludes to it as the garland of
Proserpine.
In the North no bride may wear it in her wed-
ding wreath, lest she bring ill-luck upon the first
year of her married life.
Yet the narcissus appears at a first glance one
of the most exquisite of flowers. It rises from the
earth in the early summer, and the purity of its
delicate white petals contrasting with the deep
red slender ring in the centre, its wonderful per-
fume, and the grace with which its head is poised
upon a slender stem, all combine to produce a
sensation of wonder and admiration.
Surely it might dispute the palm even with the
lily. Yet it has seldom been able to excite in the
breast of any poets sentiments other than those
of a purely earthly affection. Its name never
1 Purg. xxviii. 50-
95
THE NARCISSUS
occurs at all in sacred allegory ; and Dante, who
has an unfailing perception in such matters, first
alludes to it in his Inferno, where he makes the
wretched soul of an impostor, who is railing upon
a companion in misfortune, exclaim
"... No urging wouldst thou need
To make thee lap Narcissus' mirror up ! ;> 1
And in the Paradiso, where he again quotes the
fable, he only uses it as a contrast, saying that he
is seized with a " delusion opposite to that which
raised between the man and fountain amorous
flame ! " 2 For in the heaven of the moon where
he has arrived, the images he sees are real, not
imaginary, though he fell into the error of mis-
taking them at first for reflected semblances.
These images so faintly seen by Dante are the
souls of those who had been compelled on earth
to violate religious vows, and Beatrice says of
them, " Now no longer will their feet stray from
the desires of purity they had conceived upon
earth."
In the legend of Proserpine, who was enticed
by Pluto into the Inferno, we are told that the
ravishing perfume of the narcissus so stupefied
Ceres' senses that she did not perceive her
daughter's danger ; and the narcotic so dulled
1 Inf. XXX. 128. - Par. iij. 1 8.
96
THE NARCISSUS
the senses of the lovely nymph herself, that, laden
with armfuls of the fateful flower, she presented
herself at the very gates of Dis.
In Sir Frederic Leighton's picture, where
Proserpine is rescued again from the depths of
the earth, Ceres as Mother Earth stands above,
with outstretched arms, to welcome her ; and Pro-
serpine is represented as coming up like a spring
flower, with the pale tints of the mauve crocus,
the dainty primrose, and the white narcissus in
her floating robes.
Dante knew well that the narcissus belongs of
right to the earth, the rose and lily to Paradise.
THE BRIAR-ROSE
" Nel giallo della rosa sempiterna."
Par. xxx. 124.
IN Dante's garden are roses of every colour,
red, white, and yellow, and the red briar
(Southern sister to the wild-rose of our English
country hedges) deserves a special mention, as
Dante is the only poet who has ever accurately
described its wonderfully brilliant gold and flame
colour.
When Beatrice first appears to him, after his
ascent into Purgatory, he describes her as
" Vestita di color di fiamma viva," 1
clad in a robe the colour of living flame ! Can
anyone read this line who has ever seen the
blossom of the Southern briar-rose with its pale
gold beneath the petals, and wondrous flame
1 Purg. xxx. 33.
THE BRIAR-ROSE
colour above without a vivid picture of the flower
arising at once in his mind's eye ?
I have always imagined that Beatrice appears
to Dante in this vision clad in one continuous
petal of this beautiful flower. The scene is laid in
the open air, under a roseate sky. Angelic hands
are scattering flowers around her. Dante who
here draws his similes from Nature is not think-
ing of a devouring fire in the colour in which he
arrays her : that would be alien to the whole
picture. He is thinking of a flame-coloured flower
sheltered in green foliage (" sotto verde manto "),
such as he may often have seen in the garden of
his fancy.
Certainly colours have their mystic significance
for him, red for Love, and green for Hope, but
in this vision the flowers are more to him than
their colours. He clothes Beatrice in the very
flower that to him represents the Blessed Virgin,
as he imagines her to be clothed in Divine Love.
The Southern briar-rose should at least have a
place in his garden, if for no other reason than
that Dante has clad his Beatrice, and Nature her
queen of flowers, for one occasion and in one
variety, with the self-same colour of living flame.
99
THE PALM
" For that he beareth palm
Down unto Mary, when the Son of God
Vouchsafed to clothe Him in terrestrial weeds."
" Egli e quegli, che porto la palma
Giu a Maria, quanclo'l Figliuol di Dio
Carcar si voile della nostra salma."
Par. xxxii. I iz.
" For the cause
That one brings home his staff
Enwreathed with palm."
' . . . Per quello
Che si reca il bordon di palma cinto."
Purg. xxxiii. 77.
SACRED writers, when wishing to describe
what is beautiful and full of dignity and
service, have continually employed the palm as a
typical emblem of majesty and rectitude. King
David's promise to the just is that he shall grow
100
THE PALM
up and flourish as a young palm tree ; and as
with the Jews, so in the Christian Church, it was
always a symbol of triumph. At the feast oi
tabernacles branches of palm were carried in
the synagogues, and the children waved it on
Christ's triumphal entrance into Jerusalem.
So whenever Dante employs the palm it is as an
emblem of joy and grace. The Angel Gabriel
"beareth palm down to Mary/' and the pilgrim
returns home in triumph from the Holy Land with
his staff eiiwreathed with palm.
The branches of palm brought home by pil-
grims from Palestine were highly treasured by
their possessors, and were supposed to be safe-
guards against robbers, diseases, the evil eye, and
all the many ills flesh was more specially heir to
in the turbulent Middle Ages.
A palmer from Palestine, on his way back to
Italy, spent the night with other pilgrims at a
small hostel in the plains, beneath the glorious
Alps, which he had just, at imminent risk of
life, surmounted with his companions.
He was worn to a shadow, his garb tattered
and travel-stained, but the light of triumph and
achievement illumined his countenance.
On awakening in the morning after their first
night in the fruitful plains of their native land,
a report reached the pilgrim troupe that fever, in
THE PALM
a specially virulent form, had broken out in an
adjoining village. The pilgrims hurriedly broke
up their camp and started southwards, to reach
their homes by different routes ; but the aged
palmer inquired of their informant if there was
any priest to give aid and consolation to the
dying in the distressed village, or any Christian
man to nurse and attend on them.
On hearing that two friars of the order of St.
Francis, who had come to their assistance, had
themselves succumbed to the disease, the palmer
took his staff and hurried instantly to the scene
of action. Here he diligently nursed the infected
cases ; but in every instance, on entering a house,
his first action was to wave his treasured palm
branch over the heads of all the inmates not yet
infected with the disease, who in no instance,
after this ceremony, were attacked by it.
The sick kissed it and were speedily healed,
and on the cessation of the fever in the village a
public thanksgiving was offered to God for the
benefits wrought through His faithful pilgrim
servant, by the branch of the sacred palm brought
with so many hardships and sufferings from the
Holy Land.
This legend is only one out of many with which
Dante may have been acquainted, and which
may have helped to clothe the palm in his mind
102
THE PALM
with all the joyous attributes he associates with it.
In another stoiy of the twelfth century, brigands
are supposed to have fallen prostrate around a
band of noble pilgrims they had attacked, at the
sight of the holy branches from the East, and
on kissing the palms with reverence, this further
act of grace induced them to give up their lawless
lives and return to peaceable citizenship.
Beatrice in speaking to Dante, when she is
conducting him through the latter part of Pur-
gatory towards Paradise, tells him that since his
understanding is still hardened by contact with
the world, and he is too dazzled by the mysteries
she is revealing to him to understand them fully
as yet, he must try and carry back with him to
earth the imprint of her words upon his mind,
to prove where he has been, as the pilgrim carries
home the sacred trophy of the palm enwreathed
around his staff.
103
THE VINE
" E'en thou went'st forth in poverty and hunger
To set the goodly plant, that from the Vine
It once was, now is grown unsightly bramble/'
" Che tu entrasti povero e digiuno
In campo a seminar la buona pianta,
Che fu gia vite, ed ora e fatta pruno."
Par. xxiv. 109.
IN the lines quoted above, Dante speaks to St.
Peter, whom he encounters in Paradise, about
that " goodly plant " the Church, which was started
in poverty and hunger, and " from the Vine it once
was," had become so full of corruptions. St.
Peter is examining him on the subject of faith,
and Dante, well versed in the tenets of the Church,
seems to pass through this trying ordeal with
satisfaction.
The vine that grows in his garden is a wondrous
and mystic plant. It is the very incarnation of
the Christian faith, the emblem of Christ Himself,
104
THE VINE
and the boughs and leaves and tendrils are the
grafted body of the faithful.
Dante says that St. Dominic
"... did set himself
To go about the vineyard . . . " l
that is, to work in Christ's garden, and the vine is
continually used by him as a type of the Christian
Church.
For legend or stoiy connected with it we must
refer to biblical lore. In the New Testament it is
more frequently mentioned than any other plant,
and it is from thence that Dante would have
drawn most of his ideas and similes. In Italy
the people have a superstitious reverence for a
vine, and consider that in its shelter no harm
or danger can affect them. A little child has
been seen to run and hold up its arms to the
shelter of a drooping vine when pursued by a
companion, and in playful fear. The pursuer
might not follow with harmful intent to the
shelter of the vine, though when outside again
the romp was renewed. The peasant mother
standing by remarked that this was " a sacred
tree," and made the sign of the cross when
alluding to it. In Lombardy the peasants make
small crosses of the wood of the vine, and hold
1 Par. xii. 86.
105
THE VINE
them in special reverence. The bacchanalian
rites of old, with wild ceremonies and mad in-
toxication, have given place to Christian teaching,
and even the vine has become the symbol of
self-restraint, and is made into an emblem of
suffering and renunciation, as the will rolls onward
towards better things, " by love impelled."
106
THE
STAR OF BETHLEHEM
" And Truth was manifested as a star in heaven."
" E come Stella in cielo, il ver si vide."
Par. xxviii. 87.
THE star of Bethlehem beloved and trea-
sured flower in thousands of our cottage
gardens is well known by all the country-folk to
be the lineal descendant of that star which once
appeared in the East, to proclaim in the birth
of the Saviour the greatest Truth that earth has
ever known.
The mysterious appearance and disappearance
of this star has given rise to poetical legends
without end.
Some say that it fled away like a meteor into
space, to reappear at the second coming of Christ ;
107
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM
and some, that it sank to the earth and burst
into constellations of myriads of white starry
flowers around the stable door where the infant
Saviour lay. It is horological, never unfolding
its petals before eleven o'clock in the morning,
and is very abundant in the neighbourhood of
Samaria.
Each blossom is encircled with leaves of a
dazzling whiteness, and the flower has always
borne the name of the " Star of Bethlehem."
"In the morning," saith the legend, "Joseph,
the foster-father of the fair Babe, went forth
in the yet flickering dawn to meditate upon
his wondrous visions of the night. At his feet
as if planted by angel hands the starry
splendour of a hundred white blossoms blazed
forth.
"The star, also, had come to earth, unable
to remain in the spangled glory of the sky,
when its Creator lay humbled as a human babe
beneath.
" St. Joseph gathered the flowers and brought
them in to the Blessed Virgin. ' Behold,' he
said, f the Star from the East hath fallen and
multiplied before Him ! ' '
Reared from his boyhood in the devout and
poetical imagery of ancient Church tradition,
stories such as these must often have passed
108
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM
through the mind of Dante when he walked
in the fair garden of his childhood, before his
feet had strayed into the dark forest of maturer
life.
No poet has ever loved the stars more than
Dante the stars for which Beatrice so soon
forsook this lower life.
Each of the three great divisions of his Divina
Commedia ends with a reference to the stars. The
last word of the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Para-
diso is "stelle."
He speaks of the " morning star/' l of the
stars, those " glorious and thick-studded gems " 2
that like costly jewels inlay the sky, and
of Truth that was "manifested as a star in
heaven." 3
When he has reached the empyrean, and sees
the souls of the blest adoring in the actual pre-
sence of God, he exclaims
" . . . O trinal beam
Of individual Star, that charm'st them thus,
Vouchsafe one glance to gild our storm below ! "
" O, trina luce ! Che in unica Stella
Scintillando a lor vista si gli appaga,
Guarda quaggiu, alia nostra procella ! " 4
1 Par. xxxii. 108. 2 Par. xviii. 115.
3 Par. xxviii. 87. * Par. xxxi. 18.
109
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM
The birth of the Saviour is also a subject upon
which Dante loves to linger. He says
" We stood, immovably suspended ; like to those.
The shepherds, who first heard in Bethlehem's field
That song ; till ceased the trembling, and the song
Was ended ..."
" Noi stavamo immobili e sospesi,
Come i pastor che prima udir quel canto,
Fin che il tremar cesso, ed ei compiesi." 1
1 Purg. xx. 139.
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