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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