84. It is impossible to bring into any tenable compass for our present
purpose, even hints of the human influence of the two remaining orders of
Amaryllids and Irids; only note this generally, that while these in
northern countries share with the Primulas the fields of spring, it seems
that in Greece, the primulaceae are not an extended tribe, while the
crocus, narcissus, and Amaryllis lutea, the "lily of the field" (I
suspect also that the flower whose name we translate "violet" was in
truth an iris) represented to the Greek the first coming of the breath of
life on the renewed herbage; and became in his thoughts the true
embroidery of the saffron robe of Athena. Later in the year, the
dianthus (which, though belonging to an entirely different race of
plants, has yet a strange look of being made out of the grasses by
turning the sheath-membrane at the root of their leaves into a flower)
seems to scatter, in multitudinous families, its crimson stars far and
wide. But the golden lily and crocus, together with the asphodel, retain
always the old Greek's fondest thoughts,--they are only "golden" flowers
that are to burn on the trees, and float on the streams of paradise.
Pages:
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123