CHAPTER III.
Universal Love of Flowers—Indifference to Flowers—Excessive Love of Flowers leading to Adoration—Myths and Legends connected with Flowers, the Flos Adonis, Narcissus, Myrtle, Silene inflata, Clover—The Hundred-leaved Rose—The Worship of the Lily Species—Signification of the Lotos—Hermaphroditic Character of the Lotos—The Indian Mutiny of 1857, part played by the Lotos during its Instigation.
“Why?” asked a writer some years ago, “why is it that every eye kindles with delight at the sight of beautiful flowers? that in all lands, and amidst all nations, the love of flowers appears to prevail to so great an extent, that no home is considered complete without them—no festival duly honoured unless they decorate the place where it is observed? They are strewn in the path of the bride; they are laid on the bier of the dead; the merry-maker selects from the floral tribes the emblem of his joy; and the mourner the insignia of his grief. Everywhere and under all circumstances, flowers are eagerly sought after and affectionately cherished; and when the living and growing are not to be obtained, then is their place filled by some substitute or other, according to the circumstances or taste of the wearer; but whether that substitute be a wreath of gorgeous gems for the brow of royalty, or a bunch of coloured cambric for the adornment of a servant girl, it is usually wrought into the form of flowers.
“This taste depends not on wealth or on education, but is given, if not to all individuals, yet to some of every class. From the infant’s first gleam of intelligence, a flower will suffice to still its cries; and even in old age the mind which has not been perverted from its natural instincts, can find a calm and soothing pleasure in the contemplation of these gems of creation.”
A man, reputed wise, was once asked in a garden: “do you like flowers?” “No,” said he; “I seldom find time to descend to the little things.” “This man,” said an American writer, “betrayed a descent, in his speech, to the pithole of ignorance. Flowers, sweet flowers! he that loves them not should be classed with the man that hath not music in his soul, as a dangerous member of the community.”
Instead of not liking or not caring, leaving out, not loving flowers, the general tendency with humanity has been to run to an opposite extreme and render them not merely estimation, care or love, but veneration and worship.
The adoration of flowers is one of the most ancient systems of worship with which we are acquainted. It can be traced back for ages amongst the Hindus, who believing that the human soul is a spark or emanation from the Great Supreme, held that this essence can only be renovated in man by a communion with his works; it is found amongst the Chinese, it occupied a most important position in the mysteries of Egyptian idolatry, it figures prominently on the past and present monuments of Mexico, and to some extent prevailed in Europe. Naturally enough, it arose in the warmer regions of the earth, where the vegetable productions of the tropics are so much more gorgeous in their colouring and noble in their growth, and in those regions it still lingers, after having been swept away in other lands before the advance of education and a more intellectual religion.
It would be interesting did space allow to enumerate some of the myths and legends connected with flowers, but as we have another object in view these must be allowed to pass with a mere cursory allusion. There is the Flos Adonis which perpetuates the memory of Venus’s favourite, Adonis, the son of Myrrha, who was herself said to be turned into a tree called myrrh. Adonis had often been warned by Venus not to hunt wild beasts; but disregarding her advice, he was at last killed by a wild boar and was then changed by his mistress into this flower. There was Narcissus, too, destroying himself in trying to grasp his form when reflected in the water by whose margin he was reclining. Then we have Myrtillus and the Myrtle. The father of Hippodamia declared that no one should marry his daughter who could not conquer him in a chariot race; and one of the lovers of the young lady bribed Myrtillus, who was an attendant of Œnomaüs, to take out the linchpin from his master’s chariot, by which means the master was killed; and Myrtillus, repenting when he saw him dead, cast himself into the sea, and was afterwards changed by Mercury into the myrtle.
A bladder campion (Silene inflata) is another curiosity. Ancient writers say that it was formerly a youth named Campion, whom Minerva employed to catch flies for her owls to eat during the day, when their eyes did not serve them to catch food for themselves; but Campion indulging himself with a nap when he ought to have been busy at his task, the angry goddess changed him into this flower, which still retains in its form the bladders in which Campion kept his flies, and droops its head at night when owls fly abroad and have their eyes about them.
The common clover which was much used in ancient Greek festivals, was regarded by the Germans as sacred, chiefly in its four leaved variety. There is indeed, in the vicinity of Altenburg, a superstition that if a farmer takes home with him a handful of clover taken from each of the four corners of his neighbour’s field it will go well with his cattle during the whole year; but the normal belief is that the four-leaved clover, on account of its cross form, is endowed with magical virtues. The general form of the superstition is that one who carries it about with him will be successful at play, and will be able to detect the proximity of evil spirits. In Bohemia it is said that if the maiden manages to put it into the shoe of her lover without knowledge when he is going on any journey, he will be sure to return to her faithfully and safely. In the Tyrol the lover puts it under the pillow to dream of the beloved. On Christmas Eve, especially, one who has it may see witches. Plucked with a gloved hand and taken into the house of a lunatic without anyone else perceiving it, it is said to cure madness. In Ireland also it is deemed sacred and has been immortalized in Lover’s beautiful song as a safeguard against every imaginable kind of sorrow and misfortune.