“With wholesome read of sad sobriety,
To rule the stubborn rage of passion blind,
Give salves to every sore, but counsel to the mind.”[40]
In the first book of the Faerie Queen Spenser makes an interesting allusion to trees and their uses in his time, in the following lines:—
“Much gave they praise the trees so straight and high:
The sailing pine; the cedar proud and tall;
The vine-prop elm; the poplar never dry;
The builder oak, sole king of forests all;
The aspen good for staves; the cypress funeral;
The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors
And poets sage; the fir that weepeth still;
The willow, worn of forlorn paramours;
The yew, obedient to the binder’s will;
The birch for shafts; the sallow for the mill;
The myrrh sweet bleeding in the bitter wound;
The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill;
The fruitful olive, and the plantane round;
The carver holm; the maple, seldom inward sound”.[41]
The sailing pine was doubtless so called on account of it being so largely used for the masts of ships. The wood of the aspen tree was often used for making staves on account of its toughness. He alludes also to the ancient use of the cypress at funeral rites, and the wearing of the willow as a badge of the unfortunate; the yew, chiefly employed for making the long bows; the birch, for the strongest arrows; and the sallow, which when plaited formed the sails of the windmills.
Incisions are cut in the bark of the myrrh tree in order that the gum should exude as from an open wound.
Beech was used for the shafts of spears and axes, and the carver holm or cutting holly was so called from its prickles.
In the sixth canto we have mention of the flower-de-luce:—
“The lily, lady of the flowering field,
The flow’r-de-luce her lovely paramour”.[42]
Flower-de-luce was the old name for the iris, and is also the French fleur-de-lis, and the origin of that symbol. The roots of many of the iris species have long been used in medicine for their cathartic and emetic properties. That of the I. florentina is well known for its sweet violet smell, and from early times has been employed to sweeten the breath and as an ingredient in tooth powders. Another old name for this plant was “The flower of delights”.