That sweet flower that bears
In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes
Hurdis speaks of:
The melancholy Hyacinth, that weeps
All night, and never lifts an eye all day.
Ovid, after giving the old fable of Hyacinthus, tells us that "the time shall come when a most valiant hero shall add his name to this flower." "He alludes," says Mr. Riley, "to Ajax, from whose blood when he slew himself, a similar flower[072] was said to have arisen with the letters Ai Ai on its leaves, expressive either of grief or denoting the first two letters of his name [Greek: Aias]."
As poets feigned from Ajax's streaming blood
Arose, with grief inscribed, a mournful flower.
Young.
Keats has the following allusion to the old story of Hyacinthus,
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
Endymion.
Our English Hyacinth, it is said, is not entitled to its legendary honors. The words Non Scriptus were applied to this plant by Dodonaeus, because it had not the Ai Ai upon its petals. Professor Martyn says that the flower called Lilium Martagon or the Scarlet Turk's Cap is the plant alluded to by the ancients.