Cueillons la fleur du Nénuphar
Qui fait oublier les amours,
the Nénuphar being the lotus of France, Nymphæa alba major. And those of us who do not know the lotus of the classics are all familiar with the lotus of Tennyson, “that enchanted stem” which whosoever did receive and taste, forthwith obtained rest and dreamful ease.
There exists some doubt, however, as to which lotus the old Greeks really referred to. The question, What was “lotus”? has been discussed intermittently for at least two thousand years. We must bear in mind that “lotus” was a term applied by the Greeks to several plants or trees. The Latin poets, and Pliny very likely, used the term more vaguely still, not being botanists as were some of the Greeks. For there is also the date-plum (Diospyrus lotus), a deciduous tree native of the coasts of the Caspian Sea, and cultivated and naturalized in Southern Europe, the fruit of which is edible. This has been held by some to be the lotus of the Lotophagi, or lotus-eaters. Besides, there is the prickly lotus shrub or jujube-tree (Zizyphus lotus), indigenous to the Libyan district and portions of Asia, to the sweet and odorous fruit of which has been equally ascribed the power of causing one to forget one’s home. It is still eaten by the natives, and a wine or mead is extracted from its juice. The term lotus was also applied to several species of water-lily—the Egyptian water-lily (Nymphæa lotus), the blue water-lily (N. cærulea), and more particularly to the Nelumbium of the Nile (Nelumbium speciosum). The Nelumbium is a native both of India and Egypt, though almost extinct in the latter country now; and in the ancient Hindoo and Egyptian mythological representations of Nature, as is well known, it was the emblem of the great generative and conceptive powers of the world, serving as the head-dress of the Sphinxes and the ornament of Isis. It was known, moreover, as the Egyptian bean, on account of its fruit, the cells of which contained a kind of bean employed as an article of food. Indigenous to China as well, the roots are still served there in summer with ice, and laid up with vinegar and salt for winter. Both the fruit and the root of Nymphæa lotus were likewise eaten by the ancient Egyptians; while Horus, the divine child who personified the rising sun, is always represented in hieroglyphics as emerging from a water-lotus bud.
In the East, a belief in a divinity residing in the lotus has existed from the most ancient times, worship of this divinity of the lotus being the dominant religion in Thibet at the present day. The daily and hourly prayer, Wilson states in the Abode of Snow, is still, “Om mani padme, haun,” or literally rendered, “O God! the jewel in the lotus. Amen.” In Cashmere the roots of the water-lotus are pulled up from the mire and employed as an article of diet. The root is sweet, and was formerly used for making an intoxicating beverage, as the sap of the palm is still employed in some localities. In like manner the roots of the yellow lotus were used by the American aborigines as an article of diet, Nuttall recording that, boiled when fully ripe, they become as farinaceous, agreeable, and wholesome as the potato.
Research tends to show that it is the Zizyphus rather than any of the other species of lotus to which Homer and Theophrastus ascribed the power of causing forgetfulness. Theophrastus and Dioscorides, Greek botanists, both describe different kinds of lotus, but their descriptions are not always trustworthy. Homer mentions yet another lotus, supposed to be Melilotus officinalis, the yellow variety of sweet clover common to this country where it has become naturalized from Europe. It was this plant which he describes as nourishing the steeds of Achilles. Authorities differ so greatly, however, that it is difficult to decide with absolute certainty which species of lotus is really the fabled plant of the Greeks, though the weight of opinion would point to the Zizyphus as against the Diospyrus and especially the Nelumbium. The poetical folk-lore of plants must not be expected to be literally true. Even the observant Greek, Aristotle, has many absurdities about plants. So has Theophrastus, but Pliny is full of the most ridiculous superstitions, which he relates with all the seriousness of a firm believer in them.
In attempting to place many plants and flowers of the ancient classic poets there is, therefore, always more or less difficulty and uncertainty. To identify the plants mentioned, without studying them in the country where those who wrote about them lived, is fruitless when there is such a great difference of opinion as to what the ancient Latin poets mean by “violet” or “hyacinth,” or “narcissus.” Sibthorp, who was Professor of Botany at Oxford, England, about eighty years ago and who was a fine classical scholar, went to live three years in Greece for the purpose of identifying the Greek flowers and plants mentioned by the classics. He returned with the conclusion that it is impossible to do it satisfactorily and he was quite certain, though the Greek language still remains in Greece very slightly changed, that what the modern Greeks call a “hellebore” or a “hyacinth” is different from the flowers that were called by these names two thousand years ago.
Herodotus (Book iv, p. 177) places the geographical range of the lotus-eaters from the recess of the Gulf of Cabes eastward to about half-way along the coast of Tripoli, which would correspond with Homer’s account. The former describes the natives as living “by eating the fruit of the lotus—the fruit about the size of the Pistacia nut, and in sweetness like the fruit of the date. From this fruit the lotus-eaters made their wine.” What Homer says regarding the lotus is this (Odyssey, Book ix, v. 82, etc.): Ulysses is recounting his adventures to the guests of the King of Corfu after dinner. He relates how he was on his way home from Troy, and was doubling Cape St. Angelo, when a storm from the north met his fleet and drove it from its course. After sailing southward for nine days, he sighted land and made for it, as the fresh-water supply was exhausted. The crews enjoyed the luxury of a meal on shore, and then began to wonder where they were. So Ulysses chose two good men, adding a herald with a flag of truce, a necessary precaution in those times when strangers were enemies, as a matter of course. These men were to inquire who the inhabitants of the land were. “The lotus-eaters received them kindly and gave them lotus to eat. As soon as they eat the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus they would not come back to bring me tidings, nor go away, but wished to remain where they were with the lotus-eaters, gathering and eating lotus and to think no more of going home. They shed tears when I dragged them back by force to the ships and tied them by ropes to the benches in the hold. Then I ordered the rest of the crews to go on board at once, for fear any of them should eat lotus and think no more of going home.”
To believe that the Homeric legend referred to the fruit of the jujube-tree does not necessitate our believing that the fruit had a sedative effect upon those who eat it. Rumors of a people leading a lazy and indolent life in a delightful climate and subsisting on the fruit of trees, and rumors that sailors accidentally landing there had given up the dangers and hard work of a seafaring life and deserted, would be enough to give the foundation of the legend. There is a story entitled The Mutiny of the Bounty, a true history, which gave the foundation of Byron’s tale The Island; and there are many points of similarity between this and Homer’s brief tale; but Ulysses, the man of many resources, proved a better match for his mutinous men than did Captain Bligh.
Tennyson’s lotus “laden with flower and fruit,” which is specified as being borne on “branches,” is evidently the Zizyphus or else the Diospyrus; although the line—