Another still more famous Greek poem about the Rose is one by Sappho, which Mrs. Browning has also most beautifully translated—a fit task, which unites the names of the two great poetesses of Greece and England. The poem begins:—
"If Zeus chose us a king of the flowers in his mirth,
He would call to the Rose and would royally crown it:
For the Rose, ho! the Rose, is the grace of the earth;
Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it."
No wonder the Greeks wove their wreaths of the Rose, or that "under the Rose" they passed many a gay and happy hour, to be kept in memory, if untold in words.
My bedding-out is of course finished, but of this I must speak on the next occasion. The weather has been hot, and rain will now be welcome.
[VIII.]
The Fruit Crop—Hautbois Strawberries—Lilium Auratum—Sweet Williams—Carnations—The Bedding-out.
August 15.—It is, I find, a dangerous thing to leave a garden masterless for even a month. The best of gardens will probably fall short in some respect, and I certainly discover several matters which would have been otherwise had I remained at home. My readers will hardly be interested by the details of my grievances; it is pleasanter to tell where we have been successful.
The wall fruit, however, I must mention. The ants and the aphis, and possibly some frost, have destroyed the Peach crop utterly. There is not a single Peach, and the Nectarines, which are certainly a hardier fruit with us, only number thirty in all! The Apricots have done fairly, and were so early that we gathered three or four in the last days of July—a full month before their usual time. The Moorpark Apricot, which we owe to Sir William Temple, is still the best. By the way, he tells us that the Roman name for Apricots is Mala epirotica. Is this the root of the word Apricot, or may we still look upon it as from "apricus," the "sunny fruit,"—the fruit that loves the sun and has caught its own bright colour?[7]