"Et ferrugíneâ subvectat corpora cymbâ."
The "subvectat corpora" will serve to remind you of the office of the leafy cymba in carrying the bud; and make
you thankful that the said leafy vase is not of iron; and is a ship of Life instead of Death.
11. Already, not once, nor twice, I have had to use the word 'stem,' of the main round branch from which both stalk and cymba spring. This word you had better keep for all growing, or advancing, shoots of trees, whether from the ground, or from central trunks and branches. I regret that the words multiply on us; but each that I permit myself to use has its own proper thought or idea to express, as you will presently perceive; so that true knowledge multiplies with true words.
12. The 'stem,' you are to say, then, when you mean the advancing shoot,—which lengthens annually, while a stalk ends every year in a blossom, and a cymba in a leaf. A stem is essentially round,[[37]] square, or regularly polygonal; though, as a cymba may become exceptionally round, a stem may become exceptionally flat, or even mimic the shape of a leaf. Indeed I should have liked to write "a stem is essentially round, and constructively, on occasion, square,"—but it would have been too grand. The fact is, however, that a stem is really a roundly minded thing, throwing off its branches in circles as a trundled mop throws off drops, though it can always order the branches to fly off in what order it likes,—two at a time, opposite to each other; or three, or five, in a spiral coil; or one here and one there, on this side and that;
but it is always twisting, in its own inner mind and force; hence it is especially proper to use the word 'stem' of it—στέμμα, a twined wreath; properly, twined round a staff, or sceptre: therefore, learn at once by heart these lines in the opening Iliad:
"Στέμματ' ἔχων ἐν χερσὶν ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος,
Χρυςέῳ ἀνὰ σκήπτρῳ·"
And recollect that a sceptre is properly a staff to lean upon; and that as a crown or diadem is first a binding thing, a 'sceptre' is first a supporting thing, and it is in its nobleness, itself made of the stem of a young tree. You may just as well learn also this:
"Ναὶ μὰ τόδε σκῆπτρον, τὸ μὲν οὔποτε φύλλα καὶ ὄζους