Physiognomists will largely put in from very many passages of Scripture. And when they find in Aristotle, quibus frons quadrangula, commensurata, fortes, referuntur ad leones, cannot but take special notice of that expression concerning the Gadites; mighty men of war, fit for battel, whose faces were as the faces of lyons.
Geometrical and Architectonical Artists look narrowly upon the description of the Ark, the fabrick of the Temple, and the holy City in the Apocalypse.
But the Botanical Artist meets every where with Vegetables, and from the Figg Leaf in Genesis to the Star Wormwood in the Apocalypse, are variously interspersed expressions from Plants, elegantly advantaging the significancy of the Text: Whereof many being delivered in a Language proper unto Judæa and neighbour Countries are imperfectly apprehended by the common Reader, and now doubtfully made out, even by the Jewish Expositour.
And even in those which are confessedly known, the elegancy is often lost in the apprehension of the Reader, unacquainted with such Vegetables, or but nakedly knowing their natures: whereof holding a pertinent apprehension, you cannot pass over such expressions without some doubt or want of satisfaction in your judgment. Hereof we shall onely hint or discourse some few which I could not but take notice of in the reading of holy Scripture.
Many Plants are mention’d in Scripture which are not distinctly known in our Countries, or under such Names in the Original, as they are fain to be rendred by analogy, or by the name of Vegetables of good affinity unto them, and so maintain the textual sense, though in some variation from identity.
The Observations. Kikaion.
1. The Plant which afforded a shade unto Jonah,[189] mention’d by the name of Kikaion, and still retained at least marginally in some Translations, to avoid obscurity Jerome rendred Hedera or Ivy; which notwithstanding (except in its scandent nature) agreed not fully with the other, that is, to grow up in a night, or be consumed with a Worm; Ivy being of no swift growth, little subject unto Worms, and a scarce Plant about Babylon.
Hyssope.