Chapter III (3)

The orthodox way of plucking up the mandrake was to stand to the windward of it and, after drawing three circles round it with a naked sword to dig it up with one's face looking to the west; the shrieks that would follow were in any case a trial to weak nerves, and at an earlier period were held to be fatal to the hearer. Philip de Thaun gives the following stratagem as the only available way of becoming the possessor of it:--"The man who is to gather it must fly round about it, must take great care that he does not touch it, then let him take a dog and let it be tied to it, which has been close shut up, and has fasted for three days, and let it be shewn bread and called from afar. The dog will draw it to him, the root will break, it will send forth a cry, and the dog will fall down dead at the cry which he will hear. Such vertue this herb has that no one can hear it but he must always die, and if the man heard it he would directly die. Therefore he must stop his ears, and take care that he hear not the cry lest he die, as the dog will do which shall hear it. When one has this root it is of great value for medicine, for it cures of every infirmity except only death, where there is no help." The office of the herbalist was no sinecure when such a task could be expected of him, as great care had to be exercised not to touch the plant. The tying-up of the dog to it must have been particularly risky, and the consequences of the dog making a premature rush for the bread before the man had time to stop his ears were especially alarming. The writings of De Thaun are full of interesting matter, but his great object was to see in nature figures and symbols of religious truths, hence his narratives have often a somewhat forced character. Thus he tells us that "in India there is a tree of which the fruit is so sweet that the doves of the earth go seeking it above all things, they eat the fruit of it, seat themselves in the tree, they are in repose as long as they are sheltered by it. There is a dragon in the earth which makes war on the birds; the dragon fears so much the tree, that on no acconnt dare it approach it or touch the shadow, but it goes round at a distance, and, if it can, does them injury. If the shadow is to the right then it goes to the left, if it is to the left the dragon goes to the right. The doves have so much understanding which are above in the tree when they see the dragon go all around, which goes watching them, but it does them no harm, nor will they ever have any harm as long as they are in the tree, but when they leave the tree and depart, and the dragon shall come then, it will kill them. This is a great meaning, have it in remembrance." This Indian tree stands not obscurely for the Saviour of the world, while the doves are His faithful ones sheltered in Him from the wiles of the Evil One. When we read story after story all equally _apropos_, we cannot help feeling that a pious fraud has now and then been indulged in, and the comely whole has been attained by a little judicious pruning in one direction, and a little forcing in another, and thus we lose faith in them, at least as examples of the current beliefs of our forefathers.

The Arabs call the mandrake the devil's candle, from a belief that the leaves give out at night a phosphorescent light; and Moore, with his usual felicity, has introduced the idea in his poem of the "Fire-Worshippers:"--

"How shall she dare to lift her head,
Or meet those eyes, whose scorching glare
Not Yeman's boldest sons can bear?
In whose red beam, the Moslem tells,
Such rank and deadly lustre dwells,
As in those hellish fires that light
The Mandrake's charnel leaves at night."

Another old name for the plant was the Enchanter's nightshade, though that very suggestive and rather awe-inspiring title has in these later days become somehow transferred to a very insignificant weed that is common enough in some old gardens and on waste ground, but which is all too small to bear so formidable a title.

The Hebrew word _Dudaim_ has, in Genesis and in the Song of Solomon, been translated in the Authorised English Version of the Bible as the mandrake, but this would appear to be nothing more than a guess, various commentators, Calmet, Hasselquist, and others who have written on the subject, not being by any means unanimous. Some tell us that the term is a general one for flowers, while others translate it as lilies, violets, or jessamine, or as figs, mushrooms, bananas, citrons, or melons. Whence we may fairly conclude that no one really knows, and that the whole matter resolves itself into a guess, fortified more or less by dogmatic assertion as a make-weight for the missing knowledge.

One of the most interesting of the old books on our shelves is the "Miracles of Art and Nature, or a Brief Description of the several varieties of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants and Fruits of other Countreys, together with several other Remarkable Things in the World, By R. B. Gent." The author's name thus modestly veiled is Burton, and the date of the book is 1678. In his preface he says--"I think there is not a chapter wherein thou wilt not find various and remarkable things worth thy observation," and this observation of his is strictly within the truth. He arranges his short chapters geographically, but in the most arbitrary way--not alphabetically, not according to the natural grouping together of the countries of which he treats, nor indeed according to any settled method. In fact, he is sufficiently conscious of this, for, to quote his preface again, he says--"'Tis probable they are _not_ so Methodically disposed as some hands might have done, yet for Variety and pleasure sake they are pleasingly enough intermixed." We open the book at random and find "Chap. XX., Castile in Spain; XXI., Norway; XXII., Zisca of Bohemia; XXIII., Assiria; XXIV., Quivira in California." Adopting his own random and haphazard way of going to work, we will pluck from his quaint pages some few of his botanical facts and fancies. His opening chapter deals with Egypt, and in his description of the palm-tree he refers to a very old belief that we may allow him to set forth in his own words:--"It is the nature of this tree though never so ponderous a weight were put upon it not to yield to the burthen, but still to resist the heaviness, and endeavour to raise itself the more upward. For this cause planted in Churchyards in the Eastern Countrys as an Emblem of the Resurrection." A little further on, in his description of Sumatra, we read of "a tree whose Western part is said to be rank poyson and the Eastern part an excellent preservative against it," and of "a sort of Fruit that whosoever eateth of it, is for the space of twelve hours out of his Wits." Travellers' tales have sometimes proverbially been difficult of belief, and it must have been some such as these that procured them their evil report, for we read too that in this same island "there is a river plentifully stored with Fish, whose Water is so hot that it scalds the skin," and that "the cocks have a hole in their backs, wherein the Hen lays her Eggs and hatches her young ones." A few pages further on we read of a tree in Peru, "the North part whereof looking towards the Mountains, brings forth its Fruits in the Summer only; the Southern part looking towards the Sea, fruitful only in Winter." Our old author evidently delights in sharp contrasts. It is curious, however, that the Coca-leaf, which has within the last few years been highly commended for those who have exhausting exercise, is in this book of over 200 years old fully referred to:--"The leaves whereof being dried and formed into little pellets are exceedingly useful in a Journey; for melting in the mouth they satisfie both hunger and thirst and preserve a man in his strength, and his Spirits in Vigour; and are generally esteemed of such sovereign use, that it is thought no less than 100,000 Baskets full of the leaves of this tree are sold yearly at the Mines of Potosia only. Another plant they tell us of, though there is no name found for it, which if put into the hands of a sick person will instantly discover whether he be like to live or dye. For if on the pressing it in his hand he look merry and cheerful it is an assured sign of his recovery, as on the other side of Death, if sad and troubled." A few pages further on we find ourselves at Sodom and the Dead Sea:--"If but an Aple grow near it, it is by Nature such that it speaks the Anger of God: for without 'tis beautiful and Red, but within nothing but dusty Smoak and Cinders." This belief is a very ancient one. We find it, for instance, in the writings of Tacitus, and it has supplied moralists in all ages with an illustration. In "The Merchant of Venice," for instance, we find the lines--

"A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"--

and again in "Childe Harold"--

"Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore, all ashes to the taste."

The apple has indeed entered largely into history and legend. According to some writers the forbidden fruit of Eden was a kind of apple, and the _pomum Adami_ in one's throat may be accepted as a record of the old belief. "The fruit of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and all our woe." Our readers, too, will recall the golden apple of discord that created strife alike on high Olympus and amongst the sons of men, and that led to the fall of Troy. On the other hand, we read of the apple of perpetual youth in Scandinavian mythology, the food of the gods; and in the "Arabian Nights" of the apples of Samarkand that would cure all diseases. The apples of Istkahar were all sweetness on one side, all bitterness on the other; while Sir John Mandeville tells us that the pigmies were fed with the odour alone of the apples of Pyban. Amidst this maze of fancy and legend it would perhaps be scarcely fair to even mention the more historic apple that fell at Woolsthorpe at the feet of Newton, and set his mind thinking on the problem of gravitation.[39]

[39] We remember some time ago an interesting article by Dr. Adolf
Dux, entitled "La tombe du Savant" appearing in the "Pester Lloyd."
The savant was Bolyai, professor of mathematics and physics at
Maros-Vásárhely. No statue, no marble mausoleum with sides covered
with laudatory inscriptions, marks the place where he lies, but the
tomb, by its occupant's strict direction, is overshadowed by the
boughs of an apple-tree--"En souvenir des trois pommes qui out joué
un rôle si important dans l'histoire de l'humanité, et il désignait
ainsi la pomme d'Ève, et celle de Pâris qui réduisirent la terre à
l'esclavage, et la pomme de Newton, qui la replaça au rang des
astres." Strangely enough, when Dr. Dux visited the tomb there hung
on the tree just three apples--"ni plus ni moins."

At Crete our old author, Burton, finds a plant called Alimos, which it is only necessary to chew to take away all sense of hunger for a whole day; but this wonder pales before those of the flora of Nova Hispania, the country we now call Mexico. "Amongst the Rarities of Nova Hispania, though there be many Plants in it of Singuler Nature, is mentioned that which they call Eagney or Meto, said to be one of the principal: a Tree which they both Plant and Dress as we do our Vines; it hath on it 40 kinds of leaves, fit for several uses; for when they be tender they make of them Conserves, Paper, Flax, Mantles, Mats, Shoes, Girdles and Cordage, upon them they grow divers prickles so strong and sharp that the people use them instead of Staws." What Staws may be we cannot say, so we must be content to know that Meto thorns make a very efficient substitute, and are for all practical purposes as good as having the real thing. "From the top of the Tree cometh a Juice like Syrrup, which if you Seeth it will become Honey; if purified, Sugar; the Bark of it maketh a good plaister and from the highest of the Boughs comes a kind of Gum, a Soveraigne Antidote against poysons." The tree furnishes at once costume and confection, antidote and rope, and we can hardly wonder at the people of New Spain setting considerable store by it.

It would be curious to see the forms of the forty leaves; we can well imagine that a plant suggesting about equally by its foliage the rose, palm, bullrush, buttercup, cactus, horse-chestnut, and thirty-four other plants would give our botanists some little difficulty before it got definitely assigned its just place.

Brazil, like Mexico, is a very large place, and a very long way off, and two hundred years ago the Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company was a thing of the far future; there was therefore abundant room for play of the imagination; thus we read of a kind of corn "which is continually growing and always ripe; nor never wholly ripe, because always growing;" and of another plant that yields so sovereign a balm that "the very beasts being bitten by venomous Serpents resort to it for their cure." It is interesting, amongst the other strange wonders, animal and vegetable, that are duly set forth, to come across a plant that must be very familiar to most persons, the sensitive plant, the _Mimosa sensitiva_ of Brazil, though in his description of it our author cannot resist an added touch of the marvellous, imputing to it a power of observation that later writers would hesitate to confirm, for he says--"The herb Viva when roughly touched will close the leaves, and not open them again until the man that had offended it had got out of sight." We must not, however, devote more attention to "R. B. Gent," great as the temptation to do so may be, for his book is a perfect mine of the marvellous. Another curious old book to ponder over awhile is the English Dictionary of Henry Cockeram, as he certainly produces some extraordinary illustrations of unnatural history. The book was published in the year 1655, and did not profess to deal with scientific matters alone, but was, to use the author's own language, "an interpreter of hard English words, enabling as well ladies and gentlewomen, young scholars, clerks, merchants, as also strangers of any nation, to the understanding of the more difficult authors already printed in our language, and the more speedy attaining of an elegant perfection of the English tongue." Amongst these hard English words sadly needing an interpretation we will select but five as a sample of the whole:--"Achemedis, an herb which being cast into an army in time of battle causeth the soldiers to be in fear." This probably would be some kind of runner. "Anacramseros, an herb, the touch thereof causeth love to grow betwixt man and man." "Hippice, an herb borne in one's mouth, keeps one from hunger and thirst." "Ophyasta, an herb dangerous to look on, and being drunke it doth terrifie the inside with a sight of dreadful serpents, that condemned persons for fear thereof do kill themselves." "Gelotaphilois, an herb drunk with wine and myrrh, causeth much laughter."

Amidst the mist of error some few men declined to believe quite all that they were told, but exercised for themselves the right of individual judgment. The book we have just referred to was published, as we have seen, in the year 1655, and abounds in strange imaginings; yet five years before this we find a still better-known book, "the Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into very many Received Tenants and commonly Presumed Truths" of Dr. Browne. The list of commonly presumed truths he ventures to dispute is a very long one, and includes such items of faith as that a diamond is made soft if placed in the blood of a goat, that a pailful of ashes will contain as much water as it would without them, that the two legs on one side of a badger are shorter than the two on the other side, and so on. As he approaches the vegetable kingdom he prefaces his remarks as follows:--"We omit to recite the many vertues and endlesse faculties ascribed unto plants which sometimes occurre in grave and serious authors, and we shall make a bad transaction for Truth to concede a verity in half. Swarms of others there are, some whereof our future endeavours may discover; common reason I hope will save us a labour in many whose absurdities stand naked in every eye, errors not able to deceive the Emblem of Justice and need no Argus to descry them. Herein there surely wants expurgatory animadversions whereby we might strike out great numbers of hidden qualities, and having once a serious and conceded list we might with more encouragement and safety attempt their Reasons." On turning to the list of "vertues" in any old Herbal, we find, as Browne says, "endlesse faculties ascribed, and many of them of a character that woulde we should have imagined have been, during even the darkest ages, difficult or impossible of credence." Thus in Gerarde's herbal published in 1633, we find amongst our British plants one available "against the biting of the Sea-dragon," two more "a remedy against the poyson of the Sea-hare," one "against vaine imaginations," another "an especial remedy against the nightmare," and no less than thirty-eight preservatives "against the bitings of serpents." We will, however, confine ourselves to three illustrative instances of the way in which the author of these inquiries into various received beliefs proceeds to demolish them. He says, in the first place, that "many things are delivered and believed of plants wherein at least we cannot but suspend. That there is a property in Basil to propagate scorpions and that by the smell thereof they are bred in the brains of men is a belief much advanced by Hollerius, who found this insect in the brains of a man that delighted much in this smell. Wherein besides that we finde no way to conjoin the effect unto the cause assigned herein the moderns speak but timorously, and some of the Ancients quite contrarily. For according unto Oribasius, physitian unto Julian, the Africans, men best experienced in poisons, affirm whosoever hath eaten Basil although he be stung with a Scorpion shall feel no pain thereby; which is a very different effect, and rather antidotally destroying than promoting its production." Pliny and other ancient writers mention the old belief that the bay-tree, the tree of Apollo, was a preservative against thunder, or rather against lightning; hence Tiberius and some other of the Roman Emperors wore a wreath of bay as an amulet; and in an old English play we find the lines--

"Reach the bays,
I'll tie a garland here about his head,
'Twill keep my boy from lightning."

Browne discourses on the point as follows:--"That Bayes will protect from the mischief of lightning and thunder is a quality ascribed thereto, common with the fig tree, eagle and skin of a seale. Against so famous a quality Vicomercatus produceth experiments of a Bay-tree blasted in Italy, and therefore although Tiberius for this interest did wear a Laurell about his temples yet did Augustus take a more probable course, who fled under arches and hollow vaults for protection." A most unimperial picture this, great Cæsar deserting his throne and shutting himself up in his wine-cellar when he heard the distant rumbling of the coming storm. "If we consider the three-fold effect of Jupiter's Trisulk, to burn, discusse, and terebrate, and if that be true which is commonly delivered, that it will melt the blade yet passe the scabbard, dry up the wine yet leave the hog's head entire, though it favour the amulet it may not spare us; it will be unwise to rely on any preservative, 'tis no security to be dipped in Styx or clad in the armour of Ceneus."[40]

[40] Appendix T.

There are many curious legends associated with plants in classic mythology, such as the metamorphoses of various lucky or unlucky persons who gained the favour or incurred the wrath of the gods, and were in consequence punished or rewarded by finding themselves laurel-bushes and the like; but all this is duly set forth in any mythological dictionary, and may be there hunted up quite readily by the curious.

Other legends are associated with religious symbolism, such as the belief that the palm-tree cannot be bowed down to earth, but stands erect, no matter how heavily weighted; but if we were once to enter upon this most interesting subject, the preceding pages of our book would be but a small fragment indeed of all that it would be possible to introduce.

A very good illustration of the symbolic use of the palm-tree may be seen on the frontispiece of the "Eikon Basilike," published in the year 1648. The "Royal Martyr" kneels before a table on which is placed a Bible. In his hand he has taken a crown of thorns, marked "Gratia;" at his feet is the royal crown of England, with the inscription "Vanitas," while in the air above him is a starry crown marked "Gloria." Outside the room we see a landscape. Conspicuous in the foreground is a palm-tree standing erect with two heavy weights tied to it, and the legend, "Crescit sub pondere virtus;" while beyond this is a raging sea and a rock rising from its midst, with the legend, "Immota triumphans." The sky is black with rolling clouds, and on either side of the rock we see dark faces in the clouds blowing vehemently against it. Beneath is the "Explanation of the Embleme" in two columns, the one Latin and the other in the vulgar tongue. The English is as follows:--

"Though clogged with weights of miseries
Palm-like depressed I higher rise.
And as th' immoved Rock outbraves
The boist'rous Windes and raging waves,
So triumph I. And shine more bright
In sad Affliction's Darksom night.
That Splendid, but yet toilsom Crown
Regardlessly I trample down.
With joie I take this Crown of Thorn,
Though sharp yet easie to be born.
That Heavenlie Crown, already mine,
I view with eies of Faith Divine.
I slight vain things and do embrace
Glorie, the just reward of Grace."

This belief in the impossibility of depriving the palm-tree of its power of upward growth made it a rather popular emblem with those who thought themselves rather "put upon" by fortune or the lack of appreciation from their fellows. Mary Stuart, for example, selected as one of her badges the palm-tree, with the motto, "Ponderibus virtus innata resistit," and other illustrations of the old belief might readily be brought forward.

As these plants, too, whether associated with mythology or religious or other symbolism, are not in themselves fabulous, but are actual laurels, palms, or the like, they need scarcely be dwelt upon at any length in these pages, as our purpose has been rather to deal with forms wholly mythical than to enter with any degree of fulness into the mythical beliefs that have grown round forms in themselves natural.

We cannot, in conclusion, do better, we are sure, than transfer bodily to our book the appeal to the reader that appears on the title-page of a quaint little black-letter treatise published in the year 1548--the "Boke of Husbandry" by one Fitzherbert:--

"Go thou lytell boke, with due reuerence
And with an humble hert, recommend me
To all those, that of theyr beneuolence
Thys lytell treatyse doth rede heare or se
Wherewith I praye them contented to be,
And to amende it in place behouable
Where as I haue fauted or be culpable--
For herde it is, a man to attayne
To make a thynge perfyte at the first sighte
But whan it is red and well ouer seene
Fautes may be founde that neuer came to lyght
Though the maker do his diligence and might
Praying them to take it as I haue intended
And to forgiue me yf I haue offended."

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