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THE HERBAL TRADITION IN THE POETRY OF JOHN HILTON
presented by
Charlotte Fonnm Otten

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. degree in ' English

 

 

 

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ABSTRACT
THE HERBAL TRADITION IN THE POETRY OF JOHN HILTON

By
Charlotte Fennena Otten

So erudite a nan as John Milton had his practical side: he
urged his students to learn to “manage a crudity" land to procure
the helpful experiences of gardeners and apothecaries. Along the
major practical books available were the herbals. . Operating with
the belief that a knowledge of herbs put a nan in touch with Paradise,
the herbalists bent every effort to supply the reading public with
encyclopedic intonation on every plant known to then. The three
well-known English herbals, those of Lyte, Gerard, and Parkinson,
represent a body of literature with which, one nay fairly assune,
Hilton was well acquainted. This study, although it does not clain
to exhaust Hilton's use of the herbal tradition in his poetry, does
clai- to be representative, touching on the nedical, nagic, cereaonial,
horticultural, and aesthetic aspects of it.

Hilton's nedical uses. are quite apparent in Book II of
Paradise Log. His description of the Apple of Disobedience, his
characterisation of Adan, and his conception of the nature of poetry
prupted hin to introduce drugs nade frol herbs. His choice of me
to cure the harnful effects of Man's eating of the apple is
especially appropriate because of its association. with Honer's nely.
In addition to the botany and nythology clustered around rue and
nely, the Renaissance herbals testify to rue's efficacy. Combined
with euphrasie and three drops of water fro- the Hell of Life, rue
serves as an antidete to the physical, psychological, and spiritual

2
poisons ingested by Adam when he ate the forbidden fruit.

Plants were associated not only with pharmacy but with magic.
In 92522_Milton uses the wholesome natural magic of plants to combat
the unnatural magic of urchins and elves. He introduces his most
famous herb, haemony, gives it a complete herbal index, and shows it
functioning as a vulnerary and as a perception-heightening drug.
Attributing to Camus unnatural magic (associated with aphrodisiacs
and metamorphosis), Hilton counteracts this with herbs and pure water.

Nor are the ceremonial aspects of the herbal tradition ignored
by'Hilton. In chidas he draws on three ancient funerary plants--
myrtle, laurel, and ivy. Combining the historico-mythological
tradition with the botanical one, he transplants them into an honorary
form.to celebrate a death. Hilton's use of this botanic metaphor is
understandable only in the light of the herbal tradition.

One of the most delightful uses of the herbals is in horti-
culture. Hilton supplements the herbals with gardening manuals and
with real gardens, creating a Paradisal horticultural_architecture
with a distinctive English touch. His Garden, not a mere fiction,
is the more real for participating in the English gardening tradition.

In his use of three specific plants in Paradise--laure1,
myrtle, and acanthus-Hilton is influenced by the herbals and by
contemporary horticultural aesthetics. His companionate planting
of roses and myrtles shows an awareness of plant arrangement to
achieve the English blend of expectation and surprise. Hilton and
the herbalists could not have been aware of the scientific implications
of allelopathy, but they built their horticultural aesthetics on
the best herbal knowledge of the day.

THE HERBAL TRADITION IN THE POETRI OF JOHN MILTON

By
Charlotte Fennema Otten

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR.0F PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1971

Copyright by

CHARLOTTE FENNEMA OTTEN
1971

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank the Huntington Library Qggrterlz for

permission to include ”Homer's Holy and.Hilton's Rue.”

As anyone who has written a thesis knows, the work could
never have been completed without the guidance and direction of
the Doctoral Committee. I am indebted to Professor John A. Yunck
for leading me into the intricacies and delights of the medieval
world so that I was better prepared to understand the Renaissance;
to Professor'George R. Price for allowing me to insinuate myself
into the world of his meticulous scholarship and insights: and to
Professor’Lawrence Babb, Chairman, whose grasp of Milton and the
seventeenth century enabled me to catch a glimpse of the world of
Hilton, and of Hilton in his world; and when my vision was foggy,
with the forbearance of Michael, he shared his perceptions and
knowledge with me and gave “What oft my steddiest thoughts have

searcht in vain.”

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter I. Homer's Moly’and.Hilton's Rue
Medical Aspects of the Herbal Tradition

Chapter II. A Mask at Ludlothastle
Magic.Aspects of the Herbal Tradition

Chapter III. The Laurels, Myrtles, and Ivy of’chidas
Ceremonial Aspects of the Herbal Tradition

Chapter IV. Milton's Paradise and English Gardens
Horticultural Aspects of the Herbal Tradition

Chapter V. 'Laurel, Myrtle, and Acanthus in Paradise
Aesthetic Aspects of the Herbal Tradition

Stu-nary
Notes
Bibliography
Appendix

22

’45

108
128
131
157
168

INTRODUCTION

One can hardly read Milton's poetry without noticing plants:
Milton puts them to medical, horticultural, and aesthetic use in

Paradise Lost, to magic use in Comus, to ceremonial use in Lycidas.

 

Although Milton could and did draw on his theoretical knowledge of
classical plants, he was also a practical man. To Master Samuel
Hartlib he stressed the importance of learning to "manage a crudity"
and of procuring the "helpful experiences of hunters, fowlers,
fishermen, shepherds, gardeners, apothecaries." This practical bent
undoubtedly led him to the herbals, the most efficient of plant
manuals. The herbals show not only how to treat oneself in sickness
and in health and so to save expense, but they also give detailed
information on botany, pharmacy, and horticulture. Perhaps no books,
other than the Bible, enjoyed such universal appeal and acceptance.
Addressed to physician, scholar, botanist, housewife, packed with
information for both amateurs and professionals, the extant editions
show the thumbprints and notes of gardeners and housewives, apothe-
caries and physicians. No books had such multiple uses and such
multiple delights. Leonhart Fuchs, an early German herbalist (1501-
1566), remarked in the Preface to 92 historia stirpium (1542):

. . . there is nothing in this life pleasanter and more

delightful than to wander over woods, mountains, plains,

garlanded and adorned with flowerlets and plants of vari-

ous sorts, and most elegant to boot, and to gaze intently

upon them. But it increases that pleasure and delight not

a little, if there be added an acquaintance with the vir—
tues and powers of these same plants.

2

In addition, persistent in the herbals is the religious
belief that a knowledge of herbs is a return to Paradise. John
Parkinson began his Paradigi‘ig Sole Paradisus Terrestris with an
acknowledgement of God as the planter and source of all gardens and
Adam as the ideal man, who knew "all the things that grew . . . and
to what uses they serued."

Throughout this study I have used the herbals of three

major English herbalists: Henry Lyte's A Nievve Herball (1578);

 

John Gerard's The Herball (in the Thomas Johnson revised and en-
larged edition, 1633, 1636); and John Parkinson's Paradisi in

Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629) and Theatrum Botanicum (l6uO).

 

Preceding the three major herbalists is William Turner, known as the
"Father of British Botany." Turner deplored the botanic ignorance
of the times, bemoaning the fact that even at Cambridge there was

"ignorance in simples." He wrote A_Kew Herball (ColOgne, 1568) con-

 

taining not only the history but also the empirical verification of
plants. The quality of his herbal springs from his personal Obser-
vations: "And because I would not be lyke unto a cryer yt cryeth

a loste horse in the marketh, and telleth all the markes and tokens
that he hath, and yet never sawe the horse, nether coulde knows the
horse if he sawe him: I wente into Italye and into diverse partes
of Germany, to knows and se the herbes my selfe." Arranged alpha-
betically, his herbal describes 238 native British plants.

One of the most erudite of Continental herbalists, the

eminent scholar and professor at Leyden, Rembert Dodoens, was the

author of Cruydtboeck, published in Flemish in 1554, and translated

into French by Charles de l'Ecluse. Using this French translation,

3

Henry Lyte wrote A Nievve Herball (1578), which was to become a
standard herbal in England. Divided into six books, Lyte's herbal
contains descriptions of about 1,050 species, complete with annota-
tions and observations stemming from his own reading and botanic
competence. This herbal is generally acknowledged as the herbal of
poets like Spenser and Drayton.

John Gerard'slgggbgll appeared in 1597. Gerard was not only
a surgeon but a famous gardener. His own activities in his garden
at Holborn (about which he published a catalogue of plants in 1596)
and his superintendence over Lord Burleigh's gardens in the Strand
and at TheObalds in Hertfordshire, gave him the opportunity to Observe
plants first-hand. Since Gerard's Herball was actually a version of
Dr. Priest's translation of the Latin herbal of Dodoens, and since
Gerard's London publisher heard rumors that a John Parkinson was
preparing a competitive herbal, Thomas Johnson, distinguished
apothecary and botanist, was commissioned to prepare a new edition

of Gerard for the press. This edition, called The Herball g;

 

Generall Historic g; Plantes. Gathered by John Gerarde'gf London

 

fi§§§g§.i§ Chirurgerie Very much Enlarged and Amended by Thgmgg
Johnson Citizen and Apothecarye.2§‘;ggdg§, was printed in 1633 and
reprinted in 1636 with the errata corrected. Although Johnson was
the editor and reviser of Gerard's Herball, the herbal continued to
be known as "Gerard's." Sir Henry Wotton, writing to Johnson, re-'
quested "one of your Gerrards, well and strongly bound." Gerard’s
herbal enjoyed a sustained popularity.

John Parkinson is usually considered the last of the old

English herbalists. He served as apothecary to James I and was

L;
named "Botanicus Regius Primarius” by Charles I. His Paradisi 32
Sole Paradisus Terrestris, published in 1629, was designed mainly
for the gardener. It traces the knowledge of herbs back to Adam and
emphasizes the aesthetic and horticultural aspects of herbs rather
than the medicinal. His true herbal, Theatrum Botanicum, was pub-
lished in 16b0. Almost a materia medica, the Theatrum contains the
opinions of Greek, Roman, and Arabian physicians, in addition to
much original work, although his debt to his Renaissance predecessors
(particularly to l'Cbel) is obvious. In Parkinson's herbal the
English reader first met the welsh-poppy and the strawberry tree; and
with Parkinson, the English reader always returned to the perfect
herbal knowledge of the first man, Adam, who appears in the frontis-
piece of the Theatrum.

With all these materials available to him, Milton could not
complain, as did William.Turner a century earlier, of a general
ignorance of simples in his time. My brief description of the
herbals is based on the work of Agnes Arbor, Herbals (Cambridge,
1912, 1953): H. M. Barlow, Old English Herbals, 1525-16uo (1913);

E. S. Rohde, Thg'gld English Herbals (London, 1922); and R. W. T.
Gunther, Early British Botanists and Their Gardens (Oxford, 1922).
Although I have consulted most of the other herbals (including
Continental and Assyrian), encyclopedic works such as Batman vppon
Bartholome (1582), and even 170 or more of Dr. Theodore Diodati's
handwritten medical prescriptions (in the British Museum, Ayscough
Mss.), my impression is that, although these sources may confirm
what the three major herbalists say, they do not add any information

pertinent to this study. Also, since Milton's more technical

5

knowledge of science has already been studied by Lawrence Babb, The
Moral Cosmos 9: Paradise Lost (East Lansing, 1970); Paul Kocher,

Science and Religioniig Elizabethan England (San Marino, 1953); and

 

Kester Svendsen, Milton and Science (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), it
seemed feasible to study the herbals apart from this larger
scientific tradition.

On the other hand, the Renaissance herbalists owed much to
the ancients, perhaps primarily to Dioscorides. If the references

in this study to his Q3 materia medica seem unduly numerous, I can

 

only say that the seventeenth century (and centuries thereafter)
held his work in very high esteem. The herbalist William Turner
referred to the holder of the Chair of Botany at Bologna as the
"reder of Dioscorides in Botony"; John Goodyer made an interlinear
translation of it (1655); it served as the impetus for Renaissance
botanic studies; and as late as 1934 an Official Botanist Monk on
Athos was seen using four volumes of manuscript Dioscorides to
identify plants (Arber, pp. 11-12).

While this study does not claim to exhaust Milton's use of
the herbal tradition in his poetry, it does claim to be representa-
tive, touching on medical, magic, ceremonial, horticultural, and
aesthetic aspects of it.

Since Milton's poetry is so rich in the erudite traditions,
it is easy for the reader to overlook the presence of the lowly
herbal, "unknown, and like esteem'd," and like the dull swain to
tread "on it daily with his clouted shoon." It is hoped that this
study of the Herbal Tradition in the Poetry of John Milton, although

it may not bring to light a rare, exotic bloom, may, nevertheless,

6

uncover not only a "small unsightly root" but also "a bright

golden flowre."

CHAPTER I

HCMER'S MOLY AND MIETON'S RUE

MEDICAL ASPECTS CT'THE HERBAI.TRADITION

While clusters of meanings and interpretations have sprung
up for two centuries around Milton's famous drug haemony',l the drugs
which Milton prescribed in Paradise Lost for his sick Adam have been
ignored. Of course, most Milton editors have glossed the drugs;2
but only Jon S. Lawry has examined them, and that very recently;
and he does not treat them as drugs but as allegory: "That birth
[Sin and Death] is projected metaphorically in Satan's destructive
invention of gunpowder. Such choice for non-being is creatively
opposed first by the third-day victory of the Son, which joins
paschalian rue with eschatological euphrasy, and then by the Son's
creation of the world."3

Milton, no stranger to allegory, was no less familiar with
disease and medicine. The man who complained about "inveterate mists
in his forehead and temples" and about "disturbed viscera"“ speaks
with an intimate knowledge of Adam's eye disorders and of the cure:

but to nobler sights
Michael from Adams eyes the Filme remov'd
Which that false Fruit that promis'd clearer sight
Had bred; then purg'd with Euphrasie and Rue
The visual Nerve, for he had much to see;
And from the well of Life three drops instill'd,
So deep the power of these Ingredients pierc'd,
Eevn to the inmost seat of mental sight,

That Adam now enforc't to close his eyes,
Sunk down and all his Spirits became intranst:

7

8
But him the gentle Angel by the hand
Soon rais'd, and his attention thus recall'd.
(Xl.t+ll-u22)5

If the drugs of Paradise are to be explored, two questions
must serve as the focus of the study: (1) Why did Milton use drugs?
and (2) Why did Milton use these particular drugs-euphrasie, rue,
and three drops of water from the Well of Life?

The first question has a tripartite answer. Milton's
description of the Apple of Disobedience, his characterization of
Adam, and his conception of the nature of poetry prompted his use
of drugs.

The history of the Apple of Disobedience has long engaged

theologians and intrigued the critics of Paradise Lost. Although

 

Milton emphasized, almost clinically, the multiple harmful effects
of the apple on Adam and Eve--elevated blood pressure, psychological
intoxication, released inhibitions, post-coital depression, uncon-
trollable weeping, delusions of grandeur, and damaged eyes (IX.790ff)--
most critics reject this as evidence of the fruit's toxicity. Even C.
S. Lewis argues that only the bad characters see any importance in
the apple.6 But the actions of the good character, Michael, contra-
dict this position: Michael is sent by God with a medication to
cure Adam's optic nerve and to induce mystical visions. This apple
is no more like an ordinary apple than LSD is like an ordinary drop
of juice in a sugar cube. Milton, designating the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil as the "root of all our woe" (IX.645), meant
precisely what he said, and he made its pernicious effects immediately
observable.

Milton's Adam, no stylized representation of Right Reason

or a link in the Chain of Being, is fully human: he fits into the

9
garden of enormous bliss, enjoying gardening, wreath-weaving, food,
and sex, as well as metaphysical speculation and heavenly conver-
sation. He has an "inward ripeness" along with a physical attractive-
ness. Although he is a representative of man, he is also a man.
This human being is a bodybsoul; and when he eats a toxic fruit, the
poisons blur his physical and spiritual vision, disturbing his
viscera and his psyche.

For Milton, poetry, in relationship to logic, is "subsequent,
or indeed rather precedent, as being less suttle and fine, but more
simple, sensuous and passionate."7 Poetry must be didactic in
intent but not forbiddingly theological in form. Its appeal is
through the senses: "But because our understanding cannot in this
body found it self but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to
the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning
over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily
to be follow'd in all discreet teaching."8 Contrasting such dis-
similar works as Miltonis 22 Doctrina Christiana and Paradise ngt,
Maurice Kelley distinguishes between epic and straight theology:
"Paradise‘éost is concrete and strives for artistic verity by
means of the speaking picture and the feigned image of poetry. . . .
In the poem . . . form is the primary determinant of content: the
epic tradition necessitates that Paradise‘ngt contain a certain
type of plot, narrative technique, and characters, and the fact
that the work is poetry not only requires that it be concrete,but
also permits its author a judicious exercise of his imaginative and

inventive powers . "9

10

This is why Milton invests the fruit with such an exotic
fragrance and why Adam and Eve enjoy its mouth-watering flavor.
This is also why its effects are so potent and so disastrous.
Avoiding the strict analytic technique of 10gic, which is the
buttress of his theology but would be a stumbling-block to his
poetry, he wrote an epic with an appeal to both the divine and the
human. Its spirituality is not diminished by its corporeity but
rather enhanced by it.10

Since Milton's use of drugs in his epic is appropriate, the
drugs themselves can now be examined. Rue, demanding the most
concentrated attention, will be treated first, then euphrasie and
water.

Milton, bringing both his literary and medical acumen to
bear on his choice, must have selected rue for its association with
the well-known drug moly, though no Milton scholar has established
a connection between the two.11 Hugo Rahner, S.J., a member of the
Eranos group associated with Carl Jung, has in his fundamental
researches on the relationship between Christianity and the myths
of the Greco—Roman world uncovered the fact that rue and moly are
identical. Going back into ancient medicine, he finds Dioscorides
saying, "Moly is also the name . . . given in Cappadocia and
Asiatic Galatia to the plant called peganon agrion which seems to
be identical with what the Germans call Bergraute or mountain rue."12
Digging deeper into the history of these two ancient plants, Rahner
unearths the fact that Galen also considers moly and rue identical:
"The Aramaic term for mountain rue is bases and in the Syriac

version of Galen, who has copied his wisdom from Dioscorides,

ll
moly is called besaso. Galen states that mountain rue has a black
root and a white flower, and thus corresponds to the herb mentioned
by Homer. So it is that rue, famed already for its magic powers,
enters human tradition under the name of moly, and all the properties
ascribed to rue are now assumed to be possessed by the flower of
Hermes."13
The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides was Englished by John Goodyer
in 1655 (it is difficult to determine whether Milton had access to
this in manuscript) and contains a large illustration and the following
entry:
53. Peganon Agrion. Peganum Harmala

But some call Ruta Sylvestris, both that which in Cappadocia,

& that which in Galatia near Asia, is called Moly, but it is a

shrub bringing out many shoots from one root having much

longer, & tenderer leaves than ye other Rue, of a strong

scent, a white flower, & on ye top little heads, a little

greater than ye Sative Rue. . . . But ye seed is ripe in ye

Autumn being good for the dullness of the sight, being beaten

small with honey, & wine & ye gall of Henns, & Saffron, &

ye juice of Fennill. But some call it Harmala, ye Syrians

Besasa . . . ye Cappadocians Moly. . . .1”

Of course, there is no absolute proof that Milton knew

these passages in Dioscorides or in Galen. Moreover, modern scholars
of both myth and botany have carried on vigorous debates on the
authenticity of rue or moly, some going so far as to connect it
with the Egyptian deity Bes, others only with myth. Milton did
know Pliny, however, and he like other Renaissance scholars considered
the Naturalis historia medically reliable; in fact, he used it in
his tutorials.15 Pliny classifies moly as a genuine herb:

The most renowned of plants is, according to Homer, the one

that he thinks is called by the gods moly, assigning to

Mercury its discovery and the teaching of its power over the

most potent sorceries. Report says it grows today in Arcadia
round Pheneus and on Cyllene; it is said to be like the

12
description in Homer, with a round, dark root, of the size
of an onion and with the leaves of a squill, and not difficult
Egoiig 3p. Ggeek :gthogities gaze painted its blossom yellow,
g omer escr es as w l 6.
While Pliny does not use the terms rue and moly interchangeably,
he does assign to rue the power to counteract poisons. In addition
to stating that "among our chief medicinal plants is rue,"l7 he
notes its effectiveness in treating scorpion stings, serpent bites,
cloudy vision, and innumerable and varied illnesses. For Pliny,
moly and rue share many of the same properties.18 It seems safe
to conclude, then, that what matters for Milton is not whether the
plant existed botanically in the time of Homer and whether there
was a real man named Odysseus who used it; what matters is that in
the Homeric epic there is a man named Odysseus who put moly to vital
use19 and that Pliny, the great naturalist, considers both moly and
rue genuine.
Milton, a great admirer of the Homeric epic tradition, could
use moly or rue because of its verified results in epic poetry--
it repelled demons and was an antidote for poisons. If Circe, an
intimate affiliate of the Power of Darkness, was quelled by it,
why could not her true father, the Prince of Darkness, be repelled
by it in Paradise?--for he had "made one Realm / Hell and this World,
one Realm, one Continent / Of easie thorough-fare" (X.39l-393).
Milton's use of it on Adam, though less direct than Homer's on
Circe, is no less efficacious.
Anyone so familiar as Milton with the epic tradition of Homer
must have been aware of the importance of Hermes as the bearer of

moly. Hermes fascinated the ancient and medieval mind, appearing in

such diversified places as Ovid's Metamorphoses, on an altar in

13

the Carolingian cathedral of Aachen, and in a hymn of Prudentius.20
For the Greeks he came to be "the lpgigg, the personification of all
that is bright and clear in thought, he is one might say the logos

in its articulate utterances. Hermes is the possessor of knowledge
and so the mediator of all hidden wisdom. . . . Whoever has ob-
tained from him the magic formula is armed against all the powers

of darkness."21 The Archangel Michael clearly inherits the
Hermes-role in Paradise Lpst. He, along with the herbs and water

he dispenses, is the great Enlightener of Adam. The high value
Michael places on knowledge and wisdom is evident in his illumination-
instruction and his comment to Adam, "This having learnt, thou hast
attaind the summe / Cf wisdome" (XII.575-576).

Further, there is the rhapsodical fifth Orphic Hymn to
Hermes: "'O thou messenger of God, 0 thou prophet of the logos for
mortal men!‘ The divine knowledge that frees us from ourselves, the
knowledge that comes anothen and theothen, is the lpgos prophorikos,
the word made audible, and Hermes is that very thing."22 Milton's
Adam echoes this hymn in his ecstatic addresses to the heavenly
ambassador: "O‘Teacher" (XI.450), "O thou who future things canst
represent / As present, Heav'nly instructer" (XI.870-87l), "O sent
from Heav'n / Enlightner of my darkness, gracious things / Thou has
reveald" (XII.270-272), "0 Prophet of glad tidings, finisher / or
utmost hope!" (XII.375-376), and "Seer blest" (XII.553).

If, in spite of Pliny and the striking parallels, the con-
nection between Homer's moly and Milton's rue still seems tenuous,
there is only one course left to follow: to check the great herbals
of Milton's day. Because of the researches of Le Comte and Harrison

on haemony, we can be reasonably certain that Milton consulted the

14
basic herbals, those of Gerard and Lyte. Le Comte, documenting all

the possible borrowings from Gerard by Milton, shows that Gerard's
name was a "household word" in Milton's England and that the
educated person who had not seen Gerard's herbal would have been
most unusual.23 Harrison shows the influence on Milton of A M
Herball by Henry Lyte.24 Here is Gerard's entry on rue:

Rue is hot and drie in the later and of the third degree:
and wilde Rue in the fourth . . . it cutteth and digesteth
grosse and tough humours. . . .

Noble is Rue, bicause it makes th' eie sight both sharpe
and cleere; 'With helpe of Rue, O blear-eyd man, thou shalt
see far and neere. . . .

The leaves of Rue beaten or drunk with wine, are an anti-
dote or medicine against poisons, as Plinie teacheth. . . .

Dioscurides writeth, that a twelve penie weight of the
seeds drunke in wine, is a counterpoyson against deadly
medicines, or the poyson of Wolfes bane, birdlime, Mushroms,
or Toodstooles, the bitings of serpents, stinging of scor-
pions, etc. . . .25

And this is his entry on moly:

The gum.which issueth from the tree, being white like
unto Manna, disolved in milke, taketh away the web of the
9163, and cleereth the sight, being wiped over with it.

This tree is of such estimation among the Indians, that
they worship it as a god . . . much like as Pliny reporteth
of Homers Moly, the most renowned of all plants, which they
had in old time in such estimation and reverence, that as it
is recorded, the gods gave it the name of Moly, and so writeth
Ovid. . . .

Lyte's entries on rue (more scientific and comprehensive) follow:

Of Rue, or Herbe grace. Chap. lxxxiij
There are two sorts of Rue, that is, garden Rue, and wild
Rue.

The nature

Rue is hot and dry in the third degree: but the wild Rue
(and especially that which groweth in Mountaines) is a great
deale stronger than garden Rue. . . .

The body that is annointed with the juice of Rue . . .
shall be (as Plinie writeth) assured against all poison, and
safe from all venemous beasts, so that no poison or venemous
beast shall have power to hurt him. . . .

. . . [Rue] quickeneth the sight, and removeth all cloudes
and the pearles in the eyes. . . . Also the wilds Rue hath the
like vertue as the Rue of the garden, but it is of greater

15

force, in so much as the ancient Physitions would not use it,
because it was so strong saving about the diseases and webs
of the eyes, in manor as is above written. . . .

Of Harmall, or Wild Rue Chap. lxxxiij
. . . the floures [are] of colour white. . . .

The place

Harmala groweth (as Dioscorides writeth) in Cappadocia
and Galatia, in this countrey the Herborists do sowe it in
their gardens.

The names

This herbe is called . . . Harmala: of the Arabian phisi-
tions and of the late writers, Harmel. The people of Syria in
times past called it Besasa, and some Moly . . . [italics mine].

The vertues
Because Harmala is of subtil parts, it cutteth asunder

grosse tough humors. . . . The seed of Harmala stamped with

hony, wine, saffron, the juice of Fennell, and the gaule of

a henne, both quicken the sight, and cleareth dimme eyes.26
And here is Iyte's entry on moly:

Moly is also excellent against inchantments, as Plinie and

Homer do testifie, saieng, The Mercurie revealed or showed it

to Ulysses, whereby he escaped al the onchantmonts of Circe

the Magician. (PP. 586-587)

In addition, John Parinson's Theatrum Botanicum makes an
unmistakable identification of rue with moly: "Dioscorides saith,
[Rue] was called in his time, Moly montanum: and the rooto of the
Assirian wild kinde, was also as hoe saith, called Moly, for the
likenesso thereunto, being blacke without, and white within." Under
moly Parkinson has the following entry: "Moly montanum latifolium
luteo floro."27

Rahner's contemporary research is confirmed, then, by the
researches of three Renaissance herbalists, all four having drawn
on the great Dioscorides, who informed and influenced fifteen

centuries of herbalists. Gerard, Lyte, and Parkinson, basing their

studies on Dioscoridian botany, reveal the abundant similarities

16
of rue and moly and show the botanical and medicinal properties which
they share; Lyte and Parkinson then go on to make rue and moly
identical. Need we doubt further Milton's awareness of the identi-
fication of rue and moly with each other?

Besides the obvious Homeric influence, it is plausible to
suggest that Milton needed no prodding to put moly or rue to spiritual
use to alleviate Adam's desperate condition. Le Comte has shown
Milton's knowledge of the allegory surrounding moly, and it seems
likely that Milton would have been familiar with Horaclitus' use of
moly: "Phronesis is most appropriately represented by moly; This
is a gift which can only be given to human beings, and to very few
human beings at that. The most essential thing about moly is that
its root is black and its flower milkewhite. Now the first steps
towards insight, which is a kind of simultaneous comprehension of
all that is good, are rough, unpleasant and difficult, but when a
man has bravely and patiently surmounted the trials of these
beginnings, then, as he progresses, the flower opens to him, as in a
gentle light."28 This need for "phronesis," the insight illuminated
by reason, and the strength to surmount trials through suffering,
is articulated by Adam in his perceptive remarks to the Archangel:

I follow thee, safe Guide, the path
Thou lead'st mo, and to the hand of Heav'n submit,
However chast'ning, to the evil turne
My obvious breast, arming to overcom
By suffering, and earne rest from labour won,
If so I may attain. (XI.37l-376)

Adding significantly to the burgeoning of moly or rue, the

Neoplatonists, as might be expected, gave to it spiritual and

psychological properties. Whether Milton knew Themistius direct or

17
by way of Eustathius29 is unimportant for this study. What is
remarkable is the congruence between the Neoplatonic use of moly and
the Miltonic; they share the notion of "paideia": "The rare and
heavenly gift of moly is the heavenly paideia by which man, while
yet here below, prepares himself for the final ascent into the light.
Moly is self-control, circumspection in conduct and that ascetical
form of life that has a bitter, black root but a flower that is white
and sweet."30 The Archangel Michael, in a parting admonition to
Adam in preparation for life's journey, urges:
add Faith,

Add vertue, Patience, Temperance, add Love,

By name to come call'd Charitie, the soul

Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath

To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess

A paradise within thee, happier farr. (XII.582-587)

This mighty triumvirate--moly, Hermes, CHysseus--captivated

the imagination for hundreds of years. The Church Fathers (whom
Milton know well) richly adapted the Homeric Cdysseus to their
Christian message, while the Early Christian artists transformed him
into a Christian symbol by putting him at the Mast of the Cross on
sarcophagi.31 Cdysseus was always accompanied by the divine moly,
alluded to by writers from Clement to Boothius. Boethius'.22
consolatione philosophiae views Odysseus as a suffererbleader forti-
fied against temptation by moly. Boethius, capturing the essence of
the human struggle by describing the odyssey as an ascent-return,32
is a forerunner of Milton, whose Adam, a real suffererbloader, must
return and ascend; he weeps as copiously as does Boothius' Cdysseus.
This journey from "mud to the stars" is tortuous, but its end is
sure because both Odysseus and Adam are strengthened by the salvific

moly or rue bestowed upon them by a gracious God.

18

Among the extraordinary traditions to spring up around rue
were the medieval benedictions praising rue for its power to
exorcise demons: "Benodico to, creatura rutae, ut sis exterminatio
diaboli et omnium contubernalium eius."33 Medieval alchemy, as
might be expected, had a heyday with moly or rue and attributed to
it both "chymical and psychological powers."3u Its medicinal and
spiritual qualities commingled, as did its properties with the giver
of those properties. However the alchemists may have identified
moly or rue with planets, tinctures, or gods, one thing is sure--
the Middle Ages had respect for its potency, and so did Milton.

Finally, as every schoolboy of Milton's day knew,35 there was
a book written by a sober man for all the temptable young English-
men who were contemplating educational trips to Italy and who might
fall prey to the voluptuous charms of the Italian women. This book
was Roger Ascham's Scholemaster. Along with the exhortations to
circumspect living, Ascham includes moly or rue in psychotherapeutic
and theological dress. Quoting the Prophet David and Homer in the
same breath, he warns the young men against enticements to sin and
vanity, equates moly or rue with David's "fears of God," and then
reiterates his advice: "The true medicine against the inchantmentes
oflgigggg, the vanitie of licencious pleasure, the inticementes
of all sinne, is in‘figmggg the herbe Moly, with the blacke rooto
and white flouer, sewer at the first, but sweote in the end . . . this
medicine against sinne and vanitie is not found out by man, but
given and taught by God."36

Milton's use of rue in Ascham's sense is apparent. Already

in Book III sin and vanity are coupled: "when Sin / With vanity had

l9
filld the works of men" (11.446-4u7). Later Adam, in his infamous
condemnation of Eve, lashes out at her vanity: "had not thy pride /
And wandring vanitie, when lost was safe, / Rejected my forewarning"
(X.87#—876). And sin itself stalks through the pages of Paradise
Lgst, being especially prominent in the last three books. Adam,
like Ascham's young men, was ripe for allurements, and therefore
Milton prescribed the best medicine available, rue.

Having looked at rue or moly botanically and mythologically
(the two are often intertwined), we discover:

the most potent antidote to deadly poisons,

a demon-sorceryabeast repellent,

a tough-humours solvent,

a remover of pearles, webs, cloudes in the eyes; a pain-

reliover for eyes,

"LOgios": properties conferring spiritual enlightenment,

"Phronesis": psycholOgical and spiritual insight and com-

prehension of the Good,

"Paideia": education or "Bildung," including self-control

and moral asceticism,

a fortifier and salvific in the Ascent-Return,

a psychotherapeutic and theological weapon against sin and

vanity.

Euphrasie's mythological impact is nonexistent, its medicinal
use quite specific. Says Gerard in 1633: "Eye-bright in wine or
distilled water takes away hurts from the eyes, comforts the memory,
clears the sight" (pp. 662-663). The 1597 edition has a similar

entry.

20

Says lyto: "Some call this herbe in Latino Euphrasia. . . .
Eiebright pound, and laid upon the eies, or the juice thereof with
wine, dropped into the eies, taketh away the darkness of the same,
and cleareth the sight. So doth a powder made of three parts of
Eiebright dried . . . if a sponefull of it be taken every morning
. . . fit] comforteth the memorie very much" (pp. #6-h7).

Says Parkinson: "it also holpoth a weak brain or memory,
and restoreth them being decayed in a short time" (p. 1330).

Milton, using a standard Renaissance prescription for both
foggy vision and muddled thought, gives his Adam the precise drug
that he requires, euphrasie.

The last ingredient, the three drops of water from the well
of Life, may well be an allusion to Psalm xxxvi.9, as Merritt Hughes
suggests: "For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light
shall we see light."37 But Milton is also clinical in specifying
three drops. He prObably was recalling Gerard's instructions ac-
companying euphrasie (taken in distilled water). In addition, it
seems plausible that three drops was as standard an amount at that
time as "take in a glass of water" is today. Ben Jonson's Alchemist
uses exactly this amount when prescribing for the gout: "Why,
you but send three droppes of your Elixir. . . ."38 Milton may well
have been substituting three drops of water from the Well of Life
for the convention of three drops of the elixir. Alchemy was by no
means dead in Milton's day; and he, like John Donne and Dr. Thomas
Browne, must have been as familiar with the standard alchemical
prescriptions as we are today with patent medicines. A_Lexicon‘2£

Alchemy available in Milton's time has multiple entries under "Elixir"

21
and under "water," as might be expected. "Elixir is an incomparable
Medicine for conserving life and eradicating diseases." The most
relevant entry under "water" is "water of the World": "When the
philosophers have given the name of water to this Mercury during the
period of the Second Preparation, or the Medicine of the Second
Crdor, they term it: Dense water, water of’Talc, water of Life. . . ."39
Milton seems to have made his own synthesis here, borrowing from the
alchemists and dipping into the Well of Life for the perfect elixir
for the first man condemned to die. The one chosen to administer the
water to Adam is not an alchemist nor a physician, but an angelic
doctor. In combination, the three ingredients counteract the poison
ingested from the apple, clear Adam's eyes, comfort his memory,
heighten his mystical and moral vision, and enable him to see beyond
death to "the gate of life" (XII.571).

Paradise‘ngt, though it deals with the most profound issues
of life and death, shows Milton not as the systematic the010gian but
as the great epic poet. It is the medical prescription taken in
three drops of water that creates in Adam a ggbgig ebrietas startling-

ly different from the sin-induced intoxication of the false fruit.

CHAPTER II

A MASK AT LUDLCW-CASTLE

MAGIC ASPECTS CW THE HERBAL TRADITION

There can be no doubt that Milton intended A Mask at

 

Ludlow-Castle to participate in the ancient magic traditions:

He made Bacchus and Circe the illustrious parents of Comus, and he
included dazzling spells (154), magic chains (434), hellish charms
(612), baleful drugs and potent herbs (254), a pleasing poison (525),
an orient liquor (65).1 Milton drew not only on the ancient magic
tradition but also on the botanic, mixing them without hesitation, as
Pliny before him had made unblushing references to Medea and Circe
in a botanic context:

. . . tales everywhere are widely current about Medea of
Colchis and other sorceresses, especially Circe of Italy,

who has even been enrolled as a divinity. . . . Strong
confirmatory evidence exists even today in the fact that

the Marsi, a tribe descended from Circe's son, are well-known
snake-charmers. Homer indeed, the first ancestor of ancient
learning, while expressing in several passages great admira-
tion for Circe, gives the prize for herbs to Egypt, even
though at that time the irrigated Egypt of today did not yet
exist. . . . At any rate he says that Egyptian herbs in
great number were given by the wife of the king to the Helen
of his tale, including that celebrated nepenthes, which
brought forgetfulness and remission of sorrow, to be adminis-
tered especially by Helen to all mortals.2

Milton's reference to that "Repenthes which the wife of Thggg,/
In Egypt gave to ggyg-born‘gglena" (674-675) is easily traced to the
ancient writers.

These traditional materials, including magic, have been

22

23
richly explored in studies on Milton's masque.3 But the native
English materials, stemming from the herbal tradition, have only
rarely been investigated or used to gloss Milton's text. The
masque, though enriched by ancient traditions, was written for
native Englishmen, who, although they knew their Pliny and the magic
of the Classics, rejoiced in their own traditions. Both "nobility

and gentry"4

who attended the masque at Ludlow were knowledgeable about
herbals.

It cannot be ascertained whether Milton attended the per-
formance at Ludlow Castle on September 29, 1634,5 and, therefore, it
cannot be argued that ho was aware of its specific locale; but the kind
of herbal knowledge underlying his masque would have been current in
most non-urban areas. Ludlow in Shropshire, ". . . about seven and
twenty miles south from Shrewsbury and about four and twenty north
from Hereford, is beautifully situated in one of those tracts of rich
green scenery, lovely in hill and valley, which admonish one that
there England is beginning to pass into Wales. The town itself is
mainly on the top and slopes of an eminence near the junction of two
streams, the Tome and the Corve, whose united waters meet the Severn
in Worcestershire. A11 round is a wide circle of hills, distanced
in some directions by intervening plains. . . . A castle . . .
situated on a rocky height which commands a beautiful and extensive
prospect, and thus topping a town of clean and somewhat quaint
streets descending the gentler slopes of the hill or winding at its
base, with a large and lofty parish-church conspicuous near the
castle: . . . such was Ludlow in the year 1634. . . ."6 Milton
transmutes native materials--whether of the area around Ludlow Castle

or of Buckinghamshire, it does not matter-~into memorable poetry.

24
Who would have thought that diseases of cattle, that limed-twig lures,
that blastings of crops could leap off the pages of the herbals and
agricultural manuals and appear in lyric form? And who would have
thought that aphrodisiac herbs and potions, that dried roots and river
water, could be lifted from the English environment and raised to the
level of high seriousness? Perhaps, then, an examination of these
native materials may help the modern reader to fill in the gaps that
three centuries have left. In the following pages I shall not discuss
the wand, magic chair, magic dust, and the like, but only those
elements in the masque that have a relationship to the herbal

tradition.

I

Two kinds of magic enliven Milton's masque, unnatural and
natural; Comus and the elves practice the first type, Sabrina and
the Attendant Spirit the second type. Although there were many
"Books of Secrets" available in the sixteenth century,7 prObably
the most engaging statement concerning this distinction, one which
includes the herbal tradition, was made by Giambattista della Porta
(EE- 1535-1615) in his book Natural Magick. First published in full
and expanded form in 1558, it went through at least twelve editions
in Latin, four in Italian, seven in French, two in German, and two
in English. Both English translations (1658 and 1669) are rare today,
but the 1669 edition is even more scarce than the 1658; the "soiled
and damaged examples testify to the fact that it was used and worn
out by the practical man and in the laboratory rather than being
safely preserved on a library shelf."8 Della Porta defines magic as

"Wisdom, and the perfect knowledge of natural things." Making a

25
clear distinction between the two kinds, he says:

There are two sorts of Magick: the one is infamous, and
unhappie, because it hath to do with foul spirits, and
consists of Inchantments and wicked Curiosity; and this

is called Sorcery; an art which all learned and good men
detest. . . . The other Magick is natural: which all ex-
cellent wise men do admit and embrace, and worship with
great applause. . . . The Platonicks, as Plotinus imi-
tating Mercurius, writes in his book of Sacrifice and
Magick, makes it to be a Science whereby inferiour things
are made subject to superiours, earthly are subdued to
heavenly; and by certain pretty allurements, it fetcheth
forth the properties of the whole frame of the world. . . .
Magick was wont to flourish in AEthiopia and India, where
was great store of herbs and stones, and such other things
as were fit for these purposes. . . .

. . . Moreover, it is required of him,[the natural
magicianlthat he be an Herbalist, not onely able to discern
common Simples, but very skilful and sharp-sighted in the
nature of all plants: for the uncertain names of plants,
and their neor likeness of one to another, so that they can
hardly be discerned, hath put us to much trouble in some of
our works and experiments. . . . so the knowledge of plants
is so necessary to this profession, that indeed it is all
in all.9

One of the less dynamic forms of unnatural magic mentioned
in the masque, attributed to the elves, is counteracted by the
natural magic of Sabrin'a "precious vialed liquors." In his
tribute to her, the Attendant Spirit praises her power and mentions
that the shepherds garland her efficacious herbal interventions.

Deep rooted in Anglo—Saxon soil is the belief that diseases of cattle
are caused by the malignant power of urchins and elves. The
Lacnunga refers to this:

Were it AEsir shot, or Elves' shot
Or hag's shot, nOW‘Will I help thee. (76 CXXXV)

According to Charles Singer, this particular form of unnatural magic
is not borrowed from ancient traditions but is native Teutonic.lo

This is not to deny that the belief in bewitching occurred in the

ancient world,11 but only to emphasize the fact that those in

26
attendance at the masque would have been familiar with the malign
effects of the urchin blasts and the ill-luck signs placed by elves
upon domestic animals.

Reginald Scot in the Discoverie 2f Witchcraft classifies

 

 

urchins. along with elves, hags, fairies,12 and the blasts are the
diseases of cattle caused by those malignant creatures. The word
blggt, the linguistic variants being blagd or bligtgg, "is encountered
frequently in‘Teutonic folklore."13 But it was more than folklore
for the farmers and herdsmen of Milton's day. They recOgnized
blasting as a troublesome pest, although they were not agreed on the
causes or sources. An agricultural writer like John Worlidge attri-
butes blasting of fruits, trees, hops, corn, to a natural cause--
high winds. William Perkins, a writer on witchcraft, considers the
causes of blasting unnatural: ". . . The wonders done by Inchant-
ment are, l. The raising of stormes and tempests; windes and
weather, by sea and by land: 2. The poysoning of the ayre:
3. Blasting of corne. . . ."14
Persistent in the Anglo—Saxon descriptions of animal
maladies is the diagnosis of elf-shot cattle and the prescriptions
for cattle so harmed.l5 For centuries after them, British farmers
fought the "elf-shot." Edward Lhwyd, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum
in the seventeenth century, refers to elf-struck cattle and the
amulets he has seen in Scotland, which Observations were later
recorded in the Transactionsugf the_nga1 Society'(1713).16 As late
as 1884, a Buchan farmer complained: "I've gotten an ill job this
mornin' in the doth o' a fine stirk by elfshot, an' the pity is he

wasna fasent to a hair tether (a halter made of hair) fan the wapin

27
wad a fa'en short o'm."l7
The cures were many and varied, consisting of charms, amulets,
incantations, prayers, stones, herbs. One of the well-known Irish

herbal cures contains the juice of Alchemilla vulgaris (Lady's Mantle)

 

placed in a pail with water from a stream; while the Lacnunga sug-
gests Feverfew, Red Nettle, and Waybroad, boiled in butter.18
Sabrina's healing potion is herbal:

. . . and oft at Eeve

Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,

Helping all urchin blasts, and ill luck signes

That the shrewd medling Elfe delights to make,

Which she with pretious viold liquors heals. (842-846)

There were various methods of obtaining precious liquors from herbs,
as della Porta‘s meticulous description of the preparation of simples
indicates:

For the operations of Simples, do not so much consist
in themselves, as in the preparing of them; without
which preparation, they work little or nothing at all.
There be many wayes to prepare Simples, to make them
fitter for certain uses. The most usual wayes are,
Steeping, Boiling, Burning, Powning, Resolving into
ashes, Distilling, Drying, and such like.19

This is not to suggest, of course, that Sabrina followed della
Porta's instructions, but only to re-creato the herbal climate of
the day.

It was not only the crodulous who believed in the operation
of malignant forces on cattle, but, as is evident from the pro-
nouncements of Reginald Scot, the belief was widespread:

But if you desire to learne true and lawfull charmes, to
cure diseased cattell, even such as soeme to have
Extra-ordinarie sicknesse, or to be bewitched, or (as
they saie) strangelie taken: looke in B. Googe his
third booko, treating cattell, and happilio you shall
find some good medicine or cure for them: or if you

list to see more ancient stuffe, read Vegetius his foure
bookes thereupon: or, if you be unloarned, seeke some

28

cunning bullocke leech. If all this will not serve then
sett Jobs patience before your eies.2O

Barnaby Googe serves as a corrective to those who believed in the
operation of malignant forces on cattle. Describing such natural
diseases as murraine, fever, scabs, the staggers, he devotes the

entire third book of his Fovro Bookes 2: Hvsbandrie to diseases and

 

 

herbal remedies. Gerard also gives specific herbal remedies for

cattle complaints such as cough and murren.21

Which one of the herbs Sabrina uses for her potion, Milton
does not specify; but it is an efficacious botanical-pharmaceutical
remedy, the kind of prescription any Englishman at Ludlow Castle that

day would have understood and might have used.

II

The most famous of Milton's herbs is haemony:22

. . . a certain Shepherd Lad
. . .fhas shown]me simples of a thousand names
Telling their strange and vigorous faculties;
Amongst the rest a small unsightly root,
But of divine effect, he cull'd me out;
The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another Countrey, as he said,
Bore a bright golden flowre, but not in this soyl:
Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon,
And yet more med'cinal is it then that Moly
That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave:
He call'd it Haemony, and gave it me,
And bad me keep it as of sov'ran use
'Gainst all inchantments, mildew blast, or damp
Or gastly furies apparition. (618-640)

I cannot here identify haemony, but I suspect that, although haemony
is undoubtedly surrounded by ancient traditions and allegorios, it is
an actual herb that grew in Milton's day.23 His precise description
of its appearance, properties, and uses parallels herbal materials

far too closely to have been invented for the purposes of a masque.

29
Further, there is neither Renaissance precedent nor prototype in classi-
cal poetry for the invention of a non-existent herb. A medicinal herb,
used in dried root rather than in potion form, it functions as:

1) An antidote "'Gainst all inchantments, mildew blast, or
damp / Cr gastly furies apparition" (639-640);

2) A natural amulet enabling the Attendant Spirit to rec0gnize
the enchanter and to enter the lime-twigs of his spells
without detection or harm: "But now I find it true; for
by this means / I knew the foul inchanter though disguis'd, /
Enter'd the very lime-twigs of his spells, / And yet came
off" (643-646):

3) A natural amulet bestowing so much power upon two unarmed
young men as to enable them to free their sister from the
sorcerer's spell while remaining unscathed themselves:

"The Brothers rush lg with Swords drawn, wrest his Glass out

 

pf his hand, and break‘it against the ground; his rout make
gigg g: resistance, but are all driven.i§" (Stage direction
at 812).
Moreover, Milton would not have felt the need to invent such a
potent herb.2u At his disposal were the herbals with descriptions
of herbs to combat the very conditions described by Milton. His
faith in the efficacy of simples is an echo of the herbals. One
simpler, William Coles, insists that a knowledge of herbs results
in a restoration of Eden:
To the Reader--
To make thee truly sensible of that happinesse which Mankind
lost by the Fall of Adam, is to render thee an exact Botanick,

by the knowledge of so incomparable a Science as the Art of

Simpling, to re-instate thee into another Eden, or, A Garden
.2; Paradise. . . . 5

30

The herbalists were scrupulous, however, in their refusal
to transmit old wives' tales in their scientific works. Gerard,
for one, refuses to pass on "many odde wiues fables . . . tending
to witchcraft and sorcery, which you may read elsewhere, for I am
not willing to trouble your oares with reporting such trifles. . ."26
But the herbalists did recommend antidotes to witchcraft and en-
chantment. Among the herbs prescribed was vervain, known by such
names as Herba Sacra, Sagminalis Herba, Holy Herbe, Mercury's Moist
Blood, Juno's Tears, Enchanters' Plant, Pigeons' Grass, Simplers'
Joy.27 ‘William Coles, who had great faith in the efficacy of vervain,
regarded it as "effectuall . . . against bewitched Drinks, and the
like, so that it is not used in, but also against, Witch—craft."28
From Pliny down to the days of Anne Pratt, vervain was regarded as
a potent root. Anne Pratt recalls seeing vervain root tied around
the neck of a child as a charm and she further observes that it was
also used as a remedy for thirty different maladies.29

Another such herb was angelica. Gerard says, "It is reported
that the root is auaileable against witchcraft and inchantments, if
a man carry the same about them, as Fuchsius saith."30 Certainly,
the use of an herbal amulet was not restricted to ancient magic,
for Perkins describes this use in the seventeenth century: ". . . the
vsing of Amulets, that is remedies and preseruatives against in-
chantments, sorceries, and bewitchings, made of hearbes of some such
things, and hanged about the necke for that endo."31

Parkinson, less inclined to list herbal remedies for
enchantments and witchcraft than his fellow herbalists, does mention

betony as an herb that frees a man "from the danger of diseases, and

from witchcraft also. . . ."32 Coles does not hesitate to include

31

Herb Paris and Pimpernell, in dried or in powdered form, as effective
antidotes to witchcraft.33

Also available to Milton and to the common people of his
day were the health manuals.3u The mildew blast and damp that Milton
refers to in connection with haemony were probably associated in the
popular mind, as well as in the medical, with such diverse diseases
as headache and pestilence. Since bad air was the cause of many
illnesses, one feared the mildew blast and damp as one feared the

plague. Andrew Boorde, in The Breviary.g§ Healthe, lists as one of

 

the causes of headache the ”interporancy of the ayer corrupted"; and
the pestilence to "a corrupte and contagyous ayre," to the "stenche
of dyrte strotes, or channelles not kept clean," or "stynkyng
waters, stynkyng draughtes, contagious ayers, and contagious

mistes."35 Thomas Phaire‘s Treatise 2f the Pestilence also describes

 

stinking, venomous, corrupt air as the cause of pestilence, and

urges rectification by a retreat to high or hilly ground, since mists
and damps cling to the ltw areas.36 Gerard, however, lists angelica
not only as an anti-enchantment herb but also as an antidote to
poison, plague, and pestilence.37

Although Samuel Hartlib's book His Legacy 2: Husbandgy, does

 

not treat human disease, it contains a definition of mildew which
is applicable to the mildew blast and damp of Milton's masque.
Mildew, says Hartlib, is "an unctuous dew" which falls like a
”thick fog, or a misty rain."38 More directly concerned with foul

winds, Gulielmus Gratarolus, in‘g Direction for the Health 2f

 

Magistrates and Students, urges his readers to avoid air "whiche is

open to vaporous blastos and pestilent‘windes."39 And in The Diet

32
‘3; the Diseased James Hart suggests that "of a thicke and cloudy
aire, thicke and grosse spirits are most commonly produced.”0
He prescribes the herb sage as a remedy for "all manner of cold
rheumaticke dofluxions, commonly called by the name of colds."4l
The "ghastly Furies apparition"42 has its Anglo-Saxon
precedents as well as its Renaissance occurrencesfl3

The word dream signifies joy, ecstasy, but the compound
wédendream signifies madness, fury. The connexion of
these and other cOgnate words with Woden, the god of the
frenzied, is obvious. . . . It is natural that treat—
ment by means of herb remedies in mental cases would not
be of such avail as they might be in the case of bodily
ills. Herbs, if used, are therefore of the unusual
kind. . . . Mugwort . . . put to flight deéful-seocniss.

For fyllo se6c or scinlac, which is probably an apparition or
delusio mentis, animal and herbal remedies are listed in the
Anglo-Saxon Herbal and in the leechbook."r5
In specifying the cures for Furies apparition, Burton in
the Aggtggy{gf Melancholy refers to "terrible objects which [melanchon

patientsfl hear and see many times, Devils, Bugbears, and Mormoluces,

noisome smells, etc. . . . prodigious shapes . . . and terriculaments."u6

His herbal cures include

. . . Pennyroyal, Rue, Mint, Angelica, Piony: Rich. Argentine,
g3 praestigiis daemonum g_p. 20, adds hypericon or S. John's
wort, perforata herba, which by a divine virtue drives away
Devils, and is therefore called fuga daemonum: all which
rightly used by their suffitus, Daemonum vexationibus obsistunt,
afflictas mentes a daemonibus relevant, et venenatis fumis,
expel Devils themselves, and all devilish illusions. Anthony
Musa, the Emperor Augustgg his Physician, g_p. 6‘gg Betonia,
approves of Betony tothis purpose; the antients used there-
fore to plant it in Church-yards, because it was held to be

an holy herb, and good against fearful visions, did secure
such places it grew in, and sanctified these persons that
carried it about them. Idem fore Mathiolgsiin_Qioscoridem.u7

 

 

 

There were also herbal cures for a form of apparition caused

not by furies but by elves. In Anglo—Saxon England ". . . elves were

33

regarded as the source of apparitions, especially at night, and
therefore of nightmare. . . . The Anglo~Saxon Herbal finds in betony
a shield from 'frightful goblins that go by night and terrible sights
and dreams'. . . . Vervain is supposed to have a similar effect.”8
For the Renaissance man troubled by nightmare and melancholic dreams,
Gerard recommends peony.49 And as late as 1895 St. John's wort was
used as an amulet in Scotland to ward off visions.5O

It is interesting to note at this point that the Attendant
Spirit gives the complete herbal index of haemony. Although haemony
is not functional in the masque against enchantments, mildew blast,
damp, or apparition, these qualities are enumerated so that the
audience may successfully identify the herb. (Then, as now, popular
names for plants can be very confusing; for example, what one person

today calls Crange Hawkweed another calls Devil's Paintbrush--but

 

not to be confused with Indian Paintbrush.) Not having available to
him a scientific taxonomical system, Milton had to resort to a
description of its appearance, characteristics, and virtues. While
scientific credibility may not have been necessarya-may even have
been irrelevant--in Milton's masque, as in Chaucer's Reeve's Tale,
"fundamental fantasy is penetrated in a remarkable way by . . .
supporting realism."51

Turning to the functional qualities of haemony, the Attendant
Spirit (whatever his true nature)52 insists that it enabled him to
rec0gnize Comus and to enter his limed-twig snare (643-646). There
were other herbs in Milton's day which enabled one to detect a malign
fairy without being harmed. Thyme, for example, was "a chief in-

gredient in a recipe (gg. 1600) for an eye-salve for beholding without

34
cianger the most potent fairy or spirit. . . ."53 The four-leaf
clover, even today considered a good-luck plant, was an herb used in
the detection of invisible malignant creatures; it enabled a young
girl in Northumberland returning from milking to see fairies in the
fields. A similar report in Cornwall describes a milkmaid who saw
fairies "swarming about the cow she was milking, which for weeks
had been in a fractious state. A four~1eaved clover was found in the
bunch of grass she had placed in her hat for convenience in carrying
her hilt-buckets."SAIL It is not surprising, then, to have Milton
select an herb for enchanter-detection purposes: this is exactly
what many in his audience would have done.

In harmony with the agricultural context, Milton has the
Attendant Spirit speak about the limed-twigs of Comus’s spells.
Although limed twigs have an ancient literal and metaphoric history,55
they were still used for catching birds in Milton's day and after.
Worlidge devotes several pages of the Systema Agriculturae to the making
of bird lime:

Besides the Art of taking Fowl with Nets, there is a very
ingenious way of taking them with Bird-lime, which seems
very ancient; for Pliny, who lived about 1600 years since,
not only mentions the use of it, in liming of Twigs to

catch Birds withal, but the manner how the Italians prepared
the same, of the Berries of Migseltpg. . . . But seeing that
that way of making Bird-limo is not in use with us, I shall
not trouble you with the whole Process, especially seeing
that we have here in England a more easie and effectual way
of preparing it with the Bark of that common and so well
known Tree the Holly; which Preparation is thus. . . .

. . . When you intend to use your Bird—lime for great
Fowl, take of Rods long, small, and streight, being light,
and yielding every way; Lime the upper parts of them.before
the Fire, that it may the better besmear them.

Then go where these Fowl usually haunt, whether it be
their Morning or Evening haunt, an hour to two before they
come, and plant your Twigs or Rods about a foot distance
one from the other, that they cannot pass them without being
intangled, and so plant over the place where their haunt is,

35

leaving a place in the middle wide enough for your Stale

to flutter in, without falling foul of the Twigs, which
Stale you do well to provide and place there, the better
to attract those of its own kind to your Snares: from
which Stale you must have a small string to some convenient
place at a distance where you may lie concealed, and by
plucking the string, cause it to flutter; which will allure
down the Fowl in view.56

Both nobleman and peasant would have understood Milton's use
of the limed-twig snare and would have been impressed by an herb
that could enable one to enter such a snare without being entangled.
Milton's awareness of his audience and his insertion of familiar
English elements makes his masque singularly appropriate for the
occasion.

The final virtue of the herb haemony consists in its ability
to fight off evil forces. A plant of war enabling two vulnerable
young men to conquer an evil enchanter, haemony is more potent than
moly. At this point the herb sounds like a piece of unnatural magic,
or like something invented for a masque to rescue the heroine; but,
again, the herbals mention such plants, though the herbalists may
demur a bit. Parkinson, for example, refers to those who believe in
the potency of St. John's wort as "superstitiously imsgining [gig],
that it will drive away devills. . . ."57 Coles cites Paracelsus in
connection with St. John's wort, "supposing it to drive away
Devils . . . [and to] cause all the Spirits of darknesse to
vanish. . . ."58 Poets and herbalists point to its qualities as a
vulnerary, "Balm of the warrior's wound, Hypericon," and "Hypericon
was there, the herb of war. . . ."59

Because the herbal tradition was so rich in multiple remedies

for diseases ranging from headache to enchantment, haemony would not

have had to originate in the lore of ancient Thessaly to be

36
understandable at Ludlow Castle that day in 1634. Enough people
believed in the anti-demonic qualities of certain herbs to warrant
discussion by the herbalists. In Milton's masque there is nothing
deficient about the herb--it has sufficient power to overcome Comus:
it is the humans who are deficient-~tho young men forget to seize

Comus 's wand .

III
Comus refers to the pharmaceutical activities of one of
the most famous simplers of all times, Circe. He has watched his
mother cull potent herbs and baleful drugs (251-254). But in Milton's
masque, Comus excels even his mother

. . . at her mighty Art,
Offring to every weary Traveller,
His orient Liquor in a Crystal Glass,
To quench the drouth of Phoebus, which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst)
Soon as the Potion works, their human count'nance
Th' express resemblance of the gods, is chang'd
Into som brutish form of Woolf, or Bear,
Or Ounce, or Tiger, HOg, or bearded Goat,
All other parts remaining as they were,
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely then before
And all their friends, and native home forget
To roulo with pleasure in a sensual stie. (63-77)

Further testimony to Comus's herbal skills is adduced by the Attendant
Spirit:
Deep skill'd in all his mothers witcheries,
And here to every thirsty wanderer,
By sly enticement gives his baneful cup. . . . (522-524)
Comus, himself, in trying to entice the lady to amorous

activities, describes his aphrodisiac potion as

. . . this cordial Julep here
That flames, and dances in his crystal bounds
With spirits of balm, and fragrant Syrops mixt.

37
Not that Nepenthes which the wife of igpgg,
Inlggypt gave to ggyg-born‘gglggg
Is of such power to stir up joy as this,
To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst. (671-677)
The ingredients: spirits of balm and fragrant syrups.
The effects: sensuality and transformation.

Aphrodisiacs are almost as ancient as history and are as
modern as the sex supermarkets of Western Germany. It is interesting
to observe, however, that while Milton establishes Circe as the mother
of Comus, he does not specifically mention the root most frequently
associated with her, the mandragora. He could assume, of course,
that an audience familiar with mandragora would readily accept a
potent aphrodisiac cordial. Next to moly, mandragora is prObably
the best known plant in the ancient world: it was rec0gnized by
Theophrastus6O and Dioscorides,61 who discussed its medicinal
properties as well as its narcotic and aphrodisiac effects; by
Josephus62 and the Arabic Trismegist0363; by the Hebrew Scriptures
(Gen. 30:14 ff. and Cant. 7:13), Egyptian inscriptions,64 and in
Chinese lore.65 The later commentaries on Dioscorides, particularly
those of Matthiolus and Amatus Lusitanus, give a detailed analysis
of the mandragora.66 Between 1510 and 1850 at least twentyetwo
treatises were published on the mandragore, known popularly in
England as mandrake.67 Perhaps Milton does not mention mandragora
because the herbalists are extremely skeptical about its aphrodisiac
and fertility qualities. Gerard does not even subscribe to the
Rachel "conception story" of Genesis, and he concludes that all the
fables about the mandrake were "false and most vntrue."68 Parkinson's

Theatrum would credit the mandrake only with the ability to cool eye

inflammations and with anesthetic and soporific powers.69

38
A recent pharmacodynamic study by David I. Macht ascertains
the potency of mandrake:

. . . pharmacodynamic properties of the hyoscyamine and
hyoscine alkaloids . . . explain . . . the various physio-
logical or medicinal properties ascribed to mandragora in
ancient, medieval and modern literature. The narcotic and
analgesic action of mandragora described by the classical
authors is undoubtedly due to the sedative effect of hyoscine
or scopolamine, which is the chief constituent of both root
and fruit. . . . The maddening effects of mandragora . . .
merely depict the delirifacient action of the belladonna
alkaloids on higher animals which is well known to every
pharmacolOgist. Acute maniacal manifestations . . . are
characteristic of atropine poisoning. . . . Hallucinations
of sight and hearing are both produced by overdoses of these
drugs.7O

 

Finally, in connection with the aphrodisiac claims, Macht succeeded
in isolating a chemical substance called'g-methoxybmethyl piperidin
and "found that piperidin hydrochloride actually produced an
aphrodisiac effect in dogs."71

Although the herbalists and Milton could not have been
aware of Macht's study establishing the clinical reliability of
mandragora as an aphrodisiac, they were prObably familiar with
,Qg.ggitg by Constantinus Africanus, as was Chaucer's Merchant.
Constantinus vouches for the authenticity of these aphrodisiacs,
claiming to have tested them clinically. Largely herbal, his
recipes include such plants as asparagus, rag-wort, colewort, crocus,
poppy, anise, hellebore, scammony.72

Avoiding the most venerable herbs of classical times--moly
mandragora, and nepenthes (derived from opium poppy)--Milton is
deliberately vague about the contents of the love-philtre. As in
most stories with a fairy tale formula, the content of the magic
potion is not specified. The spirits of balm and fragrant syrups,73

htmever, were well within the knowledge of the audience at Ludlow

39
Castle. Perhaps they had heard of Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, in

Dumbartonshire, who had married Lady Lilian Graham, a daughter

of the earl of Montrose, in 1633. "Her younger sister, the Lady
Katherine, came to reside with the married pair, and the faithless
baronet conceived an unlawful affection for his sister-in-law. At
first she remained cold to his advances, so he applied to a necro-
mancer for a love potion . . . which so worked upon the senses of the
Lady Katherine that she became infatuated with Sir John and finally
eloped with him to London. . . ."74 Another case which can be cited
is that of Lord Balmerino, a Scottish poor, who "died in 1612 from
the effects of a love philtre administered to him by a serving-maid
in his house. . . ."75 If they had not heard of these two instances,
they undoubtedly could supply evidence of their own. Milton, aware
of the effects of love potions on his contemporaries, avoids the
strictly ancient and draws on the native contemporary.

The herbalists, though they scoffed at mandragora as an
aphrodisiac, did list innumerable herbs that provoked venery.
William Coles devotes twentyasix chapters to those herbs that inflame
a person's venereal instincts, and he singles out the Tree of Cacao
and Chocolate as one that "vehemently incites to Venus," especially
if "relented in Milke."76 Gerard's entries on aphrodisiacs are
numerous; for example, he mentions that corne-flag, ". . . the vpper
root proueketh bodily lust,"77 that Rocket-seeds, Garden Crosses,
Annise, Cheruill, Spignell, Herbe Ferula, ash, and many more, whether
in distilled, roasted, powdered, or boiled form, all work powerfully
for Venus. I hasten to add, however, that the herbalists also list

those herbs that are effective in abating lust: Coles recommends

40

Agnus or chaste-tree, Hempe, Water Lilly, Hemlock, Camphire; and
Gerard says that "Agnus Castus is a singular medicine and remedy
for such as would willingly liue chaste, for it withstandoth all
vncleannes, or desire to the flesh, consuming and drying vp the seed
of generation, in what soeuer it bee taken, whether in pouder onely,
or the decoction drunke, or whether the leaues be carried about the
body. . . ."78

The philosophers as well as the herbalists believed in the
efficiency of love philtres. Agrippa refers to amorous bewitchings
and mentions that "to procure love, they use venereall collyries.

. . ."79 Jacques Ferrand, in Erotomania, devotes an entire chapter

 

to love potions and philtres, though he cites mostly the ancients.
He does agree that "there may be Medicines, Meats, and Poysons, of a
power provoking to Lust: of which kinde you shall meet with diverse
Catalogues. . . ."80 His work also includes a chapter on pharma-
ceutical remedies for Love-Melancholy, but his conclusion is
philosophical rather than medical: the true moly is for him "the
perfection of wisdom."81

It is interesting to observe that while the herbalists
generally have respect for the power of simples both to provoke
and to abate lust, Reginald Scot vehemently denies their aphrodisiac
qualities: "As touching this kind of witchcraft, the principall
part thereof consisteth in certeine confections prepared by lewd
people to procure love; which indeed are meere poisons, bereaving some
of the benefit of the brains, and so of the sense and understanding
of the mind. And from some it taketh awaie life, & that is more

common than the other."82

41

The major side-effect of Comus‘s potion is the transformation
of humans into beasts. While it was an ancient commonplace that a
brutish man begins to look like a brute (and an ass like Bottom
deserves to be "translated" into a creature with an ass's head), the
subject of metamorphosis was hotly debated in the Renaissance. The
Renaissance had its share of skeptics on herbal transformation.
‘William Perkins, for one, believes transformation to be a delusion and
the direct act of the devil:

Delusion is then performed, when a man is made to thinke
he sees that which indeode he sees not. And this is done
by operation of the devill diuersly, but especially three
waies. First, by corrupting the humor of the eye, which
is the next instrument of sight. Secondly, by altering
the ayre, which is the meane by which the object or species
is carried to the eye. Thirdly, by altering and changing
the object, that is, the thing scene, or whereon a man
looketh.83

Della Porta, attributing transformation to natural magic, to the
use of herbs in potion-form, describes the phenomena of meta-
morphosis:

For by drinking a certain Potion, the man would seem some-
times to be changed into a Fish; and flinging out his arms,
would swim on the Ground: sometimes he would seem to skip
up, and then to dive down again. Another would believe
himself turned into a Goose: now and then sing, and en-
deavour to clap his Wings. And this he did with the afore-
named Plants [Stramonium, Solanum Manicum, Bella Donna]:
neither did he exclude Henbane from among his Ingredients:
extracting the essences by their Menstruum, and mix'd some
of their Brain, Hart, Limbs, and other parts with them. I
remember when I was a young man, I tried these things on my
Chamber-Fellows: and their madness still fixed upon some-
thing they had eaten, and their fancy worked according to
the quality of their meat. One, who had fed lustily upon
Beef, saw nothing but the formes of Bulls in his imagina-
tion, and them running at him with their horns: and such-like
things. Another man also by drinking a Potion, flung himself
upon the earth, and like one ready to be drowned, struck
forth his legs and arms, endeavouring as it were to swim for
life: but when the strength of the fiedicament began to
decay, like a Shipwrack'd person, who had escaped out of the
Sea, he wrung his Hair and his Clothes to strain the water

42

out of them; and drew his breath, as though he took such
pains to escape the danger.

The question of human transformation into beasts was long
considered a legitimate topic for discussion; the audience at Ludlow
Castle would not have had to go back to Aristotle or Ovid to find a
lively discussion of this question. Currently available were
treatises on witchcraft, most of which consider the problem and
discuss it heatedly. Physicians and philosophers debated it, some
affirming transformation, others denying it. The physician Johann

Daniel Horst in The Hippocratic_Ehysics raises the question,85 and

 

the Professor of Medicine, Tobias Tandler, in Five Physical-Medical

Dissertations denies love-philtres and the metamorphosis of man into

 

beast.86 But the philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi of Mantua asserts
that there are three ways "in which herbs, minerals and parts of
animals may alter other bodies," and, using this same line of
reasoning, he sees no objection to transformation. Basing his
argument on the analogy of stone coral generating from wood and
plants, he concludes that natural transformation of man into beast
is metaphysically possible.87 The physician Johann Wier in 23
,praestigiis daemonum states that "not only . . . the lamiae sometimes
were subject to illusions from unguents with which they had anointed
themselves or natural soporific drugs which they had taken, but that
eating the brain of a bear might make one imagine himself to be a
bear."88 'Wier apparently believes in the potency of both vegetable
and animal to transform a man, or at least in the hallucinatory
effects of certain preparations.

In Milton's masque, the Elder Brother, still too young and

too naive to be acquainted with the power of the herbal world, views

43
lust as strictly an ethical lapse which has the power to "imbrute"
(467)89; but it is the Attendant Spirit, familiar with pharmacy as
well as with ethics, who insists that Comus's potion has the power
to incite to lust, the result being foul disfigurement "into some
brutish form" (68-77; 524-529). Sabrina, also a sophisticated
creature, relies on more than word of mouth or sheer virtue: she
uses her own pure fountain water to release the young lady from the

"marble venomed seat" (915). In this connection it is difficult

to understand Arthos‘s reference to "gums Sabrina uses as a counter-
charm Etol take the place of the salve used by Circe."90 Milton's
'text clearly indicates that Comus has smeared the marble seat with
"gums of glutinous heat" (915-916) and that Sabrina uses only

"Drops that from my fountain pure, / I have kept of pretious cure"
(911-912). The spell loses its hold on the lady when Sabrina touches
'the seat with palms that have been moistened by untainted water.

11 natural substance, pure water, conquers an unnatural one, gums of

glutinous heat .

IV

What must have made the masque so delightful to the audience
alt; Ludlow Castle was the introduction of familiar English elements-—
'tdie everyday, commonplace heightened by its appearance in a poetic
<3<Intext. Saving the masque from becoming either an amateur philo-
sOphical treatise (which would have been a theatrical bore) or a mere
Citisplay of classical virtuosity (which would have made the "loose
liinds" feel very "unlettered") are the native herbal elements. They

give the masque a peculiar English flavor in a day'when no one denied

Lu,
the potency of even knot-grass. Part of the charm of the masque

surely sprang from its natural magic.

CHAPTER III

THE LAURELS, MYRTLES, AND IVY OF LYCIDAS

CEREMCNIAL ASPECTS OF‘THE HERBAL TRADITION

Though plants are most frequently associated with medicine
and the dispensary, there is another ancient and persistent use of
plants that rivals the pharmacological. It is the ceremonial. As
Sir Thomas Browne remarked, the use of plants in "flowry Crowns and
Garlands is of not slender Antiquity, and higher than I conceive you
apprehend it. For, besides the old Greeks and Romans, the AEgyptians
made use hereof. . . ."1 Plants crowd the pages of history, elbowing
their way on to sarcophagi and monuments, displaying themselves in
catacombs and forums. Their coronary form can be classified as
"Gestatory, Portatory, Suspensory, Depository"; their functions as
"convivial, festival, sacrificial, nuptial, honorary, funebrial."2

With so venerable a tradition behind him, Milton could
hardly have ignored the ceremonial function of the herbal tradition
in his poetry. His Lycidas opens with a five-line herbal tribute
to the "learned friend," Edward King, drowned at sea, August 10,
1637:

Yet once more, 0 ye Laurels, and once more

Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never soar,

I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,

And with forc'd fingers rude,

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. (1-5)

These three plants--laurel, myrtle, and ivy--have frequently been

interpreted as plants that symbolize poetic fame. No one would
46

hf

deny that poetic laureation was widely practiced in the ancient
world. J. B. Trapp, in "The CMl's Ivy and the Poet's Bays: An
Enquiry into Poetic Garlands," gives ample evidence for the use of
ivy and bay in poetic coronation.3 But, looking past the literal
plants, several commentators have pounced only upon this particular
symbol, without first looking at the rgs'ipsa, a method foreign
to Milton. Brooks and Hardy do essentially this in their com-
mentary: ”The laurel is a symbol of poetic fame," they say; and then
interpret: "The poet comes to pluck the berries before they are
ripe; that is, the poet apologizes for the fact that his own art
is immature."l‘L Brooks and Hardy, while ignoring both the myrtle and
the ivy, see only the symbol lurking behind the laurel; nor do they
look at the three actual plants and berries but at what appears to
them a symbol for the poet's immaturity.

Wayne Shumaker eliminates ivy and takes both laurel and
myrtle as symbolic: "The laurels and myrtles invoked in lines
1-5 have berries which are harsh and gagdg. The leaves of both
laurels and myrtles are to be shattgggg by Milton's singing before
they have an opportunity to reach mature exuberance ('before the
mellowing year')."5 Again, there is the quick leap to symbol,
and the aesthetically doubtful equation of ElEEEéEE with singing.
To reinforce his symbolic reading, Shumaker further observes:
". . . overgrown with wild thyme and gagging vines, the adjectives
implying, perhaps not quite rationally, a desperate and uncontrolled
abandon to grief."6

J. B. Trapp's study discusses in detail the conjunction of

the three plants. Postulating Vergil's gglOgueg

47

. . . atque hanc sine tempora circum
inter victrices hederam tibi serpere laurus7

and
et vos, o lauri, carpam et te, proxima myrte8

as the "source of the garland if not of the idea of poetic coronation
in general,"9 Trapp explores the laureation of three major poets of
the Middle Ages--Dante, Mussato, and Petrarch. He does not, however,
suggest that bay, ivy, and myrtle signify Edward King's poetical
achievement; he concludes, rather, that Milton was applying it to
himself and giving "botanical expression of his modesty" in the first
five lines of‘chidas.lo

Rosamond Tuve's researches into the cultural history show
the correlation between poet and plants: "With a lasting garland men
show honor to immortal Poetry, crowning her mortal exemplar. But
in this one shattered leaves displace those symbols long thought of
as fit for Poetry because it, too, matures Q33 to die but live on.
It is Lycidas' garland which, like his poetic promise, is cut while
it is still harsh and unready; everything in the image is disrupted,
plucked before it can ripen, finished before it can ripen, finished
before it can begin--but finished, ended, this crown or none. I do
not read in Milton's first lines the note of apoIOgy for his own

unripe verses familiarly referred to in commentary and criticism.
. "1].

Because many questions remain unanswered on the nature and
function of the three garland plants in Lycidas, I should like:

1. to discuss the history (both classical and Christian),
function, significance, and materials of the crown, wreath or

garland;

h?

2. to examine the laurel, the myrtle, and the ivy in the
light of both the historico-mythological tradition and the botanical
one;

3. and to show that Milton wove these two major strands,

historico—mythological and botanical, into the fabric of Lyciggg,

I
There is no doubt that in the opening lines of Lycidas

Hilton is alluding to the making of a crown, garland, or wreath.
That he was familiar with garland-making is evident from his many
references to garlands.12 He uses the crown literally and meta-
phorically,13 and mentions both an ivy wreath and ivy berries in
the wreath.14 In addition, he uses the combination-term‘ggrlggd
wreaths.15 Since, however, the word grgwg in today's English is
almost exclusively associated with royalty and is limited to some-
thing placed on the head; and since the word EEEéEE describes some-
thing larger than a crown, I shall use the word garland throughout

this study, which word is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary °

as ". . . a wreath made of flowers, leaves, etc. worn on the head

I.

like a crown, or hung about an object for decoration."

The garland, not restricted by the ancient Greeks and Romans
to either poetic or military honors, played an important role in
family life. The exchange of nuptial vows called for the exchange
of wreaths, the birth of a child for a wreath on the door.16 The
thriving garland-weavers of both Greece and Rome prepared many
wreaths for use in sports, as Pliny's account amply shows:

For at first it was customary to make from branches of

trees the chaplets used at sacred contests as prizes.
Later on the custom arose of varying the colour by mixing

£39.

flowers of different hues, in order to heighten the effect of
perfumes and colours in turn. . . . Chaplets, however, even
those won in sport, were always regarded as a dignity, for
citizens would go down to the Circus in person to compete in
the games, besides entering for events their own slaves and
horses.17

The garland, also used to adorn statues, was so sacred that
laws had to be adopted governing its use; violators were severely
punished:

At other times not even chaplets won at the games were worn
indiscriminately, and on this matter extremely severe rules
were enforced. In the second Punic War L. Fulvius, a banker,
who was said to have looked out into the Forum from his
veranda wearing in the daytime a chaplet of roses, was on
the authority of the senate led away to prison, not being
released before the end of the war. P. Munatius took a
chaplet of flowers from a statue of Marsyas and placed it
on his own head. Ordered by the Triumviri to be put in
chains for this offence he appealed to the tribunes of the
people, who refused to intervene. . . .18

Although Milton would have been familiar with the garlands
in the ancient cultures used for weddings, births, sports, he is not
referring to these customs in Lycidas. There is still another use--
one prominent in both Greece and Rome--that has received no attention
in the glosses on Lycidas. This is the garland for the dead. That
not only Milton but also the earlier and even later commentators were
aware of the significance of the funerary garland is abundantly
evident from the scholarship of those periods. In 1560 A. Thylesius

devoted an entire work to a description of various types of garlands,

its title being Q2 coronarum generibus; and in 1610 C. Paschalius

 

published 2E coronis, which is both learned and wide-ranging. The
funerary garland was singled out for a study by J. M. Gesnerus,

.23 coronis mortuorum, published in Gattingen in 1748.19 In addition,

 

Lypidas is not the only place where Milton uses the funerary garland.

In Mansus Milton hopes for a friend who will give him a proper burial:

5H

Tandem ubi non tacitae permensus tempora vitae,

Annorumque satur cineri sua jura relinquam,

Ille mihi lecto madidis astaret ocellis,

Astanti sat erit si dicam sim tibi curae;

Ille meos artus liventi morte solutos

Curaret parva componi molliter urna.

Forsitan & nostros ducat de marmore vultus,

Nectens aut Paphia myrti aut Parnasside lauri

Fronde comas, at ego secura pace quiescam. (85—93)
In both instances Hilton is not celebrating a poetic coronation but
a death, as "Herse where Lycid lies" (151) and "parva urna" indicate.
For those who argue that laurel or bay was almost exclusively associ-
ated with poetic coronation, there is Milton's tribute to the
Marchioness of Winchester: "And som Flowers, and som Bays,/ For
thy Hears to straw the ways" (57-58). The bays are "Devoted to [her]
vertuous name" (60). As late as 1652 Milton again uses laurels,
this time in a reference to "Worsters laureat wreath" (9), an honorary
military tribute to Cromwell.

Nor is Hilton the only Renaissance poet who employs the
funerary garland. Michael Drayton in "The Legend of Pierce Gaveston"
invokes Pallas Athene, goddess of military might and of poetry, to
give him a funerary garland:

Goddesse of Armes, and Arts, Pallas Divine,
Let thy bright Fauchion lend Me Cypresse Boughes,
Be thou assisting to this Poet of mine,
With Funerall Wreath's ingarlanding His Browes,
Pittying my Woes, when none would heare Me weepe
That for my Sorrowes, layes His owne to sleepe.26
Their use of the funerary garland is not surprising, in view of the
fact that the garland in the ritual for the burial of the dead is so
ancient, universal, and long-lived. Euripides, among other ancients,
refers to the garlanding of the dead. In The Women 2f Trgy,
Talthybios tells Hecabe how Andromache has pleaded with the Greek

Neoptolemos for Astyanax to be given a proper burial; that is, laid on

51

Hector's shield rather than in a cedar or stone coffin and put in
Hecabe's arms "so that she would wrap the corpse with funeral rebes
and garlands."21 Essential to this proper burial was the funerary
garland.

In the elegiac tradition the funerary wreath is frequently
mentioned. The shade of Cynthia, Propertius's mistress, reproaches
him for not giving her a proper funeral; it is her old servant, Petale,
who has correctly observed her death by bringing garlands to the
sepulchre:

nostraque quod Petale tulit ad monumenta coronas,
codicis immundi unicula sentit anus.22

And sometimes, perhaps to add to the poignancy, the funerary garland
was placed awry on the head:

et stygio sum sEarsa lacu, nec recta capillis
uitta data est. 3

In addition, even the bark which conveyed the shades across the
Styx was wreathed: "ecce coronato pars altera rapta phaselo.”24
Although it is difficult to uncover the origin of garlanding,
it is certain that to neglect to garland the dead would have been a
violation of decorum. The significance of the garlanding lay in the
comfort it gave to the giver, in the alleviation it offered to the
harshness of death, and in the fact that it was the last gift of the
living to the dead.25 In earliest times, it seems that the garland
was placed on the head of the dead person by his close relative or
by his dearest friend: Pericles himself placed a funerary garland
on the head of his dead son.26 Later, the garland was placed around
the neck and even on the door.27

There were many and mixed motives among the living for the

52

garlanding of the dead. Sometimes it arose from a feeling of piety
or devotion, as can be seen in Xenophon's Anabasis:
kenotaphion autois epoiesan kai stephanois epethesan.28
Sometimes it took the form of an offering to an icon or on an altar.
Sometimes it symbolized a victory over life's struggles or a summons
to a higher calling. And sometimes it was a cultic part of a
mystery religion and was accompanied by a libation.29

The garlanding of the dead was not restricted to the Greco-Ro-
man tradition. The funerary garland was also used in the Judaic
tradition, as archaeological evidence has shown. In his study
Hartyrerkranz, Antonius J. Brekelmans calls special attention to a
‘votive-picture in a mosque-column which is immured in a wall at
Djamiel-Kebir in Gaza; on it is a Hebrew inscription: "Ananias,
the son of Jacob." Cm both sides is a palm, and the garland consists
of laurel leaves and a band of ivy leaves.30 Further, Edwin R.
Goodenough observes that ". . . wreaths were . . . commonly used on
synagogues and graves by Jews and Christians, as well as pagans,
to intensify the symbolic value for immortality.31

In paleo—Christianity the garland, associated with martyrdom
and death, was found usually in an eschatological context: "Auf
einer jetzt verlorenen Grabplatte an der Via Salaria wurde von
Liberalis, einem ehemaligen Konsul, gesagt: 'gratia cui trabeas
dederat, dedit ira coronam.'"32 Milton himself refers to this type

of garland in Epitaphium Damonis:

 

Ipse caput nitidum cinctus rutilante corona,
Letéque frondentis gestans umbracula palmae
Aeternum perages immortales hymenaeos. . . . (215-217)

Because the living were eager to use materials that would

53
not wither or decay quickly, they chose acanthus, celery, ivy, oak,

laurel, myrtle, olive, and yew.33 Occasionally, hoping to avert
the decay that inevitably attacked a funerary garland, they planted
evergreen trees at the grave.34 And as a lasting memorial, the
garland appeared on sarcophagi and on tombs, which were constructed
of costly metal, marble, or stone. The materials that are important
for Milton's Lycidas are, of course, laurel, myrtle, and ivy.
Evidence that funerary garlands were used into Milton's day
and long after can be found even in the cemeteries of New England.
One of the most startling instances--and not an isolated one--of the
use of the laurel garland for the dead occurs a century and a half
after Milton's Lycidas on the Susannah Jayne stone in Marblehead,
Massachusetts, 1776. On her stone is an elaborately carved skeleton
crowned with laurel,35 a tradition handed to New England Puritans

from the mortuary tradition of England.36

II
Lauris nobilis L.

Although the laurel has been treated exhaustively in studies
ranging from its use in magic, religion, folklore, medicine, and pharma-
cy,37 Milton criticism has limited itself to the laurel of poetic corona-
tion. What emerges from a comprehensive study of laurel is the discovery
that its use in poetic garlands was by no means its principal function.

The laurel springs from a rich mythology. Early associated
with Daphne, who was turned into a laurel tree, and also with Apollo,
who was crowned with laurel as a symbol of victory, salvation, and
rescue, it persisted as a symbol of victory.38 Zeus himself wore the

laurel of victory, as did Heracles.39 Apollo also wore the

5h

laurel as a musician, as his famous "laurel-crowned" statue in the
Vatican confirms.“O

Another strain of "laurel" mythology is heard in the _gyg;§_
of Theocritus. Here Daphnis, the male counterpart of Daphne, is
the hero of the Sicilian shepherds. The child of the union of a
Nymph and Hermes, he was born in a laurel grove and named Daphnis,
the Greek word for laurel. His death being a sad occasion for the
shepherds, they mourn him, while the hills and the oaks join in the
lament. In his bucolic poetry Theocritus highlights the sorrows and
death of Daphnis.“1

Beginning with a description of laurel bark, Theophrastus
gives a lengthy botanical inventory including the size and shape of
the roots, the taste of the fruit, propagation, budding, and
nomenclature.“2

In the ngrgics Vergil recommends the winter as the time to
gather laurel berries:

sed tamen et quernas glandes tum stringere tempus et lauri
bacas.43

And in the Eglogues he mentions the laurels that weep for Gallus,
who pined in love's tyranny: "illum etiam lauri, etiam flevere
myricae. . . ."uu
Dioscorides restricts his discussion of the laurel to

pharmaceutical uses.u5 But it is Pliny who gives the most compre-
hensive information and distinguishes between nine different types
of laurel:

l. Delphic laurel. Uniform green color; large reddish green

berries; used to make wreaths for the winners at Delphi and

for triumphant generals.

55

2. Cyprus laurel. Crinkly, with a short black leaf that curves

up along the edges.

3. Tigg'tggg (wild laurel). Bright blue berry.

4. ngal laurel (Augusta laurel). Large tree, large leaf,

berries without a rough taste.

5. Bacalia. Commonest of all; largest number of berries.

6. Thasos laurel. Tiny leafy fringe.

7. Gelded laurel. Without fringe; thrives in shade.

8. Ground laurel. Wild shrub.

9. Alexandrina laurel. Useful for wreaths; leaf more pointed
than that of the myrtle, and softer, brighter in color, and
larger; the seed, which lies between the leaves, is red;
grows in abundance on Mount Ida, in the vicinity of Heraclea

46

in Pontus, and occurs only in mountain districts.
One quality which all the laurels share is that they are evergreenf"7
Pliny, as might be expected, combines historical anecdote with
minute botanic description. Referring to the death of King Bebryx
at the Harbour of Amycus, he observes that the "tomb ever since the
day of his death has been shaded by a laurel tree which they call the
Mad Laurel. . . ."ha Although Pliny does not neglect the laurel of
triumph or of sanctification, purification, and decoration,’+9 he also
discusses the funerary wreath, explaining that when a victor in the
games died, his parents had the privilege of having the garland

"laid on the body during the lying in state at home and when it was
being carried out to burial."5O

The Christian adaptation of the laurel wreath in the

Post-Apostolic Age is found in the Passion Sarc0phagi, the most

56

famous of which can be seen in the Lateran Museum. On the left is
"Simon of Cyrene carrying the Cross and the 'crowning' of Our Lord
with the wreath of victory; the crown of thorns is replaced by one of
laurel. In the central niche the focal point is the cross-monogram
of Christ; the wreath hangs from the beak of an eagle. . . . The
sarcophagus dates from about 350. The motif of the 'Trophy of the
Cross' was adopted into the liturgy and also into the preaching. . . .
It is still heard during Holy week in the hymns of Venantius
Fortunatus on the Cross. . . ."51

Another familiar association, that of laurel with magic and
medicine, moved from the ancient world into the medieval world.
Such preparations as goat's blood drawn from a goat who has fed only
on laurel.were prescribed for sufferers from stone;52 there was a
laurel potion that was efficacious for witches who wished to resume

normal human form.53

The laurel tree occurs frequently in the Renaissance emblem

books. Ioachim Camerarius, in his collection of one hundred emblems.

devotes several emblems to the laurel. His descriptions are largely

limited to the laurel of victory,54 of protection, guardianship, and
safety;55 but he also uses a laurel tree as a support for a cock
which rests in its branches: "Callus amans lauri vigili solem ore
salutat. . . ."56 Even a cursory glance will show that Milton did
not draw upon the magico—medical writers or on the emblematists for
the laurel of Lycidas.

The Renaissance herbalists are another matter altogether.
Because the herbals included not only botany and horticulture but

also pharmacy and medicine, their influence was almost unlimited.57

57
Both John Gerard and John Parkinson are lavish in their description of
laurel. Gerard distinguishes between three kinds of laurel--spurge,
bay, and wild bay.
Spurge laurel. A shrub of a cubit high, tough lithe boughs, smooth

blackish green shining leaves; flowers-~whitish greene; berries
black.

 

Ihg’Time
The floures bud . . . a little after the Autumne Aequinoctial: they
are full bloun in winter or in the first Spring: the first fruit is
ripe in May and June; the plant is alwaies greene. . . .5

Bay 3; Lawrel Tree. . . . full of boughes, couered with a green
barke: the leaues thereof are long, broad, hard, of colour green
. . . the flours . . . are of a green colour; the beries are more
long than round, and be couered with a blacke rine or piel. . . .

 

Wilde Bay Tree. The wilde Laurell is euer greene, and may often—
times be seene most part of the Winter, and the beginning of the
Spring, with the flours and ripe berries growing both at one
season. 0

 

Parkinson, in Theatrum Botanicum, discusses the laurel and

 

the bay tree, which were often classified tOgether, and makes a
distinction between them:

This Laurell or Spurge Laurell (that it may be knoune from the
Bay tree, which is of divers, called the Laurell tree) riseth
up usually but with one stemme, yet sometimes with more, very
tough and pliant, couered with a whitish thicke tough bark,
branching forth into divers parts toward the toppes, whereon
are set many long, smooth, thicke, somewhat broad and shining
dark greene leaves, somewhat like unto Bay leaves, but longer,
smoother, softer, and not with hard veines therein as Bay
leaves have; the flowers come forth towards the toppes of the
stalkes and branches . . . after which come small round, and
somewhat long blacke berries when they are ripe. . . .

Egg Time
The first flowreth very early in the years, even in Ianuary
or February, and sometimes before, if the Winter be milde,
the berries are ripe about June. . . .61

Continuing his discussion of the various types of laurel, Parkinson
observes:

In English the laurel is also called the Wild Bay Tree;
while the fruit of this tree ripens in October in warm
climates, such as Portugal, it does not flower in England
until December, January, and February, if the winter is

.58
neither too early nor too extreme. All are evergreen.62
But it is Parkinson's treatment of the laurel in the §§3§g3§i_ig

Sole Paradisus Terrestris that bears directly on Milton's Iggggggg

 

Laurus, the Bay Tree. There are to bee reckoned vp five
kindes of Bay trees . . . a fourth . . . which is that kinde
that is vsually planted in euery mans yard or orchard. . . .
The Bay tree riseth vp . . . of a meane bignesse in our
Countrey (although much greater in the hoter) and oftentimes
shooteth vp with many suckers from the roote, shewing it
selfe more like to a tall shrubbe or hedgebush, then a tree,
hauing many branches, the young ones whereof are sometimes
reddish, but most vsually of a light or fresh greene colour,
when the stemme and elder boughes are couered with a dark
greene barke: the leaues are somewhat broad, and long pointed
as it were at both the ends, hard and sometimes crumpled on
the edges, of a darke greene colour aboue, and of a yellowish
greene vnderneath, in smell sweet, in taste bitter, and abiding
euer greene: the flowers are yellow and mossie, which turn
into berries that are a little long as well as round, whose
shell or outermost peele is greene at the first, and black
when it is ripe. . . .

The. lies a: fares. -
The Bay leaues . . . serue both for pleasure and profit, both
for ornament and for vse, both for honest Ciuill vses, and for
Physicke, yea both for the sicke and for the sound, both for
the liuing and for the dead: And so much might be said of
this one tree, that if it were all told, would as well weary
the Reader, as the Relater: but to explaine my selfe; It
serueth to adorns the house of God as well as of man . . . to
crowne or encircle as with a garland, the heads of the liuing,
and the sticks and decke forth the bodies of the dead: so that
from the cradle to the graue we have still vse of it, we have
still neede of it.63

 

 

In his charming way, Parkinson is here describing Renaissance
practices. His England used the laurel for both living and the dead.
Milton knew this: he also used it at the grave of his dead Samson:
. . . there will I build him

A Monument, and plant it round with shade

Of Laurel ever green. . . . (1733-1735)
Milton, living at a time when laurel was still used "to sticke and
decke forth the boies of the dead," found it singularly fitting to

use laurel for the dead Lycidas. Kor was Milton the last so to

honor a man in death: on November 7, 1970, Haile Selassi, Emperor

59
of Ethiopia, placed a laurel wreath on the tomb of the Unknown

Soldier in Rome.6u

III

Ivartus communis L.

 

65

The myrtle tree grew profusely all over the ancient world,
and a rich mythology accompanied it. Perhaps because of its exotic
loveliness (shimmering evergreen leaves, abundant white, aromatic
blossoms) it was early associated with the goddess of love, spring,
and fertility, Aphrodite in Greece and Venus in Rome. It was also
associated with Erato, the muse of erotic poetry, and with Hymen,
the god of marriage. These goddesses and gods were all adorned
with myrtle;66 consequently, myrtle became important for wedding
garlands.67
That there was no antithesis between Love and Death is
apparent in a Renaissance emblem by Alciati. Titled Dg‘flggtg g
Amggg, in it Death and Love are pictured as friends.68 It is not
surprising, then, to discover that in the ancient world the goddess
of love acquired the features of the goddess of death. The myrtle
was assimilated by this "goddess of death" tradition, where it became
a much-used, much-loved grave plant.69 The Euripidean Electra, for
one, complains bitterly about the disrespect shown to Agamemnon's
grave and weeps for its desolation:
And Agamemnon's tomb is set at naught:
Drinkhofferings never yet nor myrtle-spray
Had it, a grave all bare of ornament.

Later she is comforted by the Cad Man who has paid reverence to

Agamemnon's tomb:

There kneeling. for‘ its desolation wept,

60

Poured a drink—offering from the skin I bare
Thy guests, and crowned the tomb with myrtle-sprays.7l

Another use of the myrtle, and this one tinged with pathos,
is found in the Phaedra-Hippolytus myth. Pausanias in his travels
reported that near Phaedra's tomb a myrtle tree continued to grow,
whoseleavesstill contained the holes which she had pricked in them
when she had been in a desperate and melancholy passion for
Hippolytus.72

Used also in the cultic religions73 and in the 22222.
Panathenaea, the myrtle occupied a place of high respect in the
ancient world.74

Theophrastus's scientific account of the myrtle is extensive
and includes botanic and agricultural information.75 Vergil refers
to the blood-red juice of the myrtle ("cruentaque myrta") and to
the shores that rejoiced in myrtle groves ("litora myrtetis
laetissima").76 Dioscorides, devoting his discussion mainly to the
medical preparations made from myrtle berries and to the oil from
the leaves, adds that pulverized dry leaves function as an effective
anti-perspirant.77

Mentioning the many uses for the juice of the myrtle, Pliny
describes the myrtle tree as an evergreen and as an exotic. His
classifications are vague and in one case erroneous.78 He lists
several varieties of the cultivated myrtle:

Taranto myrtle. Very small leaf.

Roman myrtle (Union myrtle). Broad leaf.

"Six-row" myrtle. Thick foliage; leaves in rows of six; bushy.

Egyptian myrtle. Most powerful scent.79

He devotes more space to the function of the myrtle than to its

61
botany. Isolating a number of uses, he cites the sprigs of myrtle
of purifications;80 the sacred myrtles at the shrine of Quirinus;81
the myrtle of protection carried by foot travellers;82 the myrtle
wreath of ovation first worn by Publius Postumius Tubertus and
subsequently by victorious generals celebrating an ovation;83 and
the festive myrtle worn at circuses.8u As a piece of history, he
points to its funerary function: "The actual tree is recorded to
have been seen for the first time on the hither side of EurOpe,
beginning from the Ceraunian Mountains, on the grave of Elpenor
at Circello. . . ."85

The graves of the Early Christians were often adorned by
evergreen trees86 (though the myrtle is not specifically mentioned),
and Early Christian sarcophagi frequently combined the Shepherd and
Tree motifs.87 Moreover, there is often a further blending on the
sarcophagi, that of the tree-pastoral-paradise motifs,88 a blending
so congenial to Milton that he used it in Lygiggg,

Cne of the best known of the Renaissance Emblematists is
Valeriano Bolzani. The myrtle of Venus for him signifies "Genius
et Volvptas," and further, "Neque uero dissimulandem, Myrtum pudendi
muliebris habere significatum. . . ." He also discusses the
"Cyatio" myrtle.89 Milton ignores both of these traditions in
Lycidas.

The Renaissance herbalists go into great detail in their
treatment of the myrtle tree. Gerard distinguishes between six
different types:

1. The first and greatest Myrtus is a small tree, growing
to the height of a man, having many faire and pliant

branches, couered with a browne bark, and set full of
leaues much like vnto the Laurell or Bay leafs, but

62

thinner and smaller, somewhat resembling the leaues

of PerUincle, which being bruised do yeeld forth a
most fragrant smell, not much inferiour vnto the smell
of Cloues, as all the rest of the kinds do: among
these leaues come forth small white floures, in shape
like the flours of the Cherry tree, but much smaller,
and of a pleasant sauour, which do turne into small
berries, greene at the first, and afterwards blacke.

Eyrtus Boetica latifolia. Leaves like bay leaves; light

 

green color; flowers and fruit not much different from
first.

Hyrtus Exotica. Leaves "thrusting within another, crossing
one another confusedly."

 

Kyrtus fructu glbo. White coloured fruit.

 

Eyrtus‘mingg (hoble myrtle). Little shrub or hedge bush;
leaves small and narrow; fresh green color; flowers white.

 

Hyrtus Boetica syluestris. hot high, nor so shrubby as

 

former; leaves somewhat blackish; fruit is round, growing
on long stalks out of the bosoms of the leaves, fresh
green, then whitish, then black; grows wild in Portugal.

The Time

Where they joy to grow ofuthSEEElues they floure when the
Roses doe: theifiufll.i§ ripe in Autumne: in England they
neuer beare any fruit.30

trees:

Parkinson's Thggtggm lists nine different types of myrtle

Eyrtus latifolia maxima.

 

_fiyrtus latifolia exotica.

 

Myrtus latifolia vulgaris. (This onely in our country,
of all other sorts of broad leafed Myrtles) groweth to
be foure or five foote high with us, and in the warme
Countries to be a little tree full of branches and
leaves, like a small bush.

 

,Myrtus augustifolia exotica.
Kyrtus Boetica sylvestris.
Myrtus domestica minutissimis folyg fructu albo.

Nyrtus minor acuto folio.

 

Myrtus minor rotundiore folio.

 

63
9- Myrtus flore_pleno.9l
It is Parkinson's Eggggggi that contains the most "English" informa—
tion:

In the hot Countryes, there have been many sorts of Mirtles
found out, naturally growing there, which will not fructifie
in this of ours, nor yet abide without extraordinary care . . .
to preserue them from the sharpnesse of our winters. I shall
only bring you to view three sorts in this my Garden, the one
with a greater, the other two with lesser leaues. . . .

l. Myrtus latifolia. The greater leafed Mirtle. The broader
leafed Mirtle riseth vp to the height of foure or fiue
foote at the most with vs, full of branches and leaves
growing like a small bush, the stemme and elder branches
whereof are couered with a dark coloured bark, but the
young with a green, and some with a red, especially vpon
the first shooting forth, whereon are set many fresh greene
leaues, very sweet in smell, and very pleasant to behold,
so neer resembling the leaues of the Pomegranate tree
that groweth with vs, that they soone deceiue many that
are not expert therein, being somewhat broade and long,
and pointed at the ends, abiding alwaies green: at the
ioynts of the branches where the leaues stand, come forth
the flowers vpon small foote stalkes, euery one by it
self consisting of fiue small white leaues, with white
threds in the middle, smelling also very sweet: after the
flowers are past, there doe arise in the hot Countries,
where they are naturall, round blacke berries, when they
are ripe . . . but neuer in this Countrey. . . .

2. Myrtus minor. The smaller leafed Mirtle. The smaller
leafed Mirtle is a low shrub or bush, like vnto the former,
but scarce rising so high, with branches spreading about
the stemme, much thicker set with leaues then the former,
smaller also, and pointed at the ends, of a little deeper
greene colour, abiding greene also winter and summer, and
very sweete likewise: the flowers are white like vnto the
former, and as sweete . . . the fruit is blacke in his
naturall places. . . .

3. Myrtus minor. ‘Boxe Mirtle. . . . it will shew, by the
roundnesse at the ends of the leaues very like vnto the
small Boxe leaues, to be another differing kind, although
in nothing else. wee nourse them with great care, for
the beautiful aspect, sweete sent and raritie, as delights
and ornaments for a garden of pleasure. . . .

Egg Place.

These, and many other sorts of Mirtles grow in Spaine, Portugall,

Italie, and other hot Countries in great aboundance, where they

make their hedges of them. . . .

TQg_Time.

The Mirtles doe flower very late with vs, not vntill August at

the soonest, which is the cause of their not fructifying.

61+
The Names.

. . . the seuerall kindes haue had seuerall denominations,

in Plinies time, and others, as Romana, Coniugala, Terentina,

Egyptia, alba, nigra, etc.92
Parkinson, because he takes such delight in the exotic myrtle, raises
it for beauty and pleasure; he singles out no other uses. The
valuable information received from both Gerard and Parkinson is that
bark of the myrtle is brown, a piece of information significant for the
Lycidas. The herbalists emphasize the fact that myrtle does not
fructify in England (perhaps the exception would be those myrtles
grown in tubs and kept in the orangery in cold weather), a fact

which would make the berries of Lycidas's funerary garland even

more harsh and crude than ordinarily supposed.

IV

Hedera helix L.

 

Ultimately related to the Dionysus-Bacchus myth, the ivy
appears in the earliest representations of Bacchus. The many and
conflicting stories of the orgin of Bacchus include the Pausanian
tradition, in which Bacchus was banished as a baby and was exposed
to the dangers of a sea voyage, and another tradition in which he
transformed mariners into dolphins. The most familiar association,
however, is with the Bacchanalia, with the grape and the ivy signi-
fying that he is the god of vintage, wine, and consequently of
orgies.93 The Miltonic employment of this particular Bacchic
tradition is found, appropriately enough, iniggggg ("With Ivy berries
wreath'd," l. 55). in L'Allegro ("To Ivy-crowned Bacchus bore," 1. 16),
and in Elegia Sexta ("Atque hederam lauro praeposuisse suae," l. 16).

The ivy of this tradition could only have violated decorum in Lygidas.

66

There are other ivy traditions and other affiliations.
Largely because of its decorative qualities, the ivy leaf was
painted on vases as early as the Mycenean epoch and persisted in
ancient art as an ornamental item on vases, drinking cups, columns,
statues, sarcophagi.94 In addition, archaeologists have discovered
an ivy—decorated mask in an Etruscan grave95 and a metal ivy
wreath with leaves and fruit in still another grave.96

In the elegiac tradition, ivy for the grave is specifically
requested: the shade of Cynthia pleads with her survivor Propertius

to plant ivy on her tomb:

pone hederam tumulo, mihi quae praegnant corymbo
mollis contortis alliget ossa comis.

Theophrastus's discussion of ivy is merely a scientific
classification together with a complete description of its habitat
and qualities.98 The ivy of Vergil's Eggggigg is considered in terms
of its color, which is sometimes dark, sometimes pale: "interdum
aut hederae pandunt vestigia nigrae"99 and "pallentisque hederas."lOO
Dioscorides, describing the many variations and uses, includes its
astringent quality with its effects on the nervous system; again,
he is pharmaceutical.101

Pointing out twenty kinds of ivy, Pliny describes leaves,
fruit, and growing habits; in addition, Pliny calls attention to its
versatility as a medicine.102 Historical accounts attest to its
fame as an illustrious "wreath" plant, having been honored by the
great Alexander, who wore it when he returned from India with his
victorious army. (The "garland" ivy is the one with the largest

clusters of berries.) In spite of this, Pliny seems dismayed that

ivy is "even now used at solemn festivals among the people of

6.“
Thrace," especially in view of the fact that it is "injurious to all
trees and plants and destructive to tombs and walls."103

But the ivy was more than a plant spreading its tendrils
on tombs. And it was more than decorative when it appeared on
sarcophagi. The Greco—Roman world included ivy with its eschato-
logical funerary symbols. So widespread was this use of the ivy in
an eschatological context that, as Franz Cumont observes, it became

part Of the symbolic vocabulary of even the artisans.lou

A glance
at the sarcophagi confirms his opinion and supports the hypothesis
that ivy was more than ornamental:
Toutes les essences‘a feuillage persistant, qui restent
verdoyantes quand la nature se meurt, comme le pin, 1e
cyprES, le laurier sont pour ce motif devenus des
plantes funeraires . . . A Vence . . ., un cypres se
dresse de chaque cote du croissant. Pareillement le
lierre, dont le feuillage n 'est point caduc, et qui
appartient a Bacchus, dieu d' une religion de salut,
semblait doue d' un pouvoir de renouveau, qui faisait
triompher du trépas. . . .10
Obviously, the ivy of immortality is the ivy of Lycidas.

Nor did the Jews ignore immortality; in fact, the Jewish
symbols of the Greco—Roman period abound in affirmations of the
after-life. Goodenough's statement that "Pagan motifs in Jewish
synagogues and the graves have already led us to suspect that Jews
used them to express faith in heaven, in the love of God, in coming
victory,"106 is supported by his studies of the paintings of the Dura
Europas synagogue. What at first blush had struck art historians
as being "decorative" borrowings from the pagan world emerges as a
full set of symbols to express confidence in the existence of the

life after death. In this iconographic setting appear Bacchus,

dolphins, and ivy. Goodenough concludes: "The animal figures,

67

then, primarily present the values of the marine thiasos, the con-
vention strangely but almost everywhere used for representing the
Dionysiac riot at this period, one that became especially favored
for sarcophagi both pagan and Christian. . . . The whole seems to
me, here and elsewhere, to refer to hope of life after death--to
refer that is, to heaven."107 The ivy also appears in a wall
painting at Dura Europas. Here the note of triumph sounds loud and
clear: The Ark of the Covenant, associated with victory in the
Hebrew tradition, is "wrapped in garlands of triumphant ivy."108

Ubiquitous though ivy came to be from its uninterrupted
appearance and constant use throughout the centuries, it appears
largely in medicinal form in the hiddle Ages; for example, Nicolaus
Leonicenus (g, 1&91) conducted research on the ivy which led him to
charge Pliny with error.109

The Renaissance herbalists describe the various types of
ivy, although Parkinson in the Paradisi mentions only the Virginia
type for its rarity. Gerard, citing Theophrastus as a source,
describes the "Clymbing or berried Ivie (Hedera corymbosa)" as a
plant with woody stalks, smooth shining leaves, small mossy flowers,
and bundles of black berries. As for the time of bearing, "Ivie
flourisheth in Autumne: the berries are ripe after the Winter
Solstice."110

Parkinson, like the great Greek and Latin predecessors whom
he cites (Dioscorides, Theophrastus, Pliny), describes many varieties
of ivy and includes everything from the "Cmdinary Climing Ivie" to
the "Trefoile Ivie of Virginia." The "Crdinary Climing Ivie" is a

plant which

68
groweth up with a thick wooddy trunke or body, sometimes
as big as ones arme, shooting forth on all sides many
wooddy branches, and groweth sometimes alone by it selfe
into a pretty bush or tree. . . . the young leaves that
spring forth from the branches . . . are of a darke
shining greene colour above . . . abiding fresh and greene
Winter and Summer: from the joynts of the stalkes and
toppes of the branches, grow forth upon short stalkes
small mossie yellow flowers, standing in an umbell or close
round tuft; after which come small round berries, greene
untill they grow ripe, and then turning blacke. . . . Cur
Ivie flowreth not untill Iuly, and the berries are not ripe
usually untill about Chnigtmas, that they have felt the
winter frosts. . lljf
V
The adverbial phrase ”Yet once more" in the opening lines of
Lycidas is pivotal. Intoned like three opening notes of a funeral
dirge to summon the weeping poet to bewail the death of a young
friend, these words pose a problem of interpretation. If the conven-
tional reading is accepted--that these words apply both to King's
poetic achievement and to Milton's immaturity as a poet with an
allusion to his early immature effort, gpgg§112--the following
matters will have to be considered:
1. If laurel alone is seen as a botanic metaphor for
Milton's poetic ineptitude (as Brooks and Hardy would have it),
the two additional plants (myrtle and ivy) will have to be accounted
for. All three can, of course, be placed in the Petrarchan context
of poetic laureation, as Trapp has shown. The assumption will then
have to be made that Milton knew of this Petrarchan use and that
he chose to place himself in the Petrarchan line.
2. If Milton uses the botanic metaphor to suggest poetic

laureation, the opening lines serving only as an introduction, the

strength of the epicedial context is considerably weakened.

69

3. If Lycidas is rec0gnized not as a solo effort but as a
contribution to a volume of eulogistic verse, the question will have
to be asked, Was Milton less ripe than his fellow contributors?

The further question will have to be asked, Would it have been likely
for Hilton to call attention to himself and to his own nggg in a
volume designed as a funerary tribute?

4. Iflggggg is the previous immature effort alluded to,
he was either admitting Egggg to be "harsh and crude" or he was
assuming modesty for a successful masque. It must be remembered,
moreover, that in the anonymous edition of 1637, Lawes describes
gpmgg as "lovely, and so much desired." As for the appearance on
the title page of this anonymous edition of lines from Virgil's
Second EclOgue, "Eheu quid volui misero mihi! floribus austrum /
Perditus," the motto is surrounded by too many ambiguities to be of
value in this discussion. It has not been ascertained whether Lawes
or Milton selected it, nor have its meaning and relevance been
established.

5. If the botanic metaphor has a dual function, it will
have to imply opposite meanings simultaneously. At one and the same
time Milton is weaving a poetic garland to praise Edward King's
poetry and to denounce his own poetic efforts.

6. If the metaphor applies only to King's poetic achievement,
the funereal diction used by Milton--"Bitter constraint, and sad
occasion dear . . . Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime"--wouLd have
struck a lugubrious note at a poetic coronation.113 Milton comes
to bury Lycidas, as he had buried Infant and Marchioness, not to

praise his poetry. Milton cannot leave his friend "unwept . . .

70
Without the meed of som melodious tear." Moreover, if Milton knew
about Petrarch's coronation with ivy, bay and myrtle,llu he would
also have known that Edward King's poetry paled in the light of
Petrarch's. As David Masson observes, King left only "a few scraps
of Latin verse, scattered through those volumes of encomiastic poetry
which the University had published during his connexion with it."115
Nor do the poems which appeared along with chidas in the collection

Obseguies'tg the memorie 2: N . Edward King, Anno Dom. l63§ give

 

any hints that Edward King was a candidate for poetic laureation,
alive or dead. In fact, one of the contributors, William More,
objected even to the panegyric on King's scholarship:

My grief is great but seber, thought upon

Long since, and reason now, not passion.

Nor do I like their piety who, to sound

His depth of learning, where the feel no ground,

Strain till they lose their own. 1
Undoubtedly, Milton knew the tradition of poetic laureation and
shared with Ben Jonson the view that only the "best of Poets,
dost . . . Laurell weare!"117 He would have found it just a little
indecorous to crown such minor efforts. When William webbe deemed
"divinest Spenser" worthy to "wear the garland and step before the
best of all English poets that I have seen or heard,"118 he was
espressing a commonly held opinion. Sir John Suckling explored
poetic coronation in "A Sessions of the Poets" and made clear,

through satire, that only the best poet deserves poetic laureation:

The laurel that had been so long reserved
was now to be given to him best deserved.il9

And Suckling's Sonnet III, with no covert reference to poetic
coronation, mentions the funerary garland in the context of Elysium:

Some bays, perchance, or myrtle bough,
For difference crowns the brow

71

Cf those kind souls that were
The noble martyrs here. . . .

Moreover, poetic coronation was a civic affair, the solemnity of
which was enhanced by the taking of an oath, and, in some places,
accompanied by the giving of a ring.121 To award Edward King a
poetic crown.was not within Milton's power nor within King's right.
To give King prOper obsequies and a decent burial was another matter.
Emphasis in the poem, therefore, does not fall on King's poetic
capacity, though there are references to "rural ditties" and to
Orpheus. The causal relationship established is this: that since
King had built the "lofty rhyme" he deserved to be "sung." Edward
King addressed his "lofty rhyme" to royalty: he celebrated in Latin
verses such occasions as the birth of princesses, the King's recovery
from smallpox and his safe return from Scotland.

The poetic garland which functioned only as an honor could
hardly have borne the massive weight of this poem; the funerary
garland, however, could sustain the weight of the tradition. As a
suitable tribute for the dead, it had functioned for centuries,
bringing comfort to the giver and alleviation for the harshness of
death. More than this, it had often symbolized a victory over
life's struggles; and its profound eschatological use (the great
hope of heaven, the victory of the "laurelled" Christ over death,
and the higher calling) is brought into play in the closing lines
or novices.

If, therefore, Hilton is calling on the laurels, myrtles, and
ivy to function in their ancient and traditional capacity as plants
used for funerary garlands, the poet is saying in his apostrophe to

the three plants, "Alas, we must bury a young man, and you plants

72

will have to be used for still another sad funeral." "Yet once more,"
attached to the verb 93mg, refers, then, not to nggg but far more
appropriately to two previous deaths, both young, sad, and untimely,
for which Milton has had to weave a metaphoric funerary garland:
for the Fair Infant Dying of a Cough and for the Marchioness of
Winchester. The bays (laurels) for the Marchioness function
eschatologically, leading straight to "bright saint" now sitting high
in glory (61), as laurels, myrtles, and ivy lead to Lycidas "mounted
high . . . In the blest Kingdoms meek of joy ahd love" (172-177).

If, in addition, one accepts the hint by Wilkinson that
Vergil's.Eglgggg 5 is the "ideal prototype for epicedia in the
Christian era . . . As Hilton's Lycidas,"122 then the problems that
poetic coronation raises can be dispensed with and the epicedial
unity, which has the added advantage of aesthetic coherence, is
maintained.

Milton's choice of laurel, myrtle, and ivy contains two
strands of the herbal tradition: the historico—mythological and
the botanic. The laurel of bucolic poetry is never more fit than
in Hilton's "Dorick lay," with its roots in the sorrow of the
Theocritan idylls; for both Hilton and the Theocritan shepherds,
grief for the death of a friend is a dominant motif. But the laurel
of victory, salvation, and rescue is also applicable. In addition,
the herbalist Parkinson's description of the laurel as an evergreen
plant "to sticke and deck forth the bodies of the dead" shows the
continuing appropriateness of the laurel to Milton's day, with
Hilton's metaphor springing from its actual use.

The myrtle carries with it a haunting recollection of

73
Agamemnon's grave and of innumerable sarcophagi, both Christian
and pagan. The brown color of the myrtle in Iflgiggg, so frequently
interpreted as a Horatian allusion,123 comes not so much from
Horace as from Milton's observations of the brown bark of the myrtle
tree and the herbalists' references to its brown color. The English
myrtle, according to Gerard, is covered with a brown bark (laurel
bark is green), and, according to Parkinson, with a dark colored
bark. What had seemed a confusing blend of "brown" with "never
sere" is no longer baffling: English myrtle has brown bark and is
evergreen.

The ivy and dolphins of the Bacchus myth, assimilated through
the Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian traditions, may also throw
light on the dolphins of Lygidag. Milton's puzzling dolphins,
surrounded now by glossarial references to Arion, to Palaemon, to
Apollo,124 may well function eschatologically (as they did for
centuries), wafting the ”haples youth" to the "blest Kingdoms."
Milton's ivy and dolphins achieve fuller meaning when placed in the
fertile tradition by which they are nourished. Milton's choice of
the ivy is again botanically and historically sound. The "Crdinary
Climing Ivie," growing everywhere in England, with the smooth,
shining leaves and supple, clinging tendrils, is particularly useful
in a funerary garland: it binds and intertwines the laurel and the
myrtle in the garland, and it brings with it the hope and promise of
a life after death.

Further elucidation of the funerary aspects of the poem
can be achieved through a brief examination of Renaissance burial

practices. For those critics who struggle with the problem of

7h
whether chrigg is about Edward King or about hilton,125 the
answer is that it is about both because, as anyone contemporaneous
with Milton would have quickly asserted, each man's death knell is
every man's death knell. If the presence of Milton's "destined
urn" gives the poem an introverted feeling with a hidden fear of
Milton's own premature death,126 John Weaver, the English commentator
on both ancient and contemporary burials, observes that all tombs and
monuments "put vs in minde of our mortalitie, and consequently bring
vs to vnfained repentance."127 weever's comments may also help to
reveal burial procedures for one whose body is lost at sea:
A Cenotaph is an emptie Funerall Monument or Tombe, erected
for the honour of the dead, wherein neither the corps, nor
reliques of any defunct, are deposited, in imitation of
which our Hearses here in England are set vp in Churches,
during the continuance of a yeare, or for the space of cer-
taine moneths. . . . The second kinde of Cenotaphs were
made Religionis causa, to the memory of such whose carcases,
or dispersed reliques, were in no wise to be found, for
example, of such as perished by shipwracke. . . . To these
inania busta, or vacua Sepulchra, the friends of the defunct
would yearely repaire. . . .128
Weever gives a long list of examples of empty tombs in the ancient
world, and an elaborate and detailed description of monuments in
various dioceses in England such as Canterbury, London, Norwich.
When Milton says
I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year
he is choosing the most poignant of metaphors. Twice before he has
had to use the plant metaphor for untimely death. For the Infant
he chooses "O fairest flower no sooner blown but blasted" (l); for

the Narchioness he chooses the "tender slip" (35) and for her child

a "fair blossom" (U1).129 For Edward King he chooses unripe laurel,

75
myrtle, and ivy. The occasion is truly a sad one: a young Cambridge
scholar of erudition and promise has been cut off before he can
reach his prime. His young friend Hilton has been asked to mourn
his death by contributing to a memorial volume. One feels instinc-
tively the adequacy of the unripe funerary garland plants chosen by
a young man come to mourn another young man, as one feels equally
the inappropriateness of full-blown Chrysanthemums at a child's
funeral. In the funeral setting, Milton's selection of mortuary
plants that are no more ripe for plucking than King is for dying is
very affecting. What the plucking of the berries of laurel, myrtle,
and ivy is to November in Milton's England, so the death of Edward
King is to life: untimely and unripe. Milton's "forc'd fingers
rude" lack the deftness that comes with practice. It is the old who
are accustomed to weaving funerary garlands for the old; and, although
the young are occasionally called upon to weave a funerary garland
for one of their peers, there is always something inexperienced,
unnatural, and clumsy about the young burying the young. The young
poet, giver and weaver, is no more ready to construct a funerary
garland than King is to receive one.

What Milton knew about the berries of funerary plants he had
learned from a long tradition. Theophrastus, Vergil, and Pliny had
told him that the best laurels for wreaths are those with large
reddish-green berries or those with red berries, and that the best
time to gather them is winter. Gerard and Parkinson had told him
that the laurel berries are black in England and that the fruit
cannot be gathered until winter or spring. And how could Milton have

failed to notice the seasons for laurel berries, especially since

76
Parkinson had stated that the laurel tree grew in every man's yard
or orchard? Cf course laurel berries are harsh and crude in
hovember in England. Ripeness is all for both laurel and "laureate”;
its absence, in the premature plucking, is to be regretted.

Theophrastus, Vergil, and Pliny had told Milton about the
exquisite foliage of the myrtle and about its exotic fragrance.
Gerard and Parkinson had told him that myrtle berries are black. If
Milton had seen a garden like Parkinson's, which had three kinds of
myrtle growing in it, or if he had read Parkinson's Paradisi, he
would have known that the harsh English climate prevented the
berries from ripening. The myrtle berries which Milton used for
Lycidas's garland would have been very crude, if they had been formed
at all.

As for the ivy, from Theophrastus, Vergil, and Pliny, he
would have learned of its tenacity, of its pliability, and of the
color of its fruit. From Gerard he would have known that the
berries are ripe in the winter solstice and from Parkinson that they
are ripe about Christmas. In the case of all three of the plants
which were chosen for this funerary garland, it is Milton's knowledge
of the ceremonial aspects of the herbal tradition that makes his
activity (plucking the berries and disturbing their "season due") and
the metaphor so apt.

When Milton goes on to say "Shatter your leaves," he is
reinforcing figural unity by using familiar agricultural terminology.
"Shatter" does not mean "do damage ruinously or to damage or destroy
by fracture of the parts." It means, rather, "to cause (seed, leaves,

etc.) to fall or be shed."130 The term shatter is a part of the

'77
standard vocabulary of husbandry: Googe uses it in his translation
of Heresbach, "Least the whot weather shatter the seedes."131
Hilton had enough elementary botanic-agricultural experience (or
had read enough) to know what happens to leaves that are too young
and "unformed" to be plucked. Remaining true to the herbal vocabulary
of his day, he selects the word ghgttgg to describe the process of
plucking immature leaves.132 Miss Tuve, although she considers the
crown a poetic one, argues convincingly that "everything in the image
is disrupted, plucked before it can ripen."133 As early plucking
causes leaves, seeds, blossoms to shatter before maturity, so King's
early death shatters the promise of life before maturity. What
arises, therefore, from these lines is the image of a premature death
and burial, of a premature garland-weaver, and of a set of three
immature funerary plants. All these belong at the funeral of one
too young to die.

The fingers may be rude, the berries unripe, the leaves
unready; but Milton, the poet, has so skillfully used the herbal
tradition that what lingers in the memory of the reader is the image
of an unripe funerary garland and an untimely death. But the metaphor
is not all sadness; the strains of the dirge are replaced by the
resonances of the solemn and victorious song: "Yet once more" is
counterpointed by "Weep no more." Milton's ceremonial use of the
herbal tradition in the funerary garland for Lycidas has prepared the
way for the

. . . sweet Societies

That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes. (179-181)

CHAPTER IV

MIDTCN'S PARADISE AND ENGLISH GARDENS

HORTICULTURAL ASPECTS OF THE HERBAL TRADITION

If all the books and articles on all the Paradises ever
written about were gathered together, I suppose that Milton's Garden
of Eden could not contain them.1 Even the commentary on Milton's
Garden alone would be more than one Paradise could hold.2 That
Milton's Garden was supposed to excel all other gardens is obvious
from Milton's text: his Paradise is better than Enna's "faire field,"
Daphne's "sweet Grove," the Nyseian Ile, and Mount Amara (IV. 267-
285); than the gardens of Adonis, Alcinous, and Solomon (IX. #39-443).
Adam and Eve's Bower of Bliss is to be preferred to that of Pan,
Silvanus, and Faunus (IV. 707-708) and the fruit of their Garden to
that of India East or West, Pontus's middle shore, the Punic Coast,
and Alcinous's garden (V. 339-341). If, as Giamatti Observes,
"Milton's ostensible task was to make the earthly paradise in Book
IV perfect and delightful, and out of allusions to and reminiscences
of almost every Biblical, classical, modern, and 'real' garden he
could find, he composed his own complete, integrated vision,"3 then
it seems strange that the abundant commentary only rarely, if at
all, deals with the "real" garden.“ By the "real" garden I mean the
English gardens of Milton's day, with which he would have been
familiar either from observation or from reading about them in the
garden manuals and herbals available to him in England.

'78

79

At first glance, Milton's Garden appears to be one massive
Paradisal cliche, but a second look uncovers "native" English materials
in the furnishings, in the gardening tools, in the semi-technical
horticultural terminology, in the rural practices associated with
husbandry. The question, therefore, that I should like to consider is
this: If Milton's Garden did not owe everything to its Paradisal
antecedents, what parts of that Garden have their roots in English

soil and in English horticulture?

Che need not travel so far in Milton's world as Broadbent
suggests5--to the Pison or the Ganges, to the Persian Gulf of
"Golden Sand," or to Morocco or the Bermudas--to find contemporary
analogues, sources, and influences for Milton's Garden. England
itself contained Paradisal gardens. The added subtlety is this:
that the Englishman's garden was partly modelled on the Idea of the
Genesis Paradise, and Milton's Genesis Paradise was partly drawn
from the English gardens. Although the description in Genesis is
admittedly vague, the dream of a Paradise garden like Eden runs
strong in English garden literature and is still regarded as an
ideal today.6 John Parkinson's Paradisi‘ig Sole Paradisus Terrestris,
both in title and purpose, is an excellent illustration of the
Paradisal impulse in gardening: "A Garden of all sorts of pleasant
flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed up: A
Kitchen garden of all manner of herbes, posies, & fruites, for meate
or sause used with us, and An Orchard of all sorte of fruit bearing
Trees and shrubbes fit for our Land together With the right
orderinge planting & preseruing of them and their uses & vertues."

Ch his title page Parkinson pictures not an English rural couple

89
but Adam and Eve at work in the Garden: Adam is gathering fruit from
a tree while Eve is propping up a drooping flower. Though the book
was designed as a practical gardening manual, not an illustrated
commentary on the opening chapters of Genesis, Parkinson cannot begin
his book without acknowledging the Source of all successful
gardening:

. . . And that Adam might exercise this knowledge, God planted
a Garden for him to line in, (wherein euen in his innocency

he was to labour and spend his time) which hee stored with the
best and choysest Herbes and Fruits the earth could produce,
that he might have not onely for necessities whereon to feede,
but for pleasure also. . . . But my purpose is onely to shew
you, that Paradise was a place (whether you will call it a
Garden, or Orchard, or both, no doubt of some large extent)
wherein Adam was first placed to abide: that God was the
Planter therof, hauing furnished it with trees and herbes,

as well pleasant to the sight as good for meats, and that

hee being to dresse and keep this place, must of necessity know
all the things that grew therein, and to what uses they serued,
or else his labour about them, and knowledge in them, had been
in vaine. . . . Let men therefore . . . remember their seruice
to God, and not (like our Grandmother Eve) set their affections
so strongly on the pleasure in them, as to deserue the 10559

of them in this Paradise, yea and of Heauen also.7

John Gerard describes the English gardens (his own herbal
garden was famous) as though each little plot is a Herperian
Paradise:

. . . what greater delight is there than to behold the earth
apparelled with plants, as with a robe of embroidered worke,
set with Orient pearles and garnished with great diuersitie

of rare and costly jewels? If this varietie and perfection

of colours may affect the eie, it is such in herbs and floures,
that no Apelles, no Zeuxis euer could by any art expresse the
like. . . setting forth to vs the inuisible wisdome and
admirable workmanship of Almighty God.8

Milton, like Parkinson and Gerard, refers to God as the
"sovran Planter" (IV. 691: IV. 209-210), and all three draw from
Genesis 2:8 as the authoritative statement on the subject. It must

also be noted that, while Milton's description of Paradise has

81

much hyperbole in it, often stressing that which rises above the
imaginable and that which is unattainable on this stained earth, it
is precisely this same hyperbolic diction that Parkinson and Gerard
use in describing the actual English gardens of their day. Gerard
revels in words like "apparelled with plants," "robe of embroidered
worke," "Crient pearles," and "garnished with rare and costly
jewels." And it is Milton who sounds like an echo with "broiderd the
the ground," (IV. 702) "stone / Of costliest Emblem" (IV. 702-703),
"wrought / Mosaic" (IV. 699-700), and "Orient Pearle" (V. 2).

Of course the exotic gardens of the East are thick with
fragrances exuded by trees, shrubs, and flowers. Solomon's garden
of the Canticles boasts mountains of myrrh and hills of frankincense
(4:6). No less fragrant are the Christian Latin Paradises.9 Milton's
Garden shares in this love of fragrances: the trees drop myrrh
(V. 23) and "rich Trees wept odorous Gumms and Balme (IV. 248); his
Eve is "Veild in a Cloud of Fragrance" (IX. #25). Though the con-
cern for fragrance has its Eastern and Christian antecedents, it
is also a part of the English garden scene. Eleanour Rohde observes:
". . . the gardens of our Elizabethan ancestors were indeed scented
gardens. It is perhaps not too much to say that in no other period
of our history were the scents of flowers so keenly appreciated."10
Parkinson's Paradisi is like an alabaster box of fragrance: he
describes the Damaske Rose as ". . . of the most excellent sweet
pleasant sent, far surpassing all other Roses or Flowers. . . ."11
And Gerard says, ". . . if odours or if taste may worke satisfaction,

they are both so soueraigne in plants, and so comfortable that no

confection of the Apothecaries can equal their excellent vertue."12

82
So scientific a man as Francis Bacon cannot extol scents enough in
his essay "Of Gardens": "God Almighty first planted a garden and
indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures. t . . And because the
breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes,
like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is
more fit for that delight, than to know what be the flowers and
plants that do best perfume the air."13 He follows this with a
catalogue of fragrances. What may strike today's reader of Milton
as "Eastern exotic" would probably have struck his contemporary
readers as "English normal." For the Englishman did not think it

presumptuous to choose as the title of his gardening manual The

 

now growing in England. . . .114

The desire to have a garden still persists in England to

our day, but in Milton's day it was almost universal. The Englishman,
whether rich or poor, whether a rural Gervase Markham or a sophisti-
cated William Temple, whether owner of a plat or a park, considered
his own little piece of Paradise as his most personal possession.15
Milton, too (although he devoted no prose treatise to gardening and
probably did little work with a spade), delighted in gardens and
was familiar with gardening techniques. Inlg Second Defence he
alludes to the subject of gardening, to parterres, to grafting, to
"a most delectable walk."l6 And in Animadversions he describes
in detail horticultural practices:

A certaine man of large possessions, had a faire Garden. . . .

now, when the time was come that he should cut his hedges,

prune his trees, looke to his tender slips, and pluck up the

weeds that hinder'd their growth, he gets him up by breake

of day, and makes account to doe what was needfull in his
garden. . . . Yet for all this there comes another strange

EB

Gardener that never knew the soyle, never handl'd Dibble

or Spade to set the least pot-herbe that grew there, much
lesse had endur'd an houres sweat or chilnesse, and yet
challenges as his right the binding or unbinding of every
flower, the clipping of every bush, the weeding and worming
of every bed. . . . 7

According to Aubrey, "After dinner he used to walk three or four
hours at a time. He always had a garden where he lived."18 David
Masson's description of the Horton of Milton's early "reading"
period sounds like a chapter out of a gardening manual:

It is a rich, teeming, verdurous flat, charming by its
appearance of plenty, and by the goodly show of wood along

the fields and pastures, in the nooks where the houses

nestle, and everywhere in all directions to the skyhbound

verge of the landscape. . . . There are rivulets brimming
through the meadows among rushes and waterbplants; and, by

the very sides of the ways, in lieu of ditches, there are

slow runnels. . . . One could lie under elm-trees on a

lawn, or saunter in meadows by the side of a stream, or

watch a mill-wheel from a rustic bridge, or walk along quiet
roads well hedged, or deviate into paths leading by farm-yards
and orchards, and through pastures for horses, cows and

sheep. . . . Now was the time for the youth to take in those
"images of rural nature," in so far as such were still

wanting, which poets are supposed pre-eminently to require. . . .
Now . . . he listens to the rural hum, and marks the branches
as they wave and the birds as they fly; now, in the garden,

he notes the annual series of the plants and the daily blooming
of the roses. . . .19

20 his house

His house at AlderSgate Street was situated in a garden;
in Westminster had a garden which opened into St. James's Park;21

and his final house in the Artillery walk leading to Bunhill Fields
in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, had a "considerable garden

in the rear,"22

where Milton was often seen by the villagers.
Milton's description of the "happy rural seat" (IV. 247) of Paradise
with its "Hill and Dale and Plaine" (IV. 2&3) springs from his own
rural experience. There can be no doubt that England is in Paradise.
Broadbent finds in the "happy rural seat" so much of England that

he considers it "almost laughably the England of Penshurst, Cooper's

8b

Hill and Appleton House."23 While it would be naive to hunt for the
exact counterpart of Milton's Paradise in Horton or Chalfont, St.
Giles, or anywhere in England, it would be just as naive to ignore
the "native" English elements in his Paradise.

Milton's Paradise also has something of the more lavish
English gardens in it. Certain aspects of William Temple's Moor
Park resemble Paradise and certain aspects of Milton's Paradise
resemble Moor Park. The very knowledgeable Sir William, who had
spent the greater part of his life abroad on diplomatic missions and
who had in the course of his travels seen impressive state gardens,
found no place on earth to equal the beauty of Moor Park:

Because I take the garden I have named to have been in all
kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure
and disposition, that I have ever seen, I will describe it
for a model to those that meet with such a situation, and
are above the regards of common expense. It lies on the
side of a hill . . . but not very steep. . . . the border
[:of the walk] set with standard laurels, and at large dis-
tances, which have the beauty of orange trees, out of flower
and fruit. . . . The cloister racing the south is covered
with vines, and would have been proper for an orange-house,
and the other for myrtles, or other more common greens. . . .
the lower garden . . . is all fruit trees ranged about the
several quarters of a wilderness which is very shady; the
walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with figures
of shell-rockswork, fountains, and water works. . . .
[There is] a garden on the other side of the house, which
is all of that sort, very wild, shady, and adorned with
rough rock-work and fountains.

This was Moor Park when I was acquainted with it, and
the sweetest place, I think, that I have seen in my life,
either before or since, at home or abroad. . . .2

To point out the "English" in Milton's Paradise is not to
deny the presence of the traditional "inszenierende Staffage" in
Milton's Garden, of course. As Curtius observes in European
Literature and the Middle Ages, an idyllic garden has standard

furnishings:

85
The most elaborate variant is afforded by the Gardens of
Alcinous (91., VII, 112). Here there are fruits of the
most various kinds: pomegranates, apples, figs, pears, olives,
grapes. The trees bear all through the year, for it is al-
ways spring and the west wind always blows--the island of the
Phaecians [sic] is indeed a land of faery. Two springs water
the garden. Another fabulous place of heart's desire is the
grotto of Calypso (£§,, V, 63). It is surrounded by a forest
of alders, aspens, and cypresses. Four springs water the
meadows, in which violets and parsley grow. The entrance
to the grotto is overhung by a luxuriant grapevine. . . .
From Homer's landscapes later generations took certain motifs
which became permanent elements in a long chain of tradition:
the place of heart's desire, beautiful with perpetual spring
. . . the lovely miniature landscape which combines tree,
spring, and grass; the wood with various species of trees;
the carpet of flowers. . . .25

That Milton's Paradise owes much to Homer and to Ovid, and to a
host of other writers such as Stephanus and Conti,26 is apparent.
His Paradise "assimilates and refines upon the whole European tradi-
tion of paradises, gardens, pleasances, fortunate isles, and lands
of the blessed as subjects for conventional description."27 But
the presence of the distinctly English ingredients cannot be
ignored. The construction of his Paradise is not so different from
that of contemporary English gardens. It is perhaps Milton's
willingness to incorporate in his "delicious Paradise" (IV. 132)
some of the features of the actual gardens of his day that makes
him able to bridge the gap between the mythical and the real, be-
tween the fictional and the historical, even between Art and Nature.
Just as his Adam and Eve are not fictional characters but are "real"
people requiring medication for ocular disturbances, just so his
Adam and Eve must have a recognizably "real" garden.

Since Adam and Eve are both particular and universal, the
universal nature of their Garden cannot be brushed aside. As

Lawrence Babb points out in The Moral Cosmos 3f Paradise Lost,

 

536
"Milton represents Paradise with vivid but general imagery. . . .
The poet has assembled generic images of sight, sound, and odor which
collectively call up a vision of natural luxuriance and profusion,
beautiful beyond anything which we can ever hope to see but which
could have been when the world was young."28 Those generic images,
which evoke the beauties of an unspoiled world, are so vivid because
they are not apophatic. Milton's universal garden, not the negation
of all particular gardens, is the affirmation of the "good" in all
of them. If the image of a completely universal garden were not
permeated by particular gardens, it would be inconceivable and un-
imaginable. Milton's memory of particular gardens, including English
"Paradises" of his day, contributes to the vitality and the cataphatic
quality of his Paradise. Support for this view can be established by
a comparison of the following eight horticultural features of

Milton's Garden with contemporary English garden materials.

1. Location. High; enclosed; with a view of the "neather Empire

neighbouring round." (IV. 133-145)

Milton's Mount, which C. S. Lewis calls the "upward

progression," the "vertical serialism"29 of Milton's Paradise, has
not only mythology in it but contemporary geography. E. M. Clark
observes: ". . . it is securely planted upon the summit of a
'rural mount,’ corresponding to any Abyssinian amba, which geographers
describe as a conical and almost inaccessible sandstone rock or
mount rising anywhere from one hundred to three thousand feet above
the surrounding plain."30 But the Mount was also an essential feature
of an English garden. A Mount provided a view. William Temple

considers a view so vital to a garden that it "makes amends for the

87
expense, which is very great."31 Bacon, too, wants a Mount in the
middle "with three ascents and alleys enough for four to walk
abreast . . . and the whole mount to be thirty feet high. . . ."32
And William Lawson's A New Orchard and Garden gives explicit instruc-
tions for the construction of four corner mounts.33 But John Evelyn's
description of the view at Cliveden surpasses them all: "I went to
Clifden that stupendious natural Rock, Wood, & Prospect of the Duke
of Buckinghams . . . the place alltogether answers the most poetical
description that can be made of a solitude, precipice, prospects &
whatever can contribute to a thing so very like their imaginations
. . . on the platforme is a circular View to the uttmost verge of
the Horison, which with the serpenting of the Thgmgg is admirably
surprising. . . ."Bu Late in the epic it is the Mount of Paradise
that Adam and Michael ascend, "from whose top / The Hemisphere of
Earth in cleerest Ken / Stretcht out to amplest reach of prospect
lay" (XI. 378-380).

The notion of enclosing a garden did not originate in the
Renaissance. Springing from the East (particularly from the Garden
of the Canticles) and represented in many pictures and expositions of
medieval gardens,35 the enclosing of a garden was an aesthetic but
also a practical necessity. Both Milton's Paradise and the English
gardens required protection. An Englishman like Thomas Hill would
not have had to go to Abyssinia to understand the need for a barrier.
In fact, his small garden called for a double enclosure: ". . . en-
close the same rounde about . . . for that Gardens being not wel
fenced and closed . . . is many ways endamaged, as well by beastes,

as by theues, breaking into it."36 The garden at Wilton, one of the

88

most elaborate gardens of that time, was enclosed in a new wall "a
Thousand foote long and about Foure hundred in breadth. . . ."37

As might be expected, Milton chooses natural barriers for
his Paradise: a thicket (IV. 136) of undergrowth of shrubs and
bushes (IV. 175-176); high trees (IV. 139); a stand of fruit trees
inside the barrier for a double enclosure (IV. 1&7). John Evelyn,
Milton's much-travelled contemporary, takes intense delight in a
proper barrier: "Is there underlfiggzgg a more glorious and re-
freshing object of the kind, than an impregnable Hgggg of one hundred
and sixty foot in length, seven foot high, and £113 in diameter,
which I can shew in my poor Gardens at any time of the year,
glitt'ring with its arm'd and vernish'ed.l§gzg§? the taller
Standards at the rudest assaults of the Weather, Beasts, or.figggg-
breakers, g3 illum nemo impunb lacessit."38 Thomas Hill also
urges a hedge: "But the most profitable hedge of a1 . . . and leaste
of coste, is that which is made with Bryers, & thornes, mixed or set
together." After citing Democritus, Columella, and Palladius as
illustrious supporters of the thorny barrier, Hill concludes:
". . . an uniuersall waye, and the surest maner, to enclose all
Gardens."39

Ralph Austen chooses tall trees for sheltering fruit
trees, as Milton does for Paradise. Praising walnut trees specifically
for their "exceeding great height, and bigness," Austen insists that
the use of trees "that naturally grow great and high" will be very

profitable for the protection of fruit trees.“0

2. Pure Air. Air so pure that it is a source of "Vernal delight

and joy, able to drive / All sadness but despair" (IV. 153-156).

89

Of course a proper Paradise must have pure air. The
seventeenth century, perhaps as much as the twentieth, understood
what smoke and sulphur, what stink and darkness meant. Milton
refers to the city as a place "Where Houses thick and Sewers annoy
the Aire" (IX. 446); and John Evelyn describes Londoners as "pursu'd
and haunted by that infernal smoake." "Sir," he says in the epis-
tolary introduction to his_£umifggigpg

I prepare in this short Discourse, an expedient how this
pernicious Nuisance may be reformed; and offer at another

also, by which the Aer may not only be freed . . . but render
not only Your Majesties Palace, but the whole City likewise,
one of the sweetest, and most delicious Habitations in the
'World; and this, with little or no expence; but by improving
those Plantations which Your Majesty so laudably affects, in
the moyst, depressed and Marshy Grounds about the Town, to

the Culture and production of such things, as upon every gentle
emission through the Aer, should so perfume the adjacent places
with their breath; as if, by a certain charm, or innocent
Magick, they were transferred to that part of Arabia, which is
therefore styl'd the Happy, because it is amongst the Gums and
precious spices. Those who take the notice of the Sent of

the CTange-flowers from the Rivage of Genba . . . the Blossomes
of the Rosemary . . . or the manifest and odoriferous wafts
which flow from Fontenay and Vaugirard. . . . And, I am able
to enumerate a CatalOgue of native Plants . . . whose redolent
and agreeable emissions would even ravish our senses, as well 4
as perfectly improve and meliorate the Aer about London. . . . 1

While Evelyn claims to be reporting scientific facts and not to be
hyperbolizing over some remote Paradise, it is remarkable that
Milton's diction in this passage coincides at various points with
Evelyn's:

. . . now gentle gales
Fanning thir odoriferous wings dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmie spoiles. As when to them who saile
Beyond the Cape.p£ Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at Sea North-East windes blow
Sabean Odours from the spicie shoare
Of Arabie the blest, with such delay
Well pleas'd they slack thir course, and many a League
Cheard with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles.

(IV. 156-165)

go

It is precisely in the context of pure air that Milton
alludes to "Apgpig the blest," "odoriferous wings," "Native perfumes,"
and "balmie spoiles." Whether Milton's diction is due to the
influence of Diodorus Siculus or of Evelyn is difficult to determine,
though the date of Evelyn's work makes it a doubtful influence. If
verbal similarity is the test, then it is Evelyn (or perhaps some
source, for Evelyn was a great borrower) who influenced Milton. But,
more importantly, it is Evelyn describing an attainable state in
England.42

Air so potent as to be able to dispel sadness is more than a
piece of standardized Paradise equipment for Milton and his contem-
poraries. Basing their arguments on physiology, Renaissance physicians
and gardeners were convinced that fruit trees are healthful, physically
and psychologically. Ralph Austen is perhaps the most articulate of
the writers on the salutary effects of fruit trees:

But chiefly the Pleasure this sense meets with is from the
sweet smelling blossomes of all the fruit-trees, which
from the time of their breaking forth, till their fall,
breath out a most precious and pleasant odor; perfuming the
ayre throughout all the Orchard. . . .

And besides the pleasure of this perfumed ayre, it is
also very profitable, and healthfull to the body. Here
againe, Profit and pleasure meet and imbrace. Ag Cdoreg
nutriunt, is a question amongst Philosophers: some hold
sweet perfumes nourishing, doubtlesse they give a great
refreshing to the spirits, and whatsoever delights, and
cheers the spirits is without controversie very advantagious
to the health of the body; for the spirits are the chiefe
workers in the body, from which proceed all, or most of the
effects wrought in the body, good or bad, according to the
temper of the spirits.

Sweet perfumes work immediatly upon the spirits for
their refreshing . . . sweet and healthfull Ayres are
speciall preservatives to health, and therefore much to
be prised.43

 

 

It is interesting to note that Parkinson, basing his observations on

identical data, emphasizes the converse: that fruit trees cannot

91.
grow in foul air "for many, both fruits, herbes, and flowers . . .
participate with the ayre. . . .n44
Eve's awareness of the role that fruit trees play in
creating pure air makes her lament

. . . how shall we breath in other Aire
Less pure, accustomed to immortal Fruits?" (XI. 284-285)

This is no idle, irrational babbling on her part; nor is it elliptical
speech. If she could have talked with Bentley, she would have given
him a better answer to his question "What do fruits have to do with
breathing?" than Pearce and Empson did. All three--Bentley,Pearce,
and Empson--have not the slightest awareness of the relationship
between fruit trees and breathing pure air. While Bentley would
emend, and Pearce would supply "to eat" for what he considers an
ellipsis, Empson views these lines as "something like a pun in the
way she is enabled at once to sum up her argument and trail away

in the weakness of her appeal; it is a delicate piece of brushwork
such as seems blurred until you step back."45 No piece of brush-
work this; Milton has simply endowed Eve with a piece of common
knowledge of the seventeenth century: "Now, a.§gp§p pgrfumed, £23§p,

wholsome Ayre (which is chiefly found in Gardens pf fruit-trees) is

 

greatly available to [the Preservativel purpose. . . ."46

3. Tppgg, "All Trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste"
(IV. 217); "fruit burnisht with Golden Rinde" (IV. 2u9); "fruit
of all kindes, in coate, / Rough, or smooth rin'd, or bearded
husk, or shell" (V. 341-342); "earthly fruits" (V. 464); "im-
mortal Fruits" (XI. 285).

Milton's choosing of trees pleasant to the sight is more

than a piece of aestheticism and more than an echo of Purchas'

92
Variant of the Biblical phrase "pleasant to the sight and good for
food."47 Milton and his contemporaries believed in the health-giving
preperties of things pleasant to the sight. Ralph Austen, citing
Bacon as his authority, sums up current arguments for pleasant sights:

Likewise, ppg sight is delighted with pleasant and delicate
Colours pf the Leaves, Blossomes, and Fruits, That shew them-
selves in great variety, Curious Colours, especially the
Colour greene is accounted helpfull to the sight.

Fons, speculum, Gramen, Oculis sunt alleviamen:

Greene grasse, cleare glasse, and fountaines pure
Refresh Eyesight, long to indure.

Here againe Profit and Pleasure meet.

And as foule and odious objects presented to the sight,
cause a dislike in the spirits, that they retire and shun such
objects, so contrario verum, the contrary holds in delightfull
and pleasant objects of the sight, the spirits thereby are
delighted. He saies, Objects.p§ pp; sight, g§_comming into
5 faigg Garden . . . doe delight and exhilarate the §pirits
much.

It is difficult to identify the native English fruit trees

in Milton's Paradise, difficult to identify any fruit at all.
Since no vegetable life was subject to death in the prelapsarian
world, all "earthly" fruits in Paradise were "immortal"; the false
fruit was "mortal" only in the sense that it "Brought Death into
the Werld" (I. 3). The four specific fruits mentioned by Milton are
grape, berry, apple,and nectarine, though the nectarine may be no
specific fruit but a reference to all Paradise fruits which are
filled with the traditional nectar. Milton does not use the fruit
catalOgue of the Gardens of Alcinous, where the most popular fruits
grew: pomegranates, apples, figs, pears, olives, grapes. And the
best English gardens, able to compete with the finest of Paradise
gardens, contained at least some of the following:

For fruits, the best we have in England, or, I believe, can

ever hope for, are, of peaches, the White and Red Maudlin,

the Minion, the Chevreuse, the Ramboullet, the Musk, the
Admirable. . . . The only good nectarins are the Murry and

the French. . . .

CE the grapes, the best are Chasselas, which is the better
sort of our white Muscadine . . . about Sheen, it is called
the Pearl grape. . . .

Of figs, there are among us the White, the Blue, and the
Tawny. . . .

Of apricocks, the best are the common old sort, and the
largest Masculin. . . .

The number of good pears, especially summer, is very
great, but the best are the Blanquet, Rebin, Rousselet,
Rosati, Sans, Pepin, Jargonel. . . .

Of the plums, the best are St. Julian, St. Catharine,
White and Blue Pedrigon, Queen Mother, Sheen plum, and
Cheston. . . .

I need say nothing of apples, being SO‘Well known
among us; but the best of our climate, and I believe of all
others, is the Golden Pippin. . . .49

In addition Milton describes some fruit as having a golden
rind and the fruit of the Tree of Life as "vegetable Gold" (IV.
220). Needless to say, "vegetable Gold" has provoked much com-
mentary; it is indeed a "strange phrase . . . attributing life and
growth to a mineral substance."5O On the other hand, "vegetable
Gold" might not have seemed so strange to Milton’s contemporaries.
There is an account of the banqueting house at Whitehall (built in
1581 to entertain French ambassadors) where "the roof was wrought
with ivy and holly, and from it hung wicker rods garnished with
flowers, bay, branches of sweet-smelling herbs and 'all manner of
strange fruits,‘ as pomegranates, oranges, pompions, cucumbers,
grapes. In true Elizabethan fashion the fruits were spangled with
gold."51 The Englishman, though he might have sensed the Hesperian
element in Milton's description, seemed to find the heterogeneous
yoking of mineral and vegetable a pleasant sight, for he decorated

actual fruit with gold.

4. Flowers. Milton chooses flowers "worthy of Paradise" (IV.

241) and expresses a firm dislike for "Beds and curious

9b
Knots" (IV. 242). Naturally, the flowers grow profusely in
Paradise (IV. 243). And although Eve thinks that the flowers
of Eden will never grow in another climate (XI. 273-274), most
of the flowers of Paradise could be found growing not only in
Homer's Greece but also in Milton's England: iris, gessamin,
violet, crocus, hyacinth (IV. 698-701), and thornless roses
(IV. 256) of "Carnation, Purple, Azure, or spect with Gold"
(IX. 429).

Milton's choice of flowers does not include the spectacular,
but is limited to the ordinary sun-loving and shade-loving plants
(IV. 244-246). The herbals are filled with more flowers than Adam
and Eve could have taken care of, and Parkinson's Paradisi includes
a description of "the Rose without thornes single and double."52 For
the doubting gardener, Parkinson repeats this description: ". . .
without any pricke or thorne at all vpon them. . . ."53 The colors
of Milton's roses--and many additional colors--can also be found in
the herbals, even the gold-specked rose of Paradise, which Parkinson
describes somewhat more prosaically than Milton does as having
"yellow threads in the middle."54

Milton's aversion to knots, mazes, and labyrinths in Paradise
may be related to the Art-Nature dichotomy. Bacon, too, dislikes
"knots, or figures, with divers-coloured earths. . . . You may see
as good sights many times in tarts."55 Milton fills his Paradise
with Nature's bounties. Here is Nature in prelapsarian "raw."
Perhaps Milton associated mazes and labyrinths with the fantastical-
ly intricate, arty gardens of both the ancients and of his contem-
poraries. Pliny's villa, though comfortable, had more of Art than

Nature in it:

$5

The design and beauty of the buildings are greatly surpassed by
the riding-ground. The centre is quite open so that the whole
extent of the course can be seen as one enters. It is planted
round with ivy-clad plane trees, green with their own leaves
above, and below with the ivy which climbs over trunk and
branch and links tree to tree as it spreads across them.
Box shrubs grow between the plane trees, and outside there
is a ring of laurel bushes which add their shade to that of
the planes. Here the straight part of the course ends, curves
round in a semicircle, and changes its appearance, becoming
darker and more densely shaded by the cypress trees planted
round to shelter it, whereas the inner circuits--for there
are several--are in open sunshine. . . . At the end of the
winding alleys of the rounded end of the course you return
to the straight path, or rather paths, for there are several
separated by intervening box hedges. Between the grass
lawns here and there are box shrubs clipped into innumerable
shapes, some being letters which spell the gardener's name
or his master's; small obelisks of box alternate with fruit
trees, and then suddenly in the midst of this ornamental scene
is what looks like a piece of rural country planted there. . . .
farther off are . . . more box figures and names.

At the upper end of the course is a curved dining-seat
of white marble, shaded by a vine trained over four slender
pillars of Carystian marble. Water gushes out through pipes
from under the seat as if pressed out by the weight of people
sitting there, is caught in a stone cistern and then held in
a finely-worked marble basin which is regulated by a hidden
device so as to remain full without overflowing. The pre-
liminaries and main dishes for dinner are placed on the edge
of the basin, while the lighter ones float about in vessels
shaped like birds or little boats.56

Then there was the Pratoline Garden of the Grand Duke of
Florence, which John Evelyn describes in such great detail in his
Diapy and which Milton had seen:57

The House is a Square of 4 Pavilions, with a faire platform
about it, balustr'd with stone, 'tis situate in a large
meadow like an amphitheater, ascending, having at the bottom
a huge rock, with water running in a small Chanell like a
Cascade, on the other side the Gardens, the whole place
seemes Consecrated to pleasure, & retirement in Summer: The
Inside of the Palace may well compare with any in Italy for
furniture of Tapissry, beds &c: The Gardens delicious &
full of fountaines: In the Grove sits Pan feeding his flock,
the water making a melodius sound through his pipe, & an
Hercules whose Club yeilds a Showre of water, which falling
into a huge Concha has a Naked Woman riding on the backs of
Dolphins: In another Grotto is Vulcan & his family, the
walls richly composd of Coralls, Shells, Coper & Marble
figures; with the huntings of Severall beasts, moving by the

96

force of Water: Here having ben well wash'd for our Curiosity,
we went down to large Walk, at the sides whereof gushes out of
imperceptible pipes, couched under neath, slender pissings of
water, that interchangeably fall into each others Chanells,
making a lofty & perfect arch, so as a man on horseback may
ride under it and not be wet with one drop, nay so high, as
one may walk with a speare in ones hand under each spout,

this Canopi or arch of water, was mi thought one of the sur-
prizings<t> magnificences I had ever seene, & exceedingly
fresh during the heate of summer, at the End of this very
long walk stands a Woman in white marble in posture of a
Laundresse wringing Water out of a piece of linnen very
naturaly, into a vast Lavor, the work & invention of the
famous Michael Angelo Buonaroti: Hence we ascended Mpppg
Parnasso, where the Muses plaid to us on Hydraulic Organs;
neere this a great Aviarie: The Sourse of all these waters
are from the Rock in the Garden, on which the statue of a
Gyant representing the Appennines at the foote of which stands
this Villa: Last of all we came to the Labyrinth in which

a huge Colosse of Jupiter, that throws out a streame over

the Garden; This Moles is 50 foote in height, having in his
body a pretty Square chamber, his Eyes and mouth serving

for the Windos & dore.58

It is understandable that Milton did not want a Colossal Jupiter
blowing water all over his Garden. Besides, Milton knew that
whether it was to be a Pratoline labyrinth or an English cottage
knot, each required careful planning and much work, even to the
point of following detailed instructions. The illustrations from
gardening manuals almost overwhelm the twentieth-century gardener:
one can imagine the amount of work required to make the "Cink
foyle" or the "Flowre deluce" of The Covntrie Hovsewifes Garden.59
But the lilies of the field "toil not neither do they spin" (Matt.
6:28); and Adam and Eve were busy enough lopping, pruning, propping,
without having to keep a knot in shape. Milton's acute sense of
verisimilitude comes into play here: he makes his Garden a
manageable one for the inhabitants, even though Eve in typical
housewifely fashion complains about having only two hands (IX.

207—212).

97

Milton's preference for the Natural may spring from his
affinity to the Pastoral form but may also be rooted in his own
rural experiences. It is true that by the time he came to Chalfont,
St. Giles, he was blind, but his memory would have held pictures of
the Buckinghamshire meadows, wooded slopes, upland commons,
stream-sides, forests, all rich in flora. Gerard's visit to
Buckinghamshire had uncovered such unusual flowers as the small
canterburie bell,60 elecampane,61 the garden angelica;62 and the
later studies of George C. Druce, recorded in Tpg‘filppg‘pf Bucking-
hamshire, describe the beautiful, uncultivated flowers of field and
stream--columbine, larkspur, yellow water lily, opium poppy, wake
robin, and hundreds of others.63 No poet's eye could have seen these
without recording and remembering. Surely one whose "exercise was
chiefly'walking"64 would have seen a little of his own Buckinghamshire

in the "Flours of all hue" (IV. 256) or Paradise.

5. Furnishingg. A raised table of "grassie terf" surrounded by
"mossie seats" (V. 391-392).

Though at first glance a grassy turf table and mossy seats
may seem like primitive dining equipment, these were not foreign
to Milton's England. Carey and Fowler suggest that a grassy turf
table and mossy seats were used "because the shaping of wood had
not yet begun,"65 but long after technology had made tables and
seats of wood, marble, and other materials possible, William Lawson,
a Yorkshire gardener, showed a fondness for turf seats planted with
camomile, violet, or daisies. His manual, which describes these
seats, was designed especially for gardens in "the North parts of

England,"66 a region where turf and mossy constructions would take

99-
a beating by strong winds and rains. Moreover, whether the medieval
gardens actually contained raised turf seats or whether these seats
were only the projection of the medieval artists' imagination is
not Certain, but it is a rare picture of a medieval garden that does

not have a mossy seat somewhere.

6. walks and Alleys.
"yonder Allies green, / Cur walks at noon" (IV. 626-627).
"circuit of these walks" (IV. 586).
"echoing walks between" (IX. 1107).
"[Satan] many a walk travers'd" (IX. 434).
"leave . . . these happie walks" (XI. 269-270).

Essential to the enjoyment of an English garden was a series
of walks: "The fairer and larger your allies and walks be, the more
grace your garden shall have. . . ."67 The smallest cottage garden
called for walks. William Lawson's garden plans have specifications
for two sets of walks: "H. walks set with great wood thick. I.
walks set with great wood round about your orchard."68 Even an
English pond garden, designed more for profit than pleasure, makes
room for a great many'walks.69 Milton shares his countrymen's
delight in walks, assigning many English-type alleys to Paradise.

So important are these that Adam makes provision in his work
schedule for keeping the walks clear of branches. It is interesting
that Milton chooses the civilized "English" way to go about in
Paradise. The Englishman, like Adam, finds the walks practical
as well as beautiful:
The commodities of these Alleis and walkes, serue to good
purposes, the one is, that the owner may diligently view

the prosperitie of his herbes and flowers, the other for
the delight and comfort of his wearied mind, which he may

99
by himself, or in fellowship of his friendes conceyue, in
the delectable sightes, and fragrant smells of the flowers,
by walking up and downe, and about the Garden in them, which
for the pleasant sightes and refreshing of the dull spirites,
with the sharpning of memorie. . . .70
Milton's primitive sire is not Fenimore Cooper's hero gliding
swiftly through the "spicy forest," leaving no perceptible foot-
print upon the flowers. Even Satan takes the paths. And when it

comes time for Adam and Eve to leave Paradise, Adam, like any good

Englishman, mourns the loss of the "happie walks."

7. [Egggp (Arbor).
"thir blissful Bower; it was a place / Chos'n by the sovran
Planter" (IV. 690-691).
"thir shadie Lodge" (IV. 720).
"as in the dore he sat / Of his coole Bowre" (V. 299-300).
". . . So to the Silvan Lodge / They came, that like Pomona's
Arbour smil'd" (V. 377-378).
A bower, or an arbor, is a shelter in a garden, a shelter
from heat or storm. Milton uses the word pgygp to denote both a
completely closed arbor and one partially or fully open at both ends.
He refers to "Walks, and Bowers" (VIII. 305), "paths and Bowers"
(IX. 244), "Dales and Bowrs" (X. 860); and like any competent
horticultural architect he provides a door for the living quarters
of the occupants. And although prelapsarian MeSOpotamia may not
have been as hot as the Middle East is today, Milton stresses the
fact that the bower is shady and cool. What is surprising is that
his English contemporaries were so much addicted to shady arbors in
so cool a climate as England's. "All gardens," says Eleanour Rohde,

"seem to have boasted of at least one walk under a 'vaulting or arch

100
herber,‘ these herbers being constructed either of trellis work
covered with vines, or framed of 'pleached' trees--wychelm, hornbeam,
whitethorn or limes. In large gardens these herbers or covered
galleries were a prominent feature and were so constructed that
different parts of the garden and also outlying buildings could be
reached without going into the open."71 Thomas Hill's little
garden had a well on one side and an arbor on the other;72 and Bacon,
who loathed the knot, loved the "covert alley." Bacon even reckons
with heat:

. . . but because the alley will be long, and, in great

heat of the year, or day, you ought not to buy the shade

in the garden by going in the sun through the green, there-
fore you are, of either side the green to plant a covert
alley, upon carpenters' work, about twelve feet in height, by
which you may go in shade into the garden . . . the arches to
be upon pillars of carpenters‘ work, of some ten feet high,
and six feet broad, and the spaces between of the same di-
mensions with the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let
there be an entire hedge of some four feet high, framed also
upon carpenters"work; and upon the upper hedge, over every
arch, a little turret, with a belly enough to receive a cage
of birds: and over every space between the arches some

other little figure, with broad plates of round coloured glass
gilt, for the sun to play upon: but this hedge I intend to
be raised upon a bank, not steep but gently slope, of some
six feet, set all with flowers. 3

Milton's shady arbor is more natural than Bacon's; Milton's has
"artless" touches and needs no little turrets or open spaces filled
with little figures or glass gilt sun-catchers. Lovely in itself,
Milton's shady arbor requires no emblematizing to make it spiritual,
as does William Prynne's:
Gardens are fraught with Arbors, Trees, whose shade Cooles
and repels Heate, stormes which would invade, And scorch us
sore: Christ hath a shade most sweete Against all scalding
Heates, all stormes pg meete, Yea from his Fathers burning
Wrath and Rage, Which none but Q; can Quench, coole, pp
asswage: 0 then in all such scorching Flames still fly

To Christs sweete shade, for ease and remedy.74

What Milton makes clear to his readers is this: the shady

lOl

arbor contains rather simple flowers to be found anywhere in England:75

. . . each beauteous flour,

Iris all hues, Roses, and Gessamin

. . . the Violet,

Crocus, and Hyacinth with rich inlay

Broiderd the ground, more colour'd then with stone

Of costliest Emblem. . . . (IV. 697-703)
It is used to entertain angelic visitors as well as for love-making;
it has no hint of the luxuriousness of classical love bowers or of
Spenser's; and because the shady bower was planted by God Himself,
it, like the rest of His creation, was "very good" (Gen. 1:31). When
I look at Milton's arbor, I do not see, as Broadbent does, that "in
the background is Ezekiel's vision of Adam’s kingly splendor . . .
sardius, topaz, and the diamond . . . as well as the amorously
emblematic jewellry of the Song of Solomon. . . ."76 Nor do I see
the "old enchanted garden themes" as Giamatti does.77 I see in the
background Ralph Austen's fruit trees "bespangled, and gorgeously
apparelled with greene Leaves";78 John Parkinson's Damaske Roses
"surpassing all other Roses or Flowers";79 and John Gerard's plants

"setting forth to vs the inuisible wisdome and admirable workman-

ship of Almighty God."80

8. Gardening.
"after no more toil / Of thir sweet Gardning labour then

suffic'd / To recommend coole ggpng, and made ease / More
easie" (IV. 327-330).
"But with such Gardning Tools as Art yet rude, / Guiltless of
fire had formd, or Angels brought" (IX. 391-392).
In a real garden, real people need to do real work, regard-
less of whether their place is called Paradise or England, though in

Paradise the work would put no sweat on the brow.81 Following his

102
Biblical source (Gen. 2:15), Milton makes his Adam and Eve engage
in "sweet Gardning labour."82 As for actual gardening practices in
Milton's England, so sophisticated a gentleman as John Evelyn not
only commends but extols gardening, and he himself branched out
into cookery.83 Even royalty engaged in gardening: Charles II was
renowned for his planning and gardening of the east front of Hampton
Court.84 The popular writers, in an attempt to raise gardening
above the level of "the loose unleter'd Hinds," introduced their
garden manuals with a discourse on the dignity of husbandry. M.
Conradus Heresbachius, for one, alludes to early illustrious
predecessors who worked in gardens: he cites Alcinous and Laertes
as men continually occupied with husbandry and concludes with the
supreme example, "Christ himselfe glorieth to be sonne of a Husband-
man."55 As a sidelight on the dignity of gardening, it is interesting
to note that the "mistaken gardener" of the Resurrection scenes
painted by Renaissance artists is none other than the Lord Himself
with a gardening tool similar to a modern spade.86
Milton's Adam, no less a gardener than Alcinous or Laertes
or Charles II, gives Eve a brief lecture on the benefits of husbandry:
. . . other Creatures all day long
Rove idle unimploid, and less need rest;
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his Dignitie,
And the regard of Heav'n on all his waies;
While other Animals unactive range,
And of thir doings God takes no account.
To morrow ere fresh Morning streak the East
With first approach of light, we must be ris'n,
And at our pleasant labour, to reform
Yon flourie Arbors, yonder Allies green,
Our walks at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require

More hands then ours to lop thir wanton growth:
Those Blossoms also, and those dropping Gumms,

103

That lie bestrowne unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease. (IV. 616-632)

A subject extremely familiar to both men and women of Milton's day,
there were books ranging from Fiue Hundreth Points pf Good Husbandryb7
to The English Hovse-wife, in which book the woman is described as
having "chast thought, stout courage, patient, untyred, watchfull,
diligent, witty . . . skilfull in the worthy knowledges which doe
belong to her vocation. . . ."88

The men of Milton's England had the highest regard for
gardening: "The very works of, and in an Orchard and Garden, are
better than the ease and rest of and from other labours. For
whereas every other pleasure commonly fills some one of our senses,
and that onely with delight, this makes all our sences swimme in
pleasure, and that with infinite varietie, ioyned with no lesse
commoditie."89

Since Milton, too, regards gardening as good in itself,
an occupation worthy of the occupants of Paradise, he reinforces the
actuality of their gardening efforts by having themlpp (IV. 629;
IX. 210); ppppg (IV. 438);‘pppp (IX. 210); pipg (IX. 210); and do
scant manuring (IV. 628).90 It was not Milton's intention to create
a garden that served only as a metaphor for spiritual activity, as
for example, Clement of Alexandria did so aptly in The Exhortation.pp
the Greeks. But Clement was writing theolOgy, not epic, and he
describes God's husbandman as one "who gives favorable omens, and
rouses the people to a work that is good, reminding us of the true
livelihood. . . ."91 Nor, on the other hand, was it Milton's intention
to create a dream-like fantasy, a non-existent Paradise complete

with soda-water fountain and big rock candy mountain, made blissful

m»
by its perpetual idleness. The lopping, pruning, propping, binding,
and manuring of Adam and Eve in Paradise do not detract from the
luster of Paradise, but these mundane activities make them and their
Garden credible. 80 specific is Milton, so literal, that he uses
the semi-technical terminology of agriculture to describe the con-
dition of the fruit-trees of Paradise:
. . . where any row

Of Fruit-trees overwoodie reachd too farr

Thir pamperd boughes, and needed hands to check

Fruitless imbraces. . . . (V. 212-215)
Most commentators in glossing overwoodie and pamperd treat the terms
etymolOgically, and hence fail to get the pomological point.92 The

explanation of these terms lies in The Solitagy'p; Carthusian

 

Qgrd'ner:

I suppose then a Tree to have Five Sorts of Branches. . . :
Wood-Branches, Fruit-Branches, Crumpled-Branches, Branches
,2; False Wood, and Luxuriant-Branches.

l. The Wood-Branches are those that form the Shape and
Roundness of the Tree, and must be Prun'd with Judgment
according to the Strength of the Tree, from Four to
Twelve Inches long .

2. The Fruit-Branches are smaller than the Wood-Branches. . . .

3. The Crumpled-Branches are very small Branches, confus'd
and intangled tOgether, and that can neither yeild wood
nor Fruit. . . .

4. The Branches‘pf False WOOd are those that grow on the
Good Branches. . . .

5. The Luxuriant-Branches are those that spring out from
the large Wood-Branches. . . .93

 

Since, according to the pom010gy of the time, wood-branches are the

backbone of the tree, providing shape and strength to the tree,

they require careful pruning. Unpruned wood-branches--too long,

too full, too thick--are "overwoodie" branches. Moreover, since the
luxuriant-branches spring directly from the wood-branches, excessive
luxuriancy would damage the tree's productivity, robbing the smaller

fruit-branches of air, light, and growth. A "pampered" branch

105

("overfed") is a luxuriant-branch unpruned. Since fruit grows on
neither wood-branches nor on luxuriant-branches, pruning is essential
in order to accommodate the smaller fruit-branches. Milton's
charming pun on fruitless would have been understood by any gardener,
who knew what failing to pinch back or to prune meant: "Pinching or
snapping with the nails of thumb and forefinger prevents their being
damaged by luxuriancy." Heavier branches require a Pruning-Knife.94

The "scant manuring" (IV. 628) that Adam speaks of is
directly connected with arboriculture; branches that are overgrown
require more than.§pgpp manuring. Although the term pgpppg (noun)
occurs in the husbandry manuals as a synonym for gppg or a similar
fertilizer,95 pgpppp also occurs as a verb meaning pp cultivate.
g_plgpp (OED). Clearly it is this latter meaning that clarifies
Adam's activities. Adam complains that their training and rearing
is all too scant and that the bushes or trees require lopping to
curb "thir wanton growth" (IV. 629). Otherwise the walks will be
impassable.96

Although Adam considers gardening a "delightful task"
(IV. 437), he knows that it is a vigorous enough activity to require
proper tools. The ancient writers on agriculture, whom Milton
considered important enough to assign as reading to his young pupils,97
did not scorn to describe manuring and propagating.98 Nor did Cvid
scorn to put a pruning-hook in Pomona's hands.99 The gardening
writers of Milton's day, some of whom claimed to stand in the tradition
of the ancient gardeners,100 designed their manuals to help the novice

gardener as well as the more experienced one. Gervase Markham's

106
The English Husbandman gives instructions on soil analysis; a
description of the plow and other gardening tools; and illustrations
of planting, grafting, and pruning.101 Even a physician felt called
to write Egg App 9; Pruning Fruit-Trees containing a calendar of
activities for each month and a description of "The Lap of February,"
the "Lop of June," and the like.102 With so much gardening material
available to all English gardeners,103 Milton could hardly have
made a garden of fruit trees that did not require pruning and
lopping. He does not specify the exact tools available in Paradise,
except to say that they were fashioned without fire or that angels
had brought them. If an English reader of Paradise Lost had at this
point pictured a manual rich in gardening tool illustrations, he

might have wondered which type of tool Adam and Eve used.lou

Milton,
by means of so simple a device as the use of garden tools, makes

his first parents dynamically human. Participating thoroughly in
the human experience, Eve, with a homely parting touch after the
Fall, expresses regret for the loss of her gardening activity. Like
any gardener going on holiday, she asks, "What are the buds going to
do without me?" (XI. 277-279). Transforming rural activities into

an activity fit for Paradise, Milton at the same time tinges Paradise

with a bit of rural England.

Milton's Paradise is not "a mere fiction of what never was."
His two creatures, "wedded to this goodly universe" by their beneficent
Creator, enjoyed, through gardening, "a simple produce of the common
day."105 His use of the herbals and gardening manuals, and of
actual gardens, shows the Miltonic "blend" which never isolates one

one tradition but draws on all of them, including English "native,"

107

to feed the epic poem. The poem is richer for it.

CHAPTERV

140m, HIRTLE, AID ACAFI'HUS IN PARADISE
AESTEETIC ASPECTS OF THE HERBAL TRADITION

A Paradise without trees would be no Paradise at all.

In Hilton's Garden cedars crown the hills (£2.60), pines and
firs shade the Garden (H.139), elms marry vines (v.215-219),
and exotic trees bear abundant fruit (H.147). For the “blissful
Bower” the 'sovran Planter“ chose

All things to mans delightful use; the roofe

Of thickest covert was inweven shade

Laurel and Mirtle, and what higher grew

or firm and fragrant leaf; on either side

Acanthus, and each odorous bushie shrub

Fene'd up the verdant wall. . . . (H.692-697)
The two trees, laurel and grille, and the bash acanthus have a
history that channels the reader's mind back to Virgil's §e_c_g_nd
Belem (H.54) and to numerous other coarser-pagan, Hebrew, and
Christian} An ancient men might have chosen these plants for their
symbolism; and Carey and Fowler suggest that Hilton's choice was also
based on the symbolic value of these plants: ”Here the trees seem
rather to symbolise the complementary roles of Apollo and Venus,
male and female, an; and Leg, reason and virtue. The force 7
of the passage lies in the suggestion of a comprehensive polarity. '2
That symbolism was attached to these plants need not be denied. On
the otherhamd, aPlinwandanEvelyn, hadtheyorossedthebarrier

of the centuries and talked to each other about gardens, would also
108

109
have chosen laurel. myrtle. and acanthus for their horticultural and
aesthetic features. The question, then, to address to Hilton's
use of these three plants for the Dover is this: What'are the
physical qualities that make Hilton's choice of laurel, myrtle.
and acanthus appropriate?

I
Legal.

Hiltcnmayhavehadinmindcne ofthenine types oflaurel
described by Pliny the Elder-3 and have recalled Pliny the Younger's
description of his beautiful garden with its “ring of laurel bushes
ehicheddtheirehedetctheterthepleneen“ Andhemayhave
drawn from Gerard's and Parkinscn' s descriptions of the English
laurel, eith its chm leaves, thick boughs, and abundant f1ouers.5
3o co-onwasthelaurel inEnglandthatParkinson remarksinthe
Paradisi that the fourth type of laurel grew ”in euery mans yard or
orchard."6 At any rate, the cultivated type was uppermost in
Hilton's mind rather than the Daphne Laureola (spurge laurel), thick
end small, which grewwild inthe area surrounding Chalfont,? rho
scrubby spurge laurel is disqualified for the Bower; it is too small
to provide shade, it being only "a cubit high, oftentimes also of
two. e . e“; anditistoowild, itbeingfcund'cnmeuntainesin
vntilledroughshadewyandwecddyplaces. . . . Itgrewsabundantly
also in woods in most parts of England.'8 a favorite eith English
gardeners. the type of laurel used for the Bower was chosen for its
shade9 and for its ornamental qualities. Evelyn cannot contain his
enthusiasm for the laurel: “But to m all, I will conclude with
them. . e resemblingthemcstbeautifulheadedOrangeingg

110

mm. . . soasIdarepronouncetheLaureltobeonect

the lost proper, and ornalental Trees. . . .‘10 Although English
winters were hard on laurels (no problem in Paradise, of course),
Evelyn did have then in the garden at Bays-Court, for after one

great frost he regretted that the laurel was ”dead to all appearance."n
Evelyn had also seen the laurel in Europe's most renowned gardens:

“I walked to Villa Burgheei . . . within it tis an Elysiun of

delight. . e o This Garden abounded with all sorts of the nost
delicious fruit. and Exotique simples. . . . rho Grotto is very rare,
and represents among other devices artificial raines, a: sundry shapes
of Vessels, not-on to. which is effected by (W the heads of
the Fountaines: The Groves are of Cypresse and Lawrell, Pine, mrtil,
011", Inc. . . 3'12 lot only tho Borghese but also the Pope's

Palace at Monte CavaJlo was singled out for its Iagnifieent trees:

'. . . I now saw tho Garden nor. exactly, and found it to be no of
the nest magnificent & Pleasant in Rue: I an told the Gardner is
annual: alcw'd 2000 scudi for the keeping it: Here I observ'd the
glorious hedges of nrtle above a mans height; others of Laurell,
Oranges, and of Ivy. l: Juniper. . . .“13 hutch, too, was upoood

to the Man gardens, for it was at Cardinal Barberini's flace that
he heard. Leonora Baroni sing};

wmm Telple. another adnirer of tho laurel, had set tho

border at noer Park “with standard laurels, and at large distances,
which have the beauty of orange trees, out of flower and fruit. . . .“15
If. in addition, as Parkinson points out. the laurel was deened
suitable for use in the house of. God,“ what could be lore appropriate
thantchaveGoduseittertheBcwer? Ihechoice oflaurel forthe

1.11

Bower was an inevitable one in the seventeenth century. Hilton
could have done no better.

II
mun
Unlike the laurel, the urtle tree is not confined to the roof
of the Bower but appears in various places in Paradise. Hilton
nentions qrtle five times in Fag” Lost: and I shall discuss then
in the order of their appearance.
The first:
a e 'o lioanwhilemurnuringwaters fall
Down the slope hills, disperst, or in a Lake,
That to the fringed Bank with We crownd,
Her chrystall nirror holds, unite thir streans.
(How’263)
hiltcn here, as in all of Paradise Lost, sees “various regions of
this enoraous setting with peculiar vividnoss, and he recreates his
vision of beauty and grandeur in the imagination of his reader,
scnetines introducing detail. . . .‘17 Hilton's faniliarity with
nyrtles probably does not sten fron his own garden at Chalfont
St. Giles or fron the garden at Christ's College, Canbridge. A
letter to no, dated 1‘} January 1971, fron Ir. 1. L. Jeffery, Curator
of the Hilton Cottage, conveys the following infernation:
There is not a Hyrtle Tree/Bush in this garden, and not
likely to be one in Christs College, Csnbridge. If
there _w_a_g a mrtle tree when Hilton cans to live here,
he would only be able to distinguish it by its aronatic
properties, as he was blind at the tine.
The hrtle would only survive in sheltered or
protected areas in the Southern parts of England, and

it is difficult to say if hilton actually saw one in
this country.

flhether or not Hilton saw urtles growing in England, say at

112

loor Park, Says-Court, or in palatial gardens where they did
actually grow, the peculiar vividness of the urtles on the bank
probably springs fron his Italian trip. In EpitaEun Dancnis
he adnits to having lain on the banks of the Arno plucking violets
and urtles:
'0 ego quantus oran, gelidi con stratus ad irni

Hurnura, populeunque nenus, qua nollior herbe,

Carpere nunc violas, nunc sunas carpere mtos,

Rt potui Lycidae certanten audire llenalcan. (129-132)
Paradise L21; having its share of Italian allusions, it is not
surprising that Hilton's nenory of pleasant days in Florence would
have been evoked in his choice of the trees of Paradise. His first
visit to Florence, extending perhaps fron late July to Septenber,
1638, was followed by his return to Florence in March, 1639.18 It
is probably the Arno of the suner visit that is the most congenial
for wrtle plucking: the Arno of March would have been "rushing swift
and yellow with the loosened waters fron the nounta:|ns."]-9 This
idyllic scene—the poet anong the nyrtles—is recaptured in the
”fringed Bank with turtle crownd." Hilton nay have been following
Virgil, whose nyrtles rejoiced on the shore, “litora wrtetis

lactissina."2° But both poets were undoubtedly referring to
senething tangible and aesthetically real, though the symbolic nay
have been lurking in tho background.21
The second:
a e . the rocfe
Of thickest covert was inwcven shade
Laurel and Hirtle . . . . (H.692-694)

The two characteristics singled out here, "thichost covert“ and
'inweven shade,” are botanical and aesthetic features essential to

the Bower.

113

Kyrtle was one of the great favorites of gardeners in
Hilton's tine. A French writer, Louis Liger D'Auxerre, describes
the urtle as ”each Flower . . . white, odoriferous," and as
producing "so nany Flowers that 'tis decked with 'en alnost all the

22 A tree of such sustained fragrance and continuing

year round.”
beauty is rightfully a part of a Paradisal bower. Whatever kind of
mtle Hilton had in nind, whether one of Pliny's four types,23
one of Gerard's six types?“ or one of Parkinson's nine types,25
it is quite obvious that the leaves are thickset and the branches
intertwined. That the urtle was, fron antiquity, considered a
suitable plant for a Paradisal canopy is evident fron 1h; Legends
3; _t_h_e_ _J__e_w_s_. These Edenic legends describe a corner of Paradise as
"a place full of rivers, surrounded by eight hundred kinds of roses
and nyrtles. Each one has a canopy according to his nerits. . . .‘26
Hilton' s fragrant urtle, like the Virgilian, Hebrew, and
native English, is not the Spenserian ”gloom groue of nirtle trees .
. . / Whose shadie boughos sharpe steele did neuer lop."27 Hilton's
Paradise requires shade, but it is the shade of confort and protec-
tion, not of gloon. Sir Thonas Browne recognises these sane features
of the urtle, "thickest covert" and "inwoven shade":

In the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, the Law was
this, Thou shalt take unto thee Bogghs 9; 3%; Trees,

not unto particulars of the goodly Trees, and thick
Trees: yet liainonides will tell us that for a goo—til;
Tree they nade use of the Citron Tree, which is fair
and goodly to the eye, and well prospering in that
Country: And that for the thick Trees they used the
turtle, which was no rare or infrequent Plant anong
then. And though it groweth but low in our Gardens,
was not a little Tree in those parts: in which Plant
also the Leaves grew thick, and alnost covered the
Stalk. And Curtius Synpherianus in his description

1114

of the Exotick Myrtle, nakzg it, Folio densiggn_o
senis in; ordinen versibus.

ind Evelyn' s travels brought hin into contact with bower-type
urtles: “The Popes Palace at Monte 0.7.110 with “glorious hedges
of nyrtle about a nans height':29 tho Borghese with Wino. J:
shades of mum” tho rppion why “beset with Hyrtils . . . and
nost 1.1131“. mm- 331 and Liverno's ”Greats Dukes new Parke, full
of huge Corke-trees, the under wood all lbrtils."32
Hilton is nore specific about the plants of Paradise than

is Hugo Grotius, who describes Paradise in nore general terns:

Bic densa tennis languidos Zophyri senos

Arbusta referunt, silvaque arguto trancns

Ludit susurro: senper hic placido nitet

Solaro vultu lunen: arridet favor

Constantis aurae.33
Hilton's urtles, accurately described and appropriately used,
supply exactly what the Bower needs: thick leaves, shade, and fragrance.

The third:
. . . Thou therefore now advise

Or hear what to ny nind first thoughts present,

Let us divide our labours, thou where choice

Leads thee, or where nost needs, whether to wind

The Woodbine round this Arbour, or direct

TheclaspingIviewheretoclinb, whileI

In yonder Spring of Roses internixt

With lbrtle, find what to redress till Icon. . . .

(nan-2.219)

Adam is to work at assisting the wocdbine and the ivy in their
clinbs:Eveistoredresstheresesgrowinganongthenyrtles.
Carey and Fowler attribute to woedbine and ivy enblenatic qualities
of true love, identifying the arbour with the nuptial Bower.“
There are two objections to their identifications: l) the nuptial
Bower described in Book IV does not contain either ivy or weodbine:

2) althoughtheBowerisanarbeur, thereare,asinthetypical

115
Renaissance garden, several arbours in Paradise:

And at our pleasant labour, to reforn
I” flourie W". e e e (H.625-626)

To conclude, then, that the reason Adan is relegated to the Bower
is to uphold true love, while ”Eve, on the other hand, is determined
to leave the bower for a pair of plants associated by Ovid with a
goddess' defence of her virtue,"35 is to exclude the horticultural
and aesthetic inpact of this passage. Hilton's sense of veri-
sinilitude is again at work: a wonan does not have the height
required for ivy that clinbs around tall elns and woodbine that
grows as high as arbours. For Adan this is Just the right work.
Eve's height and hands are exactly suited to the lower, lighter work
of redressing roses and nyrtles, since these nyrtles grow only as
highssthe roofeftheBower.

To be sure, roses and urtles occupied a venerable place in
wthology, where the rose was associated with Aphrodite, Adonis, and
Eros: with love, spring, and death. In Greece roses and nrtles
frequently went hand in hand as tho shrubs of spring and of 1m.35
But, aesthetically speaking, the ancient gardeners were averse to barren
open spaces in their gardens. Frequently conbining trees and flowers,
they inteningled then to enhance the view and to provide a variety
of seasonal delights. A particularly beautiful garden in the fifth
century had trees under which grew narcissi and roses:37 and another
Paradise (located at either Corinth or Athens) had wrtles, beneath
which grew hyacinths and a variety of flowers.38

Although the classic Ronan agriculturists (Varro, Colunella)
do not nake a specific reference to the interplanting of myrtles and
roses, there is a reference to this interningling by a sixth or

ll6

seventh century Bynantine writer, Cassianos Basscs. The continuing
popularity of his work, Geo nica, £3313 D_g_ §_e_ Rustica, is evidenced

by the fact that it was edited by Peter Needhan in 1M (Cantabrigiae).
Bassos's statenent on the internixing of nyrtles and roses appears in
leedhan's edition in the chapter 'De plantatione qrti. Florentini" :
3i vero Junta ipsan plantentus rosae, anbae florentes fient, d:
generosissinum fructun f'erent.”39 This is not to clain that Hilton's
internixing is a direct borrowing fr. Cassianos Basses but only to
show the sustained appeal of this intenixing.

Hilton's inteningling of a ”spring of roses“ with mtles
reflects, first of all, the Renaissance horticultural practice of
protecting young plants. If a “spring" as defined by the 932.14.
Rnggsh Dictim is "a cepse, grove, or wood consisting of young
trees," Hilton seens inaccurate in his use of the torn _spgi_ng when
he applies it to roses. In fact, the only non-tree m in the
M $52.12. victim 11st of citations is Hilton's use here in
connection with roses. The tern s rin , however, was used extensively
to describe any young growth: already in 1596 in Googe's “Englished
and Increased” edition of Beresbachius' s m M p; Hvsbandrie
the torn is'specifically applied to roses: “The eldo Bosyars lust
have the Earth loosed about than in Februarie, and the dead
twigges cut of, and where'they ware thinne, they nust be repayred
with the young springes."“°

hilten knew enough about gardens to provide for protection
fron the sun for the delicate rose springs of Paradise, and he
followed Parkinson's advice that young plants should "be shadowed
for a tine."~1 One of the reasons that he chose urtle is that,

117
as Herebachius states in his entry on myrtles, they are fit to
"shadowe hearbs 3'"2
hyrtles and roses were probably interplanted because of
their sinilar blooning habits. On the conjunctive blooning of urtles
and roses, the eninent physician, botanist, and Professor of
Medicine at Leyden, Benbert Dodoens, observes: 'Vbi suae spontis
est ac nasci gaudet, vnh cun Rosis floret. . . 3'13 GO“. who
based nuch of his herbal on Dodoens's Sti_rpiun, echoes: ". . . they
[urtles] floure when the Roses doe. . . .“u Following then, the
Dutch herbalist P. van Aengelen confirns: ”In heete landen bloeyt
by Burton-boon] not do Boosen I naer in koude landen bloeyt by
laet."’5
In addition, Hilton' s mingling of roses and wrtles reflects

his view of the art-nature antithesis, an antithesis that persists
in the gardening literature of the twentieth century. Harold llicolson,
who, with his wife, restored the gardens of Sissinghurst, has renarked
in Gmt gm 2; _th_e_ Hester-n World:

The essence of garden design . e . is the alternation

of the elenent of expectation with the elenent of

surprise.... Frcn tine to tine . . . an unexpected

feature. . . [should] be introduced. I should wself

rank Bidcote as the best exauple of this fusion of

expectation with surprise, as the best enanple that I

knowoftheninglingoftheformalandthewild. . . .

The principle renains-oa wild garden should not becone

too disordered and a formal garden should not becone too

stiff.“
while sone nodern gardeners nay abhor conbining two exotics such as
roses and nyrtles, viewing than as cupetitors for both fragrance
and beauty, hilton enriches the fabric of his Paradise with the
natural grouping, so popular with English gardeners todxv. Sissinghurst

Castle, built in the reign of Henry VIII, for emanple, although it

118

has its share of fornal trees and topiary work, has the elenent of
expectation cenbined with the elenent of surprise: the visitor
suddenly cones upon a bloun-laden apple tree wreathed in blooning
moses-37 as unexpected and delightful a ccnbination as Hilton's
myrtles and roses. Another scene of beauty, like Hilton's Paradise,
can be found at the white garden by the Priest's House at Sissinghurst:
“This, to nany . . . is the nost beautiful of all the gardens . . .
anywhere in England. It has its greatest nagic in June, when cloudy
with white roses growing through alncnd trees, and with its air
laden with the incense of white Bogale lilies, their flowers, it
seens, afloat on a mist of gypsophila and silver-leaved plants. It
is a garden that is cool and fresh and deliciously scented. A
garden to drean in, and ot."‘8

Hilton's native English taste is apparent in this conbination
of roses and myrtles, for it is the taste for the "erltivated wild“
that is still proninent in English gardens. Edward Hyans observes
in 3.11.. English §_a_rd;_e_r_i_, "Uotton seens to have been the first garden-
lover since Benan tines to insist that a garden should at be
regular: or that if it was, then its regularity should be 'wild.‘
This was and is tho Biglish opirit.'“9 whiio in today's English
gardens the rhhdodendron is nore frequently found than the urtle,
The Royal Botanic Gardens at low already at tho tine of tho herbalist
Hillian Turner (3. 1510-1568) included a urtetm, since “English
gardeners have always had a nania for nyrtles."5° Hyans night have
been describing Hilton's garden arrangenent in Paradise, when he

renarks: "The shrubs, incidentally, include roses, always a problen
to gardeners who still plant then under the illusion that they

119

nust have a place to thenselves: here they are treated like any
other flowering shrubs, and are the better for it."5:l As for the
nyrtle of Hilton' s day, Q Conpleat Florist suggests that it
"looks very graceful anong other plants."52

Whether the seventeenth century believed that in close
proxinity the rose and the nyrtle have a chenically beneficent
effect on each other is difficult to detenine, as they believed
that "If you set garlike by your Roses, they will bee the sweeter.
. . ."53 According to tho eninent botanist Dr. Anton Lang, Director
of the Plant Research Laboratory of Michigan State University,

nutual influences between plants based on excretion

of chenical ccnpounds are well-known. The late Austrian
botanist H. Holisch has coined for this phenonenon the
torn "allelopathy". But specifically. . . on the possible
interrelations between roses on the one hand, myrtles or
garlic on the other, I have not been able to find any
reference, nor do I feel that there are good grounds for
assuning the kind of interactions you nention. It is
true that both nyrtle and garlic are high in volatile
substances which are responsible for their characteristic
odors. Allelopathic influences are usually the
inhibition or suppression of acne plants by others:

they give the latter plants an advantage in the ”struggle
for life“. I an not aware that one plant would enhance
the growth of another (except perhaps by providing sone
shade against excessive sun if “protected” plant is
sensitive to too nuch light, or providing protection
against winds, especially in the cold season). It seens
to no even less likely that a plant can enhance the
fragrance of another: at least fron what I know about the
substances which are responsible for fragrance, as well
as other substances which may be released by plants, and
of the uptake of substances by plants, I see no basis -
neither in chenistry nor in plant physiology - for such
effects, whether these be based on sone direct reaction
between the substances released or on absorption of
'inpure juices'I fr. the soil.5l’

It may be further renarked that the practice of cenpanienate planting
is not confined to the seventeenth century but has reappeared in
today' s organic gardening crane. Beatrice Tron Hunter in the New

120

Iork _Tin_;g suggests that “If you put garlic around the base of your
favorite rosebushes, you nay find that the roses develop hearty
resistance against blackspot, nildew and aphids.'55 However slight
the knowledge of plant physiology and chenistry of Hilton and his
contenporaries, one thing is sure-they relished exotic conbinations
of plants, for perhaps both horticultural and aesthetic reasons.

Hilton uses the nythologically c_ingled nyrtle and rose
and nakes th- horticulturally functional in Paradise. The evergreen,
perpetually flowering myrtle protects the delicate, profuse young
rose springs, while both exude the nest delicious fragrances. Hhat
nore felicitous arrangenent could he have found?

Perhaps shton'o reaction to tho beauties of Paradise, to
its nagnificent profusion, is sonething like the French gardener
who cane to see certain Cornish gardens. ”The Frenchnan's host had
noticed that as, day after m, his guest cane back fr. a visit
to sue gardenhe satdowntewrite notesonit: butonthedayhe
returned fren Caerhaye he wrote nothing. He was asked m, and he
gave this despairing answer: 'Beoause it is inpessible. They will
no longer believe ne."'56

The fourth:

Beyond his hope, five— separate he spies,

Veild in a Cloud of Fragrance, where she stood,

Half spi'd, so thick the Roses bushing round

About her glowd, oft steeping to support

Bach Flour of slender stalk, whose head though gay

Carnation, Purple, Asure, or spect with Gold,

Hung drooping unsustaind, then she upstaies ,

Gently with Hirtle band. . . . (mun-31)
Eve's actual work consists in redressing the roses which are so
thick with blossons and bloons that the young stalks cannot support

then. Redress is a horticultural tern neaning ”to raise to an erect

121

position.” These roses, although already profuse, are too young to
possess the natural faculty present in nest nature plantsuthat of
redressing thenselves.57 The process of redressing engaged in by
Eve is carefully described by Hilton: each flower that hangs drooping
on a slender stalk is tied with a nyrtle band. Hilton's Garden

is nore than a Heinrich Heine Paradise of ”roses and urtles, beauty
and happiness, and green peas for everyone.“ His myrtle is functional.
This tree, with the twigs and branches so supple and pliant as to .
be suitable for garlands, is perfectly adapted to the use as a
binder. Besides, the myrtles are there for the reaching: no need for
Eve to cut and carry. The natorials frequently nentioned in the
gardening manuals for binding and propping are split twigs58 and
"snall twigges of Uillowe, Elne . . . Rushes, or Strawe."59

Although there were nany varieties of urtle known in
Hilton's day, Hilton did not nako Pliny's nistake of identifying
urtle with oxynyrsine,6° a nistake that persisted into the I
Renaissance, and one that John Parkinson warns his readers to avoid.“-
Since the omrsine is a rush especially favored for “binding things
together"62 and even for natnaking,63 Hilton could easily, had his
botanical nenory slipped, have put the omyrsine anong the roses
for redressing the drooping flowers, except, of course, that the
oxynyrsine (Pliny's false nyrtle) could grow only in water, and
roses cannot endure swanpy ground.“

Hilton's description of Eve as 'Veild in a Cloud of Fragrance”
nu se- uperbolic even for roses and nyrtles, until one reads
Evelyn's “realistic“ account of "m, the Flowers whereof are
credibly reported to give their sent above thirty Leagues off at

122

Sea. . . .“65 The roses the-selves are narked by no unusual colors-
carnation, purple, or spooked with gold—with the exception perhaps
of asure. 231;: here probably refers to the purplish rather than
the sky-blue hues. Roses were so co-on in the Renaissance as to
be described in all the herbals and gardening manuals: by Gerard
who lists sixteen different kinds, including single, wild, and
cultivated double:66 by Heresbachius, who favors " . . . sue little
pale ones called Carnation or Prouincars, these doe wonderfully
grows where they once are planted, and have a nest excellent
sauour. . . .“67
The fifth: .
To when the wilie Adder, blithe and glad.

hpress, the way is roadie, and not long,
Beyond a row of Hyrtles. . . (11.625-627)

Perhapstheonlythingtcberenarkedhere is thatSatan, likeany
knowledgeable Renaissance gardener, knows a nyrtle grove when he

III
Acanthus
The third plant of the Bower is acanthus:
.0 . . oneitherside

Acanthus, and each odorous bushie shrub

Fenc'd up the verdant wall. . . . (H.696-697)
As in all pre-Linnelan botany, lack of precise terninolegy hanpers
botanical identification. One of the plants that persistently defies
elucidation is acanthus, which already in the tine of Dioscorides
created problens of nucnclature. J anes Iates observes in an article
'On tho tho of tho rod-o Acanthus, Acanthicn, Etc., in tho Ancient

Classics“ : ”Great confusion exists anong the writers of antiquity

123
in the use of the allied terns, Akanthos, Akantha, Akanthion,
_Igt, Acanthus, Acanthiun: and this confusion is nultiplied ten-fold
by the critics and couentators, who have endeavoured to illustrate
these terns by identifying then in the several instances where
they occur, with plants known to the nodern botanist."68
Hilton's use of the acanthus is functional: it is a fragrant
buttress and space-filler underneath the inwoven shade of laurel
and nyrtle trees. One cannot nako the quick assunption, however,
that Hilton neans flthus nollis, for the Renaissance herbalists
unaninously take Wiggls Acanthus to be that which we now connonly
call Pyracantha. . . . '69
Both Gerard and Parkinson identify Acanthus nollis as
”Garden Beares-breech' or 'Branke Ursine.“ They describe it as
having broad leaves, snooth, blackish, gashed on both edges, set
with nany cuts and nicks, with a large, flowering stalk, white flowers,
two catkins, broad seed. Both raised it in their gardens as a
curiosity: both regard it as the plant used by engravers on pillars:
and both renark that it is native in Italy, Spain, and France.70
Pyracantha is identified by then as the ”Evergreen thorne
tree.“ They held it in high este- for its evergreen quality, for
its pliability, for its. beauty:
This euer greene shrubbe is so fine an ornanent to a
Garden or Orchard, either to be noursed vp into a snall
tree by it selfe, by pruining and taking away the
suckers and vnder branches, or by suffering it to
grow with suckers, thicke and plashing the branches
into a badge, for that it is plyable to be ordered
either way. . . . d the flowers cone forth as well at
the ends of the branches, as at diners places at the
ioynts of the leaues, standing thicke together, of a
pale whitish colour, a little dasht ouer with a show

of blush, consisting of five leaves a peece, with sone
snall threads in the middle, which turne into berries

12#

very like vnto Hawthorne berries, but nuch redder and
dryer, alnost like polished corall, wherein are contained
feure er fiue .‘H yellowish white three square seede,
sonewhat shining. ‘

Although the writers of garden nanuals were not so “scientific”
as the herbalists, they were interested in the aesthetics of plants.
Leonard Heager reconnends the following:

hcngst those sorts of Plants nentioned in this Book,
these are fit to Plant about Arbors, which being often
and seasonably clipped after they are spread and tied
in every bare or naked place, as occasion serves, will
thicken and be handsone, and your Arbor will indure and
uphold it self with little repair. . . . if you would
have it always green then

Cypris, very good

Piracantas .

Filaroe , none better

e . . Lawrels, etc.

As for hedges in Gardens, they are and nay be nade

of several sorts of shrubs, as every one fancies. . . . :

Hawthorn or white-bush is best.

. . . Laurus tinus

Piracantha

etc.72

The question renains : What did Hilton visualise—acanthus nollis
or mgcanthanwhen he saw in his inaginaticn the “odorous bushie
shrub” that "Fenc'd up the verdant wall”? It is tenpting to use
Bishop Pearce' s state-ant when he struggled with. the identification
of the crown of thorns (with acanthus and brank-ursine) , "As this
is a point in which we have no sufficient evidence, I leave it alnost
in tho sane state of uncertainty in which I found it."73 But perhaps
there is nore evidence than one realizes. If one follows the
Renaissance herbalists, he recognises that acanthus nollis has the
following assets:

1. It has innense, beautiful leaves-leaves so beautiful

as to serve for centuries as a decorative notif.

2. It has large, showy flowers.

125

3. It is rece-ended by Pliny, a sophisticated gardener,

for banks of borders and flat tops of raised portions

of gardens .

And acanthus nollis has the following defects:

1.
2.

3.

7.

It is not generally regarded as Virgil's acanthus.

It does not branch and is not bushy: its flowers spring
fron a single stalk.

It is a curiosity, a thistle. (For Hilton's Paradise
this night have been irrelevant since all the plants of
Paradise were thornless.)

Speaking aesthetically, its leaves are gigantic conpared
with the leaves of laurel and nyrtle, one night alnost say
'nonstrous" in this capanionate setting.

Its leaves have the texture of lettuce or cabbage, quite
unlike the leaves of laurel and nyrtle.

It is herbaceous, yet would stand in the cenpanv of
evergreens with woody stalks. It is not a true. shrub.

It is perennial: and although the ”ting back” of
perennials may not be applicable to Paradise, Hilton does
refer to the unsightliness of plants that drop their
blossons (H.6fi-632). This dropping of flowers and
leaves would have proved a disadvantage inside the Bower.
On the other hand, there were perennials on the floor of
the Bower (H.698-702).

If one follows the Renaissance herbalists, he recognises that

moantha has the following assets :

1. It is Virgil's acanthus.

126

2. It is bushy and pliable and reconended as an arbor plant.

3. It is nultiple-flowered, fragrant, and not a curiosity.

n. It, along with laurel and nyrtle, has snall, glossy
leaves and showyberries.

5. It is evergreen and woody, a true shrub.

6. It is reconnended as a ”fence” plant: and, although one
nay ask, What has a fence to do with Paradiset, Hilton
does nention the fact that aninals nust not enter the
Bower (IV .703-70“). Hilton also describes this Bower
as nore ”sequestered” (IV .706) than any other bower: for
sequestration pyracantha is adnirably suited.

And months has the following defect:

1. It has long, sharp thorns. (For Hilton's Paradise, however,
this night have been irrelevant since all the plants of
Paradise were thornless.)

If one applies “aesthetic logic, " ignoring the conplexities
of Renaissance nonenclature, he will probably conclude that, since
Virgil' s acanthus is considered pyracantha by the herbalists, and
since pyracantha has all the traits essential to the Bower, therefore
it is pyracantha that Hilton had in nind. Adnittedly, sane uncertainty
still clouds tho piston.” '

. IV
Hilton's Eden is not the product of the studv alone, nor is
hisGardentheccnstructofthescholarwhohas seenonlyinhis
nind the vague beauty of a diaphanous cloud of fragrances. Hilton's
is a down-to-earth Paradise, an adaptation of the gardens of his day.
For Hilton, Beauty is as Beauty does: and, although Hilton may not

have been so pragnatic as Theophrastus, who was buried in a flower
bed so that his corpse could fertilise new flowers, Hilton does

not sinply let his laurel, nyrtle, and acanthus 2. In Paradise

they also d3. Their function issues fren the garden tradition and
resides in the plants thenselves. The effects that these three

plants have on the reader is not spectacular. Rether, their selection
is so tasteful and so suits the needs of the reigning couple, that
when the reader cues upon laurel, nyrtle, and acanthus in the

Garden, he half expects it and therefore is ”surprised by joy.”

SUHHARI

Although Adan and Eve lost the unspoiled beauty of Paradise
and herbs becane infected and noxious, they did not lose all the
beneficent qualities of herbs . Nor did the seventeenth century
lose its grasp on the world of herbs. Operating with the belief
that a knowledge of herbs would put a nan in touch with Paradise,
the herbalists bent every effort to supply the reading public with
infornation on every plant lmcwn to then. Fron the first herbal
printed in England by Richard Banckes in 1525, they filled their
herbals with tho nanes and descriptions of thousands of herbs for
the use and delight of nan. Lyte's herbal describes 1050 species,
Gerard's, 2850, and Parkinson's alnost 3850. It would be surprising
indeed if so najor a source of botanic information were not a source
to m... and to his contenporaries. The herbals could hardly be
excluded fron the texture and fabric of a najor poet's work. The
Hilton of tho disturbed viscera and cloudy eyes experinented with
herbal concoctions: the Hilton of 'wisdone at one entrance quite
shut out“ nourned that he could no longer see “vernal bloun, or
Sunners Rose.”

Hilton's use of the herbals is never dassling-ebut the
herbals are not dauling either. They are practical, handy books,
saturated with good advice and down-to-earth accounts, and decorated
with an occasional purple passage. Hilton uses the herbals in a
variety of ways. His nedical uses are quite apparent in Book II

128

129
of Paradise Logs. Undoubtedly, his description of the Apple of
Disobedience, his characterisation of Adan, and his conception of
the nature of epic prenpted bin to introduce drugs made fra herbs.
His choice of rue to cure the harnful effects of Adan's eating of
the apple is especially appropriate because of its association with
Honer' s holy. In addition to tho botany and mythology clustorod
around rue and noly, the Renaissance herbals testify to rue's
efficacy. Conbined with euphrasie and three drops of water fron tho
Well of Life, rue serves as an antidote to the physical, psychological,
and spiritual poisons ingested by Adan when he ate the forbidden
fruit.

But, although plants are neat frequently associated with
pharnacy, they also have their nagic uses, magic frequently being
an adjunct to nedicine. In 9933; Hilton uses the wholesue natural
nagic of plants. Drawing on the herbals, Hilton gives Sabrina
"pretious viold liquors“ to cubat urchin blasts and ill-luck signs
of neddling elves. He introduces his nost fanous herb, haencny,
gives it a conplete herbal index (even though it does not function
in the naeque against enchantnents, mildew blast, danp, or apparition) ,
and shows it functioning as a vulnerary and as a perception- .
heightening drug. He attributes to Conus unnatural magic, associated
with aphrodisiacs and netanorphosis, and counteracts this with
herbs and pure water. The naeque energes as a charting presentation
of both verbal and herbal nagic.

Her are the cerenonial aspects of the herbal tradition
ignored by Hilton. In Lnidas he draws on three ancient funerary
plenty-nyrtle, laurel, and iv. Conbining the historico-nythological
tradition with the botanical one, he transplants then into an

130
honorary fern to celebrate a death. Hilton' s use of this menorable
botanic netaphor is understandable only in the light of the herbal
tradition.

One of the nost delightful uses of the herbals is in
horticulture, with Gerard and Parkinson making frequent references
to their own gardening experinents. Hilton supplements the herbals
with gardening nanuals and with real gardens, creating a Paradisal
horticultural architecture with a distinctive English touch. His
Garden, not a nere fiction, is the nore real for participating in
the English gardening tradition.

When it cones to the use of three specific plants in
Paradise—laurel, myrtle , and acanthus--Hilton is again influenced
by the herbals and by contenporary horticultural aesthetics. In
particular, his cmpanionate planting of roses and myrtles shows
an awareness of plant arrangenent to achieve the ugliah blend of
expectation and surprise. Hilton and the herbalists could not have
been aware of the scientific implications of allelopathy, but they
built their horticultural aesthetics on the best herbal knowledge
of the day and on what pleased eye and nose.

Although Hilton transferred the anaranth to heaven where
the River of Bliss rolls over Elysian flowers, he never forgot that
his feet still touched the English soil and that beneath th- grew
the herbs—useful in nedicine, magic, cerenony, horticulture,
aesthetics. And in poetry.

moms
CHAPTER‘I

1T0 nention just a few: _T_l;e_ Poona o_f_ John Hilton, with
notes by Thonas Keightley (London, 18 59): Edward 8. Le Conte, ”New
Light on the 'Haenony' Passage in Genus,” g3, 111(19lk2), 283-298:
Thonas P. Harrison, Jr., “The 'Haenony' Passage in Conus Again,”
:3, n (1943). 251-25». John a. Steadnan, ”Hilton's Haenony:
Etynology and Allegory,” PHI.A, LXIVII (1962), 200-207.

2Harjorie Hope Hicolscn, Hilton: Poens _og Selected Prose
(How York, 1962), p. #37, identifies these as “herbs used for
eyes”: R. C. Browne, English Poens by John Hilton (Oxford, 1902),
II, 291, states: ”Both plants are affirmed by the old herbalists
to have the virtue of purging the eyes“: Hillian Vaughn Hoody, m
Chflete'Poetical works 9; John Hilton (Boston, 19214), p. #10,

adds: ”were both believed to have the power of strengthening and
spiritualising the vision.“

3Euphrasy and Rue: Books 11 and m. Paradise Lost,-
Ball State University Forun, VIII (Sn-er, 1967), 3-10.

l“Lottor to Philaras,” David Hasson, :9; Life _o_r_ John Hilton
(New York, 19116), IV, 6&0.

5All quotations are free gh_e_ Works 3; John Hilton, ed. Frank
A. Patterson et al. (How York, 1931-1938) .

6; notion is. ____Pmd1u Lo_-t. (London. 19%). p. 67.
7Tractate 2; Education, Egg-g. IV, 286.
8Tractate, IV, 277.

9% _G_r_e_gt M (Princeton, 19H). P. 196.

1°See Frank son-odo, Ll... Living Hilton (London, 1960). who
calls Paradise Lost ”an elaborate exercise in ccunterlogic" (p. 915):
see also B. Rajan, 9Sinple, Sensuous, and Passionate," in Hilton:
Hodern Esagys _ig Criticism, ed. Arthur E. Barker (How York, 1965),
pp. 3-20.

131

132

11$oo Sara Ruth wotson, "Holy' in Drayton ond Hilton,”
ya. curv (1939). 2%.

lzGreek gm _apg Christian 1%(Londcn, 1963). PP. 186-187:
for Dioscorides see 93 materia medica III. (Wellnann, II. 59). I
an indebted to Father Rahner's masterly work for many of the subsequent
references.

1?Rahnor, p. 18?: for Galen see A. Herx, "Proben der
syrischen Ubersetaung von Galenus' Schrift i'rber die einfachen
Heilnittel" in Zeitschrift _d_e_r_- deutschen norgonlhndischen Gessell-
achaft, mn (18857,'28"_2. _—

1"Ed. Robert '1'. Gunther (Oxford, 193»). p, 289.

15Edward Phillips, “The Life of Hr. John Hilton“ (169:) in
_Thg Early Lives 2; Hilton, ed. Helen Darbishire (London, 1932) , p. 60.

153 turalis historia IIV.viii.26-27: trans. fron tho Loeb
Classical Library London, 1956). VII, 155.

17mm. 11,11,131: Loeb, VI. 77.
18Pliny, 11.11.1314”! Who VI! ”'85.

191113 Odyssey g_f_ Honor, ed. U. B. Stanford (New York, l9h7),
1.3051'1'.

2(’Rahner, pp. 190-192: Ovid, Hetanomsea 11.720, 818: at
Aachen he is called "Hercurius Susaurio": Prudentius, Contra S chun
I. 89-91! (Coma Scrifiomn Ecclesiasticorun Latinorun, 1.11, 222 :
see also Virgil, Aeneid H.258.

21nohnor. pp. 190-191.

22Rahner. p. 196.

23Le Conte, “The 'Haenony'h Passage,” pp. 292-293.
2"Harrison, “The 'Haeneny' Passage Again.“

2"5John Gerard, 1h; Herball or Generall Historic g; Plantes
(London, 1597) . pp. 1072-1075. tho 1333 edition does not odd to tho
substance of the text. For noly see p. 1367.

Zénonry Lyte, ; H__e_w g_o_ggo_l_1 _o_r_- Hiatorie 9; Plants (London,
1586). pp. 29h-298 pee-in.

27]..end.er:, 16%, pp. 13“, 870.

133

28Rahner, p. 1159: for Heraclitus see Problemata Homerica,
Benn Ed... LnIII (Leipsig, 1910), p, 97.

298» Le Cute. P. 286, where the evidence is presented for
Hilton's familiarity with Eustathius, the Homeric scholiast,

3°Rahner, p. 202.

318” Rahner, p. 266, where an illustration from a fourth-
cenimry Christian sarcophagus appears (Role, Huseo delle Terme) .

328” Rahner on Boethius, pp. 213-216: Boethius, Hetrum IV .3
(ggg. Inn, 87:) and notm Iv.6 (CSEL, van. 10»).

33Rahner, p. 188.

Men pp. 219-220. see also c. G. Jung, thologie
32d Alchemie (Zurich, 195“), p. 93, there Hones appears as a
shepherd "aus dem 'Tractatus qui dicitur Thonae Aquinatis de
Alchimia': Codex Vossianus Chemicus 29, Fol. 86.”

358. F. Fletcher, Eh; Intellectual Develozent o_f John Milton
(UM! 19%)0 pe 85o ' ‘

368cholenaster, ed. John E. B. Mayor (New York, 1967). P. 76.
37m L22 (a... tort. 1935). p. 370.

38_‘1'he_ Alchemist, in [Works of] Ben Jonson, ed. 0. a.
Herford and Percy Simpson (Oxford, 19516.7]. 553.

39Hartinus Hulandus, A Lexicon 2; £225! (Fm, 1612),

CHAPTERII

1For a summary of the instruments of magic used in Hilton's
masque and their relationship to the ancient tradition, see John
Arthes, On a Mask Presented at Ludlow-Castle (Ann Arbor, 199+),

”e ”-78! m‘he

Zyé" m.n-12.

3soo A. s. P. woodhouoo. “The Argument of scam.- 1:3, n
(323.), l$6-7'l: and John 8. Diekhoff, ed.. A Haske at Ludlow (Cleveland,
1 .

“Hasson, I, 610.

 

 

13“
5Hasson, I, 623,
6much. I, 605-606.

7See, for example, Thomas Johnson, Daintz Conceits (1630),
which gives methods for growing coreless fruit as well as for becoming
a card-shark; see also the popular collection called T_he_ S___ecrets

of lee rtus My, (1637).

8Derek J. Price, ed. . Giambattista della Ports, §___oturo1xo Haicg
(New York, 1957). Editor's Preface, p. vii.

91:32.4 was. pp. 2-3.

10L”! Haicg cto S_c__ience (New York, 1958), pp. 153-158; see

also Wilfrid Bonser, The HedicalBa Bacroundkg o__f_ Ange-Sm 3281).“;
(London, 1963), p.1 153.

11De2|la Borta refers to this belief in Theocritus, Virgil,
et al, pp. 229-230,

12London, 1581+; I quote from the edition by Hugh Ross
Hilliamson (London, 1961!) , p. 139. .

13Singer. p. 152.

lchhn Worlidge, §zstema 51-1 urae, 3rd edn. (London, 1681),
p. 209; William Perkins, A Discourse o__f_ tWitchcraft (Cambridge, 1609),

p. 629.

15Leechbook, I, lxxxviii, 2. II, 11w, 1, as cited by Benser,
p. 160.

léBonser, p. 161.

17mm Davidson, “Elf-shot Cattle,” Antiguitz, m (1956). M9.
18Davidscn, pp. 152-153.

19.119224. 22212. ,, 2“-

2°_Th_e_ Discoverie 9_f_' Hitchcgfl, p. 2%.

hfiooge (London, 1596): in Gerard's Herball (1636) see mothemrt,
p. 705. and W .black hellebore, p. 977.

22For a su-ary of the discussion on this subject, see John
G. Demaray, Hilton _agg Lhe_ Hague Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), p. 169.

135

23For a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the

Critics (Ithaca, 1955), pp. 1-38. See __also Sacvan Bercovitch_
“Hilton's 'Haenony' : Inowledge and Belief," Q9, mIII (August, 1970) ,
351-359e

zuSince the root was transferrable from shepherd to Spirit
to boys, Hilton obviously did not believe that '. . . the drugs owe
their potency to the Demon, not to any inherent properties of their
own,” Nicolas Rely, Dononolatg, Bk. I, chap. ii, p. 3, as cited by-
Arthos, p. 70.

25552 _ip m _o_z_-_ m m; (London, 1657). Introduction.
26.32.1923... 9. 719.

27Gerard, pp. 718-719: Parkinson, Theatm, pp. 675-676.

28g; in 3335. chap. 18.

29:1 ring____ Plants 2; G_re_a_t m (London, 1837 1). IV, 210.
”11%, p. 1001.

31; _D______iscourse of Witchcraft, p. 633: see also Robert Burton,
_m_ of. Melancholy, ed. A. H. Shilletc (London, 1912), II, 290,

32L...” . p. 616.
33.14.411.15 $9.03.. chnpo. 331. 3&1.

3"For a discussion of health manuals and medical treatises,
see Paul H. Iocher, Science _and Religcn _i;n_ Elizabethan M
(New York, 1969), pp.2 266-2833 see also Louis B. Wright, Middle-
Class Culture in Elisabethan M (Ithaca, 1958), pp. W.

”London, 1557, Fol. m1, xlvi. The Authorised Version
mentions blasting in II Chr. 6:28 and I Kings 8:37: and Lancelot
Andrewes prays for deliverance fun it, ‘_r_he Private Devotions of
Lancel____o_t Andi-eves, tr. F. E. Bright-an (He-Tr York, 19615.13. 2‘3.

361.4endon (1565 t),u.p.
37Herballo p. 1001.
33Lenden, 1655, pp. 12-14.

3921-. n. lepton (London, 1576), u.p.

136
”London. 1633. p. in.
“inert. p. 56.

‘ZThis is a malady associated with mental illness rather
than with folklore or magic.

“31m is not to be confused with tho “shapes, shadows,
tongues,“ which spring from the young lady's fear (205-208).

“Bonser, pp. 257-263. passil.
“sBonser, p. 262.

“6m. III, #90.
“7m. III, #90491.
“Bonser, p. 165.

”ROM-1 . Fe 98"“

 

50w. Hacknesie, “Glimpses of St. Columba in Highland
Folklore,“ Glasgow Herald, 5 October 1895, as cited by Bonser, p. 16?.

51Derek 3. Brewer, “The Heeve's Tale and the King's Hall,
Cambridge,” _T_h_e_ Chaucer Review, V (Spring, 1971), 316.

 

52For a discussion of his nature, see Arthos, pp. 36-39.

53Lem-y C. Kimberly, Folklore _ig .t_hg Msh _ag Scottish
2% ('0' 101*. 1959). P. 351.

Ms Spence, m Hagi-c Arts in Celtic Britain (London,
1935). p. 69. .

”See Pierre Couroellle, “La colle et le clou de l'lne dans
la tradition néo-platonicienne et chrfitienne, " Revue belgg §_e_
W 23.. d'histoire, (mvx (1958), 72-95; see also A. B. Staricius,
Heldenschats (1679); J. Chr. Heppe, pg; Vogelfang (Numberg, 1797);
H. H. von Hochberg, Unterricht Lag git den Vogel auch ausser g.
1933. - -.-_n.;..eic_l.l.- . .mmfim. 17075.

56Pp. 233-2“.

57%. p. 573.

13?

58Adam_igEden, p. 610. see also w. c.. _ABoke g_f_t_he_
Pronrties g; Herbes (London, 1552) on Herha Johannis.

 

 

”Cited by Benjamin H. Barton and Thonas Castle, British
Flora Hedica, rev. John R. Jackson (London. 1877), p. 3673 see
also Sir Janos Edward Snith, _The__ Eng1_ish Flora (London, 1828), III, 325.

6am into Plants, tr. Sir Arthur Hort (London, 1916),
n. 7111, 8. Ind 11. 11, 1.

5192.23.02 29.1.9.2. IV. 75 (won-om. II. pp. 233-237).
62Be1lum Iudaicun, v11. 6. 3 (Hiese, VI, #50:).

63119 _a; Baithar, ed. Sontheiner, II, 1h, 606f.

a‘Ludwig Ieiner, pig GartenMen g alten m (Hamburg
and 80,113). 192‘. i

65C. J. 8. Thmpson, Poison stories _15 Histeg, Romance
_a1_i_d_ Crime (Philadelphia and London), p. 7, n.d.

66Hatthiolus, Cmentarii _i_i_i_ Dioscoridem (Basiliae, 1670) ,
p. 757: Lusitanus, _Ig Dioscoridis lag. 53g. libros m enarrationes
Amati Luaitani (Strasburg, 15%), p. #31.

67Thapson, p. 6“.
“an-g. pp. 351-353.
69p... 343-395.

7°“Handrakes in the Bible, Literature, and Pharaacology,’
£21.22 m (December. 1933). p. 74».

71Ibid.. p. 76.

”Editions of his work continued to appear: for exanple, one
was published in Basil, 1536. For the first English translation
of this work, see Paul Delany, "Constantinus Africanus' 23 Coitu:
A Translation,“ 31:; cancer Review, IV (1970), 55—65. Constantinus
treats in detail those aphrodisiacs which ”we ourselves have tried
and which our authors have used" (Delany. p. 63).

73For a description of the various kinds of syrups, see
Nicholas Culpeper, _Tl_i_e_ Conflete Herbal (London, 1653), repr. 1850:
”A Syrup is a medicine of a liquid body, compounded of Decocticn,
Infusion, or Juice, with Sugar or Honey, and brought by the heat of

138

the fire, into the thickness of Honey. . . . A11 sinple Syrups
have the virtues of the simples they are nade of . . . ," pp. 29‘5-295.

7“Spence, p. 71

7511.14.

7614.; g Edge, chaP. 277.
77M, p. 106.
733M. p. 1388.

790th Philosophy, tr. J. Freake (London, 1651), p. 102.

to love-potions and another to leewitching.
301:2. Edmund Chilnead (Oxford, 16%). p. 396.
81Ferralld. P. 363.
321g Discoverie g; Witchcraft, p. 116.
83; Discourse g; Witchcraft, p. 635.

8lԤ___atural ESE-3.: pp. 219-2203 for an illustration of the
transfonation of nen into horses, see Giosoffe Petrucci, Prodono

Monti“ (Amsterdam, 1677).

851.3mm Thorndike, Histe of H_agi__ and garb ental talHedi____c__ine
(low tort. 1929-1958) . VII. -363.

8‘5'rhomoliko. VII. 390-341.
87Therndike, v. 107-108.
88rhomaiho. VI. 515-516.

89Recognising this ignorance in young non, Hilton wished
the- te obtain "a real tincture of natural knowledge, " and included
“helpful experiences of hunters, fowlers, fishemen, shepherds,
gardgrs, apothecaries" in their education, 9_f_ Education, Works,
IV. .

”912%! P0 730 11.51.

139
CHAPTER III

1"Of Garlands and Coronary or Garland-Plants,” Th: Works 9;
£533: 22.9.- m. 0d. Geoffrey Kayne: (London. 1928). III.IT'—9.

2Bromine, pp. “9-50. For a discussion rich with archaeological

World (London, 1971) .

3Joumo1 _o_f_ _t_h_o_ Warbugg a_n_d_ Courtauld Institutes, xxx (1958),
227-255. ‘

I'Cleanth Brooks and John Edward Hardy, “Essays in Analysis:
Lycidas,” in Hilton's Lycidas, ed. C. A. Patrides (New York, 1961),
p. 137.

5“Flowerets and Sounding Seas: A Study in tho Affective
Structure of Lycidas,‘l in Patrides, p. 127.

6Shunaker, p. 128.

7vm. 12-13. ed. 1'. E. Page (London, 1937).

311.5“.

9Trtpp. p. 237.

1°Imp. p. 255.

u'Theme, Pattern, and Imagery in m." in Patrides, p. 180.
”To mention just a few: "of choicest flowers, a garland"

. (PL, 11.800): "in his garland" (11W, 21): “songs, garlands, flowers”
(PL. 11.59»).

13~or a m1: crown had on” (PL, 11.673). ”autual love, tho
crown of all our bliss” (PL, IV.728).

( )lh'Ivybcrowned Bacchus” (LA. 16). ”with ivy berries wreathed”
Cu 55 .

15'Sweet garland wreaths“ (C. 350)-

16August F. von Pauly and Georg Wissowa, Pa 's Real-

Encggopgg“ e 29; Classischen Altertumswissenschaft Stuttgart, 1893-
19 , 11.2.1595, 1533 hereafter designated as E-

17341... 111.“. 7.

140
18mm. nI.7-9.

19m. 11.2. 1605-1607. See also J. Burnichon, "Flours et
couronnes aux fun6rai11es," in E__t_ud. reli ., os., histor. o_t
_1_i___ttorot (1889): Laun, p_o_r _1_‘__:___otenkrans (K'oln, 1910 .

2°22. 12.1.5.2 2!. £9221. 9.1.2122. ed. J. v. Hebel (Oxford. 1961).
II, #31. _

21T_h_e Wonen _o_f Trc rc,y 11. 1118-11!!!” Schol. mix-1p. Phoen. 1632:
Aristophanes, up. —602. See PW, 11.2.1595-1598.

221v.vii.t3-M. ed. w. A. Camps (Cambridge, 1965).
23Propertius, IV.iii.15-l6.

2“Propel-"nus, IV.vii.59.

2525. 11.2.1595.

26Plutarch, Pericles, 36. 25. 3g. n.2,1596.
27Horace, 5.21;. 11.3.2563 a. mum.

28m». 9. 31.. 11.2.1597.

29g, 11.2.1602.

NHone, 1965, pp. 10-11'; for the iconography see J. B. Frey,
a.a.0., II. Rut. 195”. Abbe 9670 so 155e

31Jewish §Ebols in gig Greco-Ronan Period (How York, 19641),
11.53.

32Brekolmans, p. 116, n.358 for the iconography see ILCV, no. 56,
7 (I. S. 15).

333» PW 11.2 .1592-159» for a list of naterials, occasions,
and dedications.

3‘5, 11.2.1596.

”Allan I. Ludwig, Graven Images (Hiddletown, Conn.. 1966),
fill“ 6. Po 78o

36Ludwigo P. 77: see also Frederick Burgess. mg; Churchnrd
Honorials (London, 1963), p. 188.

101

37g, m1.2.1t32-1u2 passing see also it. B. Ogle, “Laurel
in Ancient Religion and Folklore,” _A_J_§_, XIII, 287ff; Tschirch,
Handbuch g. Phanako osie, I, 69“.

38Josef Hurr, Die Pflansenwelt in gig Griochischen flologie

(Innsbruck, 1890; Cronin-gen, 1%9) . p. 9-3.: see Plutarch, 93. ggaoc. 123
Pausanias, VIIIJJ8, 2,

39llurr. p. 97.
I“’ihirr, p. 9‘}.
“114m. p. 968 Theocritus, Igll VII.72ff.

“2 ui into Plants: trans. fro. the Loob Classical Library
(London, 191 , “Index of Plants,” ILM5.

 

“31305-306. for further infornation see Elfriede Abbe,
32 Plants 2; Viggil's Georgics (Ithaca, 1965), p. 95.

“1.13.

“5Goodyer's Dioscorides, 1.160, 78. 106.
“mm. xv.127-138.

”Pliny. xvx.8<).

“Pliny, xv1.239.

“9mm. n.1z7-128.

5°Pliny, III.7. For a complete description of the laurel of
antiquity see fl, IIII.2.1h3l-1M2.

51F. van der floor and Christine Hohrmann, Atlas 93 5h: Early
Christian World (London and Edinburgh, 1958), p. 1:3. For further
studies on the ”Trophy of the Cross“ clich'e, see H. von Campenhausen,
'Die Passionssarkophage," Harb. Jahrb. f. Kinstwiss., 5 (1929), 29f3
F. Gerke, "Die Zeitbostimnung der Passionssarkophage,“ Archaeologiai
Ertesito, 52 (1939), 195ff3 F. W. Deichnann and T. Ilauser,
Frlihchristliehe SarcopLage (Basel, 1966). of. Tafol 16.

52Thorndike, I. 538.

53Thorndike, I, 229.

142
5“n-h1oo 1011. M (1593).
55hblem HIV.

56km- XVII, a curious use, which nay have its source in
mm. Ne136.137e

57See Hasel A. Stevenson, Herbal Lore _a; Reflected i_n_ 33
Works 2;: j:h__e Hajor Elizabethan Poets _an_c_1_ Dranatists (Diss.,
Chapel Hi 1,H.C., 1930); Louis B. Wright, Middle-Class Culture,

Ppo '5‘9'602e

58Herba11 (1636). p. 1905.

 

 

59Gerard. p. 11.07.
60mm. p. 1u10.
61Theatrun, p. 205.
62Theatrm. pp. 206-207.

63L°nd°n. 1629. PPo 598-599e

6"James Henry's cements provide further confirmation of this

practice: ”Throughout continental Europe at the present day, the
naking of wreaths and garlands for tombs gives employment to a vast
nunber of persons, these wreaths and garlands being periodically
renewed during a long series of years by the affection of relatives
or friends, or even of strangers. The fresh wreath still hangs on
the ancient nonunent of Abelard and Heloise in the cemetery of Phre
1a Chaise at Paris," 23016.00. (Dublin, 1878). 11, 376-377.

6551, m.1.1171.

“Hurt. PP. 85-86.

67:1, m.1.1180-1182.

68Andreae Alciati, hblenatvn Libellvs (Paris, 1535), p. 69.
69Ilurr. p. 86.

”Euripides, Electra, 11. 323-325; trans. froI tho'Looh
Classical Library (How York, 1921!) ,

71nootro. 11. 510-512.

143

”Pausanias, 1.22.2. 1132.3. as cited in Hurr, p. 89.
See also various references to Pausanias in :5. IVI.1.1181.

7325. m.1.1179.
7%. Po 86e
753» ”Index of Plants,“ 11.965466.

76Geoggics, 1.306; 11.112; see also Eciom v11. For further
infomtion see Abbe, p. 1&5.

77Goodyer's Dioscorides, 1.155.

78mm. 1v.122. For a further discussion of tho aisidentification
of urtle with omynyrsine, see Chap. V.

79mm. H.122.
8°P11ny, xv.119-120.
31mm. H.120.
32mm. 1mm.
83am. xv.125-126.
“may. H.126.
35mm. H.119.

868ea11oxikon rai- Antike und Christentwm (Stuttgart, 1915) .

11.29: “H. U. v. Schoenebock . . . sieht in den Biumen u. Hirtonssenen
gewissor Sarkephage von der Ark dos. Sark. ven La Gaycllo Hinweise

auf den Grabgarteng in diesen Sinn spricht. er von dor Gruppe der
Paradeisessarkophage. . . ."

8730:11025301! ' II o 29-” o

88Hogllexikon, 11.}: for the iconography, see Grabplatte
Later. Hus. Epigr., Wand 1‘}, b: DACL l3, 2, 2378 Fig. 99162.

89Hieroglmca (Basileae, 1556).

”Gerard. pp. 1611-1813.

9li‘heatrum. pp. “52-1955.

1m.
9521122221. pp. 927-928.
931m. PP. 191-1&5.
9‘51. v.2.2839-28%.
9523. 11.2.2845.
9625, v.2.28%.

97Propertius, IV.vii.79-803 see Camps. p. 123n. Whether one
reads gene with Sandbach or prefers to read 11s, the sense is
clear: ivy is considered an appropriate grave plant.

98Theephrastus, III.xviii.6-10.

99Geo ics, 11.258.

looGeo_1_jgics, IV.12lH see also Abbe, p. 107.
1(“Goodyer's Dioscorides, 11.210.

102nm. We 75-80 e

103m. “Luis-152.

loanecherches _s_ur_ 1g mboliame fune’raire 51:3 Ronains (Paris,
1966), p. 11. .

1° 5C‘umont, pp. 219-220 .
1°6Geodenough, II. 7.
1° 7Goodenough, II. 51!».
1°8Gocdenough, x. 20 5.
199mm. IV. 595.
1191222911. pp. 857-858.

1'11th tm. PPo 678’681e

1121mm Daiches, "Hilton," in Patrides, p. 103. Brooks and
Hardy. p. 136.

1h 5

113D. 8. Berkeley, 1Q, CCVI (1961), 178, gives a nere profound
interpretation to "Yet once more,“ reading these words as an allusion
to Hebrews 12:26-27.

1”?an p. 253.
nfiiassen, I. 6107-658.
116Hssson, I, 653.

naDiscourse ofEn figlishP . cited by Ednund Iempor Broadus,
1113 Laure ureateship Freepo S. p.3It

119; Sessions, 11. 34.
12°3onnet 111, 11. 29-32.
lama“... Po “9e

122L. P. Wilkinson, _Thg Geoggics 3f Vigil (0111321480. 1969),
p. 27.

1233» John Carey and Alastair Fowler, The L—eons of J_g__hn
Hil______ton (London, 1968), p. 2‘10, who refer to Horace, Odo_s_, I.xxv.18.

12"Carey and Fowler. p. 252.

1258» especially E. H. W. Tillyard, Hil__t_o__n (London, 1930).
pp. 80-85.

1261mm. 133. 911.

127122193. N ____Honvnont.s_ (London. 1631). p. .1.
new-m1. Pp. 32-39.

129Carey and Fowler observe that this probably echoes “the
pseudo-Shakespearean Passionate Pilgrin x l-M 'Sweot rose, fair
flower, untinely pluck'd, soon vaded. . . ,"' p. 15.

13"; 1.9: 231.11]. __Wcu (oxma. 1888).

133-Conrad Heresbach, The Whole Art and Trade of HM,

.Barnsby Goose. I (1536). 32.

1’46

1321'» Trin )3. reading, ”crop your young,“ uses a similar
agricultural term, ”crop."

133Tuve, p. 180.

CHAPTERIV

1For a comprehensive bibliography of Paradise eonentary see
A. Bartlett Giamatti, Lhe My Paradise _an__d the Renaissance Epic
(Princeton, 1966) _.

2To mention Just a few: J. B. Broadbent, §_0me GraverSu Sutbjec
(London, 1960), pp. 173-185. D. C. Allen, The Harmonious Vision
(Baltimore, 1951‘), Chap. 5; Grant HcColley, Paradise Lo___s__t, an A_c____count
_o__f Its Growth andHa Hajor Origins (Chicago, 1 .

3Giamatti, p. 300.

“Donnio n. Burden, 1h; Logical Epic (London, 196?). also
makes the point that Hilton's Garden owes “much to classical
precedent and contemporary taste.‘I p. #1.

5Some Graver Subject, pp. 170-175.

ésoo Edward Hyams, pp; English Garden (London, 196“),
pp. 20 5—2M.

7L0nd0n. 1629. Po 3e

8Herball (1636), p. h. The term embroidered was frequently
used in a semi-technical sense: e.g., Louis Liger B'Auxerre, 1h;
Comgeat Florist uses it so: ”Some are call'd hbroider'd Parterress
others are call'd Parterros partly ombroider'd, partly decouae or
_cut with flat Borders; others Parterres of Gaaon, or with Grass-
plots only . . . ." (London, 1706), p. 135.

6 9For a discussion of Christian Latin Paradises‘ see Giamatti,
PPo 7‘93o

”Garden-Craft _ip _t_h_e_ Bi blo o9; Other 8.5;. (London. 1927).
pp. 123'fle

11Paradisi. P. #13.

 

12Herball, p. b.

w. 131:: Bacon's Essgg, ed. Richard Whatoly (Boston, 1871). pp. ##3-

147

1"rhio is tho title of tho 2nd edn. of Sir Hugh Plat's
Floraes Paradise, edited by his kinsman Charles Bellingham (London,
13535-

15Douglas Bush, English Literature in; _tlg Earlier Seventeenth
Cent-u_rz (Oxford, 1962), p. 35.

1619.111... VIII. 33.
1N0 h, III. 158.159o

18Darbishire, my Lives, p. 6.

19Hasson, I. 555-556. 562.

”William Riley Parker, m (Oxford, 1968), 1. 192.
21Parker, I. M0.

22Parker, I, 608.

23.5.3.1. 91.9.21 m. P. 184.

7 2"William Temple, “Gardens of Epicurus,“ in Five Hiscellaneous
Essays 131 _s_1; William Temge, ed. Samuel Holt Honk (Ann Arbor, lfi3),
PPo 28.29e

25London, 1953. PP. 185-186.
26Carey and Fowler, p. 615.

27Carey and Fowler, p. 615.

232.» Lansing. 1970. p. 139.

291 8.1-1.2: 3.. _____Paradise 12.-1. p. 88.

”'Hiltcn's Abyssinian Paradise,“ UTSE, 29 (1950). lhh-lfi5.
Clark cites Allan Gilbert, _A_ Geogragical Dictiom _of Hilton
(How Haven, 1919), p. 18.

31"Gardons of Epicurus," p. 27.
y'Of GINO!!!" Do we
”London, 1617, p. 12.

3‘11: .1212 21 .4911 £912. .4. I. S. p. p... (ext-rd. 1955).
IV, 176-177.

148

358» Stanley Stewart, _Tlig Enclosed Garden (Hadison,
Hilwaukee, London, 1966) . _

3611.2 29115111.: 111 91 W (London. 1586). p. 7.
Enclosures are also described in Hill's 1h: Gardeners Labmgth
(London, 1577), pp. 13-16.

37Rohde, p. 135.

38mg; (2nd edn., London, 1670). p. 128.

3933.3 Profitable 5;; _o_f_ Gardenin . pp. 9-10.

“A Treatise p; Fruit-Trees (Oxford, 1657). pp. 116-117.
“London. 1661.

“Carey and Fowler attribute Hilton' s diction to the influence
of Diodorus, p. 618: see also G. W. Whiting, Hilton's Literag Hilieu
(New York, 1961+), pp. 66-67.

“3; Treatise 2f Fruit-Trees, pp. 37-38.
“Paradisi, p, 2,

“Sum... p-p-on. s__.._. v___m1ons 2.1: 21.81219. (London, 1950)-
p. 162.

“Au-ton. p. 38.

“701.14.. p. 1‘16.

“3; Treatise g: Fruit-Trees, pp, 36-37.
“Temple . pp. 2h-26.

5”For a lengthy note on the alchemical references, see Carey
and Fowler, p. 623.

53-Hohde. p. 131.

52Paradisi, p. '#16; for the emblematic aspect of the flowers
of Paradise, see Carey and Fowler, p. 627.

”anal-.1. p. 921.

5“Paradisi, p. #21.

1149
55'Of Gardens,“ p. “#5.

56mm. £32., v.vi.32-37. The Leeb Classical Library
(Cambridge, Hass.. 1969). PP. 349-351. For a detailed description
of ancient gardens see P1, 'Gartenbau.‘

57Parker, p. 170.

581I.#18-4193 Evelyn describes more than 60 Royal or Private
gardens and gives short notices of “0 minor ones.

59William Lawson (London, 1617). PP. H.

6°Pp. M9450. Iver Heath was rich in flora and frequently
visited by herbalists and later botanists.

61?. 793.

62p. 1000.

63Arbroath, 1926.

6“Aubrey, Darbishire. p. 6.
65p. 699.

66A How Orchaid and Garden, p. 57.

 

6'IHohde. p. 129.

68.1 £21 £92.11. p. 12.

691 m 5.2 9.21 1211.51-

7033 Gardeners Labnigth, p. 21+.
7J-Garden-Craf‘t, p. 129.

72m __Pront-u- .115. .21. penning. p. 18. ... .1... m
Gardeners Lama. “The franing of sundry Herbers delectable in
a Garden, with the walkes and alloys artely devised in the same,“
ppe 22.25 ”"he

73"Of Gardens,” p. #45.

7"1 Christian Paradiso," in Hount-Ogggeil (1681). p. 128.

150

”Leonard Heager in Th: Engish Gardener (London, 1670) lives
a list of suitable arbor plants, among them sweet-bryer, Jessamine,
roses, piracantas, lawrols, pp. 2118-2179. For a discussion of the
laurel, myrtle, and acanthus of Paradise, see Chap. V

76S¢Ie Graver SubJec , p. 180.
”Giamatti, p. 312.

78; Treatise g Fruit-Trees, p. 37.

79Paradisi, p. #13.
We Po no

81For a study of Patristic, Hidrashic, and Reformation
commentatorso on "Work in Paradise,” see Sister Hary Irma Corcoran,
Hilton's Paradise with Reference to the Hexameral Baundcyro
(Washin ington, lWS), pp. 9:553 see _also Arnold Williams, _T_h__e Common
gmsitor (Chapel Hill, 1998). pp. 109-111.

_ 82According to a Book 2; Jubiloes, the angels ”instructed
him to do everything that is suitable for tillage,“ T__h_o A c

_s_ng Pseudepigga_ o__f_ Lh_e Old Testament, ed. R. H. Charles Oxford,
1913 0 II, 1 . See also —Th___e_ _Soligg_ or Carthusian Gard'ner, Written

in French by Francis Gentil and Hewly done into English (London,
1706) a “The Culture of Gardens. . . has always been look'd upon as
the First _Ar_t in the World: Nothing can afford more Pleasure than
the Pursuit of it," p. i.

83_A______cetaria (London, 1699). Evelyn' s contributions to the
gardening literature of England include 8 The L_rench Ga_rdin__;_er (London,
1658). whose dedication was written by Evelyn; “Directions for the
Gardiner at Sas-Court,“ ed. Geoffrey Keynes, 1926; Th__e_ Com omggat
gard’ner by De La Quintinye, translated from the French by Evelyn,
2 vols. (1693). Also a letter to Dr. Thomas Browne (January 28,
1657-8) mentions a projected contribution to a gardening book: “I
have drawno it in loose sheetes, almost every chapter rudely. . . ."

8‘37“,“0 III. 32“.
”Lem £22123 21 __nnundn... (London. 1586). pp. 5-6.

863” Lorenso di Credi, “Our Lord Appearing to Hary
Hagdalene,‘ Uffisi Gallery, Florence.

87Thaas Tusser, London, 1573.

380orvooo Harkham, 5th edn.. 1637.

151

89; Log Orchard _apg Garden. p. 56.

 

90A number of the gardening manuals give detailed instructions,
many conplote with illustrations, of the art of pruning. See Stephen
Blake, _Th; Compleat Gardeners Practice (London, 1661?); Joseph Blagrave,
2.11.0. _JhL__E 99-1- 2:. Lbs. Art. 2.1. Lin-Longs: (London. 1685).

91The Leeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Hass.. 1953). p. 2175.

92Carey and Fowler suggest: “m1 Probably 'excossively

bushy': m Primarily 'overindulged'; but a secondary play on
Fr. m . . . may be Hiltonic. Some authorities regarded the
two words as etymologically related," p. 687.

931'. 69.

9“Pp. 81-82.
95Googe, p. 80.

96hr Hilton's figurative use of the term manure, see
Animadversions, Complete Prose Works £1; John Hilton (New Haven, 1953),
I, 715, add Reason 2; Church-Government, I, 5.

972; 51123125. _W_o_rk__s_, IV, 282. Cate, Varro, and Columella.

983» H. Stuart Jones, Cagnion 32 Roman Histegy (Oxford,
1912), pp. 303-315: see also 2! on Ackerbau, Gartenbau, Gemusebau,
Getreide. '

99Hetame_r‘goses, XIV .622ff.

1003» Thomas Hill' s ;h_o Profitable _A_rt_ g_f_ m. in
which he cites 18 ancient authors and "sundrie others."

1°1Lohdon. 1613. see also John Worlidge, Sntema Agriculturae
(3rd edn., London, 1681), which includes ”An Account of the several
Instruments and Engines used in this Profession.”

102London, 1685. he does not give his name but describes
hinself as a Physician of Rochelle.

1°3hooidoo tho materials cited, see 1h; Congoot Planter g
Cflegst (London, 1690) .

10‘I'See D'Aunerre's _Thg Comfleat Florist, which has ten pages
of illustrations of gardening tools, pp. 18545“.

1°5Wordsworth, “The Recluse,“ 11. soc-808.

152
CHAPTERV

1For a survey of laurel and urtle, see Chap. III.

2P. 653.

3g_,_h_.. 1v.1z7-138.

“pp... v.vi.32-33.

5Gerard (1636). pp. 1805-1810. Parkinson, Theatrum. pp. 205-207.
6Pp. 598-599. '

7.139;; g_f_ Buckingh_a_m_shire, pp. 1x1, 293.

8Gerard, p. 1‘905: see also Willia- Coles, Ld_am_ _in §d_e_r_r, p. 311,

9Cf. Samson Agonistes, ". . . and plant it round with shade/
Of laurel ever green,“ ll. 1736-1735.

loéflzs. p. 132.

11%. IV. 365.

12111... II. 251-252.

13M, II, 287.

Nun-on. 1. 803-805. Parker, I, 177.
15.99193 p; E iourus, p. 28.
16W. pp. 598-599.

173999. 12.0. 32.131 9.22.9.2. p. 1.
18Parker, I, 172. 177.

19Hasson, I. 769.

”Georgia, 11.112. Eclo e, v11.

2lFor the symbolism of myrtle, see Chap. III: see also Evelyn's
m, where he calls attention to the Italian “Elysian Fields so
celebrated by the Poets, nor unworthily for their situation & verdure,
b.1115 full Of Win-Ce o e a II, Bio

153
222112 Comgeat £12319}, pp. 527-828.
23!.91. 1v.122.9
2w. pp. 1811-1813.
25Theatrun, pp. 1652-1955.

26Louic Ginsberg, tr. H. Ssold (Philadelphia, 1901-1959).
I, 20. In this connection it may be added that Queen Esther's other
none, Hadassah, meaning “myrtle,” was appropriate because “the
sweet fragrance of the nyrtle pervades the air in whihh it grows,“
I. 383-384.

27Faerie Queene, III.V1.‘+3.
28"Of Plants in Scripture.” 321155. III. N5-

29D1‘! :2 . II . 28?.
”Di‘n . II 9 390 e
311310. , II ' 322 o
3201.51. 11, 182.

33Adamus Exul, ed. and tr. W. Iirkconnell, The Celestial
Cclz e(Toronto, 19 52), i. hO-llh.

3%. 869.
35P. 869.

36Hurr, pp. 78-91. Pausanias' s “Description of Greece“ (VI.21+. 6)
refers to the two attributes of Venus, the rose and the myrtle. There
are also Greek coins representing Venus sitting down at the foot of

‘ m0 ti”...
3m. VII. 1. 781-782e
39gg,‘V11, i. 810.

330oooicnoo Basses, Libri xx. Heedham, Liber II, Cap. VII,
p. 307. According to G. Sarton, Introduction to; th; Histog if Science
(Baltinore, 1927), Cassianos Bassos's sources were Vindonius Anatolius
of Beirut and Didymos of Alexandria, both of whom flourished in the
fourth or fifth century, A.D. I am indebted for this information to
Drs. J. Heniger, Biohistorisch Instituut der RiJksuniversiteit (Utrecht,
The lethorlands) , letter dated 19 April 1971.

15“

“OP. 68: see also the hglish Dialect Dictionagz, where
the notation appears that in Suffolk ”Other young . . . stuff is
also called Spring."

“Paradisi, p. 20.
”Fovro Bookes g; Hvsbandrie, p. 67.

“3Stigium Historiae Pemptadis Soxtae (1616), p. 773: I owe
this reference to Drs. J. Heniger.

“moi-hon. p. 1413.

”52.9.15 2.11 22.93.2291 (hat-Ida. 1663). p. 209: I on this
reference to Drs. J. Heniger.

“Introduction by Harold Hicclson to Peter Coats, Great Gardens
_o_f _th_g Western World (London, 1968), pp. 9, 13.

“7Great Gardens. p. 25".

“Gmt Garden—_s_, p. 262. See also Villa Taranto, where
flowering trees provide shelter for many rare plants, pp. 266-267.
and the rose garden at Hampton Hanor, Oxfordshire, in which appear
standard roses amidst flowering trees, Peter Coats, §l____owers in Histog
(London. 1970) . PP. 180-181.

“9Inndon, 196‘}, p.25 . Cf. Harjorie Hicclson, Th__e_B m
of the C__i___rcle (Evanston, 195°) . who suggests that the wild luxuriance
of the Garden contrasted to the ordered restraint imposed upon it
by Adam and Eve reflects “two persistent aspects of Hilton' s personality,
one satisfied with proportion and limitation, the other revelling in
the luxuriant and the unrestrained," p. 186. It seems to me, however,
that the alternation between the two is a reflection of the English
gardening tuperament.

”Brut. p. 115.
5151!”. Po 125o
52p. #28.

53Heresbachius, p. 68. This notion is based on the belief
that garlic absorbs impure Juices and that this chemical action in
the soil makes the rose more fragrant, Thorndike, VII, 312.

5hr— a letter to me dated 27 m 1971.

5570mm tho Plant Pests“ (Hey 30. 1971).

155

56Hyans, p. 211+.

57Cf. Chaucer, Troilus __ang Crisoyge, "But right as floures,
thorugh the cold of nyght 7 Iclosed, stoupen on hire stalke lowe, /
Redressen hem ayoin the sonne bright, / And sprede on hire kynde
court by run." II. 967-970.

58Francis Gentil, TE 8011th 9}; Carthusian Gard’ner
(London, 1706), p. 103.

59Hill, Th; Profitable £1 _o_f Gardenm, p. 85.
601,1... 11111.165.

61Tb t , p. 1&5‘7.

62’1'hoatm, p. 1191.

63Acorns C.lamus, popularly called “Sweet Hyrtlo" or ”Sweet
Flag" in Britain, had a variety of uses, including its use as a
binder for grafts: see Ralph Austen, _A_ Treatise g1; Fruit-Trees,
p.6135, and Hrs. H. Grieve, A Hodern Herbal (How York, 1931), ,
72 “7290

6“The nyrtle wand referred to in 'On the Horning of Christ's
Hativity" (l. 51) is perhaps 521293 1vestris, also known as .
”pricking myrtle“ or ”wild myrtle,“ mentioned by Virgil as useful
for spear ;Mfts (Goo ics, ILMW) and in the Aeneid as “bristling”
III.22-23 .

6512191121. p. 11+.
“Herball, pp.1259-1270.
671m __Booku 21 m. p. 68.

6813; Classical Husoum, III (1816), 1. For a detailed survey
of the problem in both ancient and Renaissance botany, see Appendix.
For the application of this perplexing identification, see Carey and
Fowler, literary critics, who take Virgil's acanthus as acacia
and, therefore, Hilton's acanthus as acacia. p. 3538 and Benjanin A.
Barton and Thomas Castle, medical botanists, who in B tish Flora
Hedig take Hilton's acanthus as acanthus mollis, pp. 353

59oorord. pp. 1186-1188. 1603-1606. Parkinson, Paradisi,
pp. 6019-606, Theatrum, pp. 1025-1026.

7°Gerard, pp. 1146-11“. Parkinson, Paradisi, pp. 329-330,
211219.12. pp. 992-993.

156
71Parkinson, Paradisi, pp, 60h-606.

72TheEn English G__ar_§_____ener (London, 1670), pp. 2158-289. See also
Worlidge, STstema miculturae (1681) , p. 101,

73Citod by Yates, p. 13.

7“I realise that logic hardly applies to horticultural
aesthetics, and that, in spite of the reasons adduced for pyracantha,
Hilton may have liked the way acanthus mollis grow in such profusion
in Italian gardens and may have preferred it to pyracantha. It night
be added, however, that Br. J. S. L. Gilmour, Director of the
Canbridgo University Botanic Garden, thinks it more likely ”that Hilton
had in mind pyracantha rather than Acanthus mollis, " since acanthus
mollis is not a shrub. Letter to no dated 6 June 1971.

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Africanus, Constantinus. '23 coitu. Translated by Paul Delany.
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APPENDIX

APPENDIX

Josef Murr's ‘ observations on acanthus confirl Yates's
researches and reveal the difficulty of identifying acanthus in the
ancient world: V

"An einer Stelle dos Plinius (n.h. XXII, 22, 34) erfahren
air, dass die dornenlose Art dos Akanthus (Acanthus 5931;; L.) auf
welche die Beschreibung des Pausanias gans wohl passt, paederos
gennant worde. Der weiche Acanthus Inn-do nun freilich in Griechenland
nirgends vorgefunden und wir k'énnten daher an ehesten auf einen
ihnlichen distel- (a.b. die Jurinea _Io_1.1_i_s_ L) oder alantartigen
Korbhlfitler der Mediterranflora, von denen nehrere die beechriebene
Blattgestaltung *anfveisen, an donken haben. Angeffigt kann noch
werdon, dass Plinius an einer anderen Stelle (h.n. III, 8, 54)
benerkt anch dae caerefoliun (der Kiichenkerbel, Anthriscns Caerefoliun
Hoffh. , ein wiirsi‘es Dcldengewichs) werde bei den Griechen paederos

gennant." (Die Pflansenwelt in der Griechischen mologie, pp. 202-203)

A glance at the Index of Plants in Pliny's Natural History
reveals the difficulty of accurate identification:
Paederos. (l) . caereofolim, Anthriscus cerefcliun, XIX.170:
(2) I nelanphyllun, a type of acanthus,

Agar-fin.- 22214. 1111.76
(u0b, '01. 79 DO 526)

168

169
Virgil' a use of acanthus highlights the sane difficulty:

(Living Plants)

A. Georgics: "ille cola- nollis ia- tondebat hyacinthi" IV.137
(inferior I8. acanthi)

B. Geoggics: ”quid tibi odorato rofersn sudantis ligno
balsanaque et bacas senper frondentis
scanthi" 11.118-119

C. Geoggics: "aut flexi tacuissen vinen acanthi' IV .123

(Omanentg P_1_an_ltg)

D. Eclogges: 'et nolli circus est snsss anplexus scantho" IIIJ+5
E. £292.43 '. . . et circustextun croceo velsnen
acantho. . . " L6“?

The following brief sunsry on the couentary and identifica-
tion of Virgil' s acanthus will show the complexity of the problen.

Elfriede Abbe, in _T_l_1_e_ isn‘t-g 2f Vigil's Geo ics, identifies
the acanthus of H.119 and of H.123 as acacia (P. 129). He identifies
the acanthus of H.137 as Acanthus Lag}; L.. brankursine, besr's
foot (P. 179). It night be renarked that Abbe follows an inferior
nanusoript reading in Georgics IV .137, which substitutes scsnthi for
hyscin .

The confusing identification of acanthus with acacia is
further confined by the entry on Akanthcs in Pauly's .339;- I
Enozcloggu ~Vim-15.». heisst A. such ein stacheliger, iner-
grfiner. einen gulliartigen Saft susschwitsender Ban in 'Agypten. der
nit der vorigen Pflanse nichts su thun hat. Dss libero 'iber denselben
s. under Akasie.‘ (1.1.1118)

Parkinson, in the Theatrul Botanic“, refuses to consider

Virgil's acanthus as the acacia, since acacia has no berries:

170

". . . it is nost probable Virgil intended the months, that
we nost usually so-call. for Ell-fl so called it also. . . ." (P. 15419)

Iates's stub concludes that Acanthus and Acanthiun ”nay be
conveniently reduced to five classes, each including plants which,
though now accurately distinguished in botanical systems, have so
nany canon properties that in ancient tines they would all be
comprised under the sane denouination.” (P. l)

I shall in the following pages outline ancient and Renaissance

herbal cc-entary on acanthus.

Play on Acanthus - Acanthus spinosus and Acanthus nollis
”There are two kinds of acanthus, a plant of the ornsnental

garden and of the city, which has a broad. long leaf. and covers
the banks of borders and the flat tops of the raised portions of
gardens. One is thormr and curled. which is the shorter: the other

is smooth, and is called by sons paedercs. by others nelsnphyllun.”
‘ (Lg. nII.76)

my on Acanthion
" . . . usually cotton thistle. Onomrdon scanthiun, and
probably also 9. £133.32. but in HIV 108 a thorn-tree. perhaps

Acacia arabica.‘ -
(“Index to Plants,” Loeb, vol. VII, p. ‘:86)

on cantha
“There is also a thorn with the nane of appendix. because
the bright red berries hanging from it are called appendixes. These.
either raw by thuselves or dried and boiled in wine. check looseness
of the bowels and colic. The berries of pyracantha are taken in
drink for the bites of serpents.“ (L11. HIV .1110

171
Gerard on Thistles

Acanthus sativus I Garden Beans-breech and Branke Ursine
of Renaissance gardeners

. Acanthus lavis I smooth Branke Ursine
of Pliny

8 Acanthus of Virgil's Third Eclogge
but not Acanthus of Virgil's Georgics

"Beares breech of the garden hath broad leaues, snooth,
sonewhst blacke. gsshed on both the edges, and set with nany cuts
and fine nickes between which riseth vp in the nidst a big stalke
brauely deckt with flours, set in order fron the niddle ward, of
color white, of sane long, which are arned as it were with two
catkins, one higher. another lower: after then grow forth the husks.
in which is found broad seed. . . . '

”Dioscorides . . . garden Brsnke Vrsine groweth in noist
and stony places, and also in gardens: it were vnaduisedly done to
seeke it in either of the Genaines any where, but in gardens onely:
in ny garden it doth grow very plentifully. . . .

'. . . yet doth Acanthus signifie generally all kinde of
Thistles. e e .

”The tans or garden Branke Vrsine is naned in Latino. Sativss,
or Hortensis Acanthus. . . . Pliny also calleth this Acanthus I_l£_i_s_,
or snooth Branke Vrsine, and reporteth it to be a city herbs, and to
serue for arbors. . . . The Ingrauers of old tine were wont to
earns the leaues of this Branke Vrsine in pillers, and other workes.
and also vpon the eares of pets, as anong other Virgil testifieth in
the third Eclog of his Bucolicks:

it nobis iden Alcinedon £133 Eula fecit.
E; nolli circun g_s_t_. ansas snflexus Acantha.

172

I take 111;ng Acanthus to be that which we now cononly call
meat“. 0 Q Q" (3.“. pp.’ nhé‘nl‘a)

Parkinson on Thistles (Carduus)
Thistles I Acanthus sativus
I Acanthus siluest‘ris

"You nay sonewhat naruaile, to see no curious to plant
Thistles in ny Garden, when as you night well say, they are rather
plagues then pleasures. . . but when you have viewed the. well . . .
I will then abide your censure, if they be not worthy of acne place,
although it be but a corner of the Garden. , . .

”Acanthus sativus. Garden Boares breech.)

"The leaues of this kinds of 'snooth thistle . .. . are
alnost as large as the leaues of the Artichoke. . . . it sendeth
forth fron anong the leaues one or nore great and strong stalkes,
three or foure foote high, without any branch at all. . . .

”Acanthus siluestris. Wilde or prickly Beares breech.

”This prickly Thistle hath diners long greenish leaues
lying on the ground, nuch narrower then the forner. . . ."

(Paradisi, pp.32 329-330)
Parkinson on Acanthus. (Acanthus sive Branca ursina, Scares-breech)

Acanthus sativus I! Garden gentle or nanured Beares-breech

Acanthus Sylvestris =- wilde or prickly Bearer-breech

Both grow in Italy, Spain, and France, ”but are onely nursed
up in the gardens of the curious with us. . . . ‘ i

" . . . the ferns of the leaves was usually the patterns for

nany engravings, etc. in pillars and other workes. . . ."

173 ’
Parkinson nakes the further observation that sons doubt whether
this is the true acanthus of Dioscorides, and Parkinson speculates
on reasons for calling Acanthus sativus “Acanthus,“ since it has no

spines. (Theatrun, pp. 992-993)

Gerard on Evergreen Thom
Evergreen thorne tree I macantha of Theophrastus

I acanthus of Virgil's Geoggics, Book II
I macantha of Renaissance gardens
”This plant, which Lobel and sons other late writers have

called by the nane of mgcantha, is the Mouths nentioned by

Theoflastus, lib, 1, cap, 1: lib, 1, cap, #, hist, Mt. anongst the

euer-green trees: and I thinke rather this than our white Thorn to be
gacmtha of Dioscorides, lib, 1, ca, 123. And certainly it was
no other than this Thorn which Virgil nentioneth by nane of Acanthus,
lib. 2. 9933. in these words, it. bacchas 22:29.1: frondentis Acanthi:
That is, And the berries of the E're-green Thorn. '

". . . Itgrowswildeinsundryplaces ofItalyandProvince
in France, but is kept in gardens with vs, where it is held in good
esteen for.his euer-greenesse and pliablenesse to any work or forne

you desire to inpose vpon hin.‘ . (Herball, pp, 1603-1601:)

Parkinson on White Thorne or Hawthorne.
Perhaps I flcmths of Dioscorides
Perhaps I acanthus of Galen
(Barber: N be Mouths)
(macantha I omcantha of Dioscorides)

17‘}
'Vorylsny . . . doo take this Thorno to be ancantha of
Dioscorides which hoo describoth to be like the Poaro-troo but
lesser, and very thorny, bearing a berry like unto those of the Myrtle. . . .
others take it to be the chanthus of 99333. . . . [solo] take the
Barbory to be chantha . . . but by the Judgonont of the best and
nest expert Horbarists in our tines, the mgcantha . . . is the

true mouths of Dioscorides . . . and Theophrastus. . . ."
(Theatm. pp. 1025-1026)

(Note: The white thorn of Lycidas is the hawthorno,)

Parkinson on Mouths. (The Euorgroono Hawthorne, or
Prickly Corall Tree)

hauntha I Macmtha of Dioscorides
I Hawthorne tree or bush of Renaissance gardens

“This euer greene shrubbe is so fine an ornanent to a Garden
or Orchard, either to be noursed vp into a snall tree by it selfe,
by pruining and taking. away the suckers and vnder branches, or by
suffering it to grow with suckers, thicke and plashing the branches
into a hedge, for that it is plyable to be ordered either way. . .' .
The younger branches are couered with a snooth darke blewish greene
barko, and the elder with a nere ash coloured thicke set with leaues
without order, sono great and others snallor, sonowhat like both in
ferno and bignesse vnto the leaues of the Harborry tree, but smwhat
larger, and nere snipt about the edges, of a deeper greene colour
also, and with snall long thornes scattered hero and there vpon the
branches: the flowers cone forth as well at tho'onds of the branches,
as at diners places at the ioynts of tho leaues, standing thicke
together, of a pale whitish colour, a little dasht euer with a show
of blush, consisting of five leaves a pooco, with sue snall threads

175

in the niddls, which turns into berries very like vnto Hawthorne
berries, but nuch redder and dryer, alnost like polished corall,
wherein are contained fours or fiue snall yellowish white three square
seede, sonowhat shining. It is thought to be ancantha of Dioscorides,
but seeing Dioscorides doth explains the forns of the leafs in his
Chapter of Hedlars, which he concealed in the Chapter of chan ,
it cannot be the sans for Hospilus Anthedon of Theo stus, or
£232! of Dioscorides, bath the leafs of Mean , as Dioscorides
saith, or of Snalladgo, as Theophrastus, which cannot agree to this
Thorns: but doth nost liusly delineate out our white Thorns or
Hawthorne, that now there is no doubt, but that Qggcantha of
Dioscorides is the Hawthorne tree or bush.

'. . . an ornanont to a Garden or Orchard, by reason of euer
greene leaues, and red berries anong then, being a pleasant spectacle .
and fit to be brought into the forno of an hedge, as one please to
load it. . . ." (Paradisi, pp. 6011—606)

(Note: In Parkinson's description, pyracantha is the Evergreen
Hawthorne, tho Prickly Coral bush: it is not to be
confused with the white-them Hawthorne. In the
Renaissance, the torn Hawthorne was popularly applied
to both the Evergreen Hawthorne and to the white-

thorn Hawthorne. Ths anbiguity springs fron this
dual usage.)

Gerard on Harbors:
Does not I Mcantha cf Dioscorides

Does not I gaunthus which I Hawthorne trss

Months I Galsn's barbsrry bush

'. . . 93;.33 . . . plainoly nads a difference, chantha
tho Barberry bush, and Month” the Hawthorne troo.

176
”Dioscorides hath not nado nention of this Thorns: for that
which he called Macontha, in the feminine gender, is Galsns
Mouthus in the nasculins gender.” (Herball, pp. 1325-1326)

Parkinson on Barbers: Bush or Tree

Does not I Mouths of Dioscorides (Qgcantha of Dioscorides I
mantha)

Does not I Pygcantha

“It hath fcrnerly beeno held by very good and learned
Authours, that this bush is the ancantha of Dioscorides, and hath
continued to this day, especially anong the Apothecaries, yet Cordus
accounted it an error. . . but we have showed elsewhere what the true
ancantha of Dioscorides is, even the months which hath ever
greene leaves, and red friable berryss, neither of which can agree
with this Barbary bush.” (Theatrun, p. 1559)

John Rea says: "months. The ever-green Hawthorn, if
suffered to grow at large, riseth up six or. nere foot high, m1 of
branches, set with over-green leaves snipt about the edges, and long ‘
sharp thorns: the flowers cons forth in the Spring, nany clustering
together like those of gwthorn, as the Berries are which succeed,
but nere in nunber on one branch, of the colour of Coral. . . this

Green servsth with others to nako an ever-green Hedge.”
(Em: pg 9; Flam Cultura. London, 1665, p. 237)

what energes fron this investigation is that nonsnclatnre is
nore the problen than taxonony. The torn ac thus, leaning m
or they, was so elastic as to include not only spiny plants but
also non-spiny brankursine. The Renaissance herbalists, in their

"‘

 

177
attenpts to work. their way through the ancient nonenolatural nase,
did reach a nunbor of unaninous conclusions on acanthus,

One further conclusion nay be drawn fren this survey: popular
nanes breed difficulties. Not restricted to the ancients, the problen
continues today. The popular name agile, for exanple, applies to
nany dissinilar plants. Dr. F. H. Vent, Professor of Botany at the
Laboratory of Desert Biology (Reno, Nevada), renarked in a letter
to no (30 April 1971) that a nunber of plants are called 5231;:
periwinkle (11$) noneywort (Lysinachia nun-ularis) and even blueberry

(Vacciniun 525111“) .

 

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