AMARANTH. 17 



The Amaranth is recommended, among other flowers, as 



a food for bees : 



" II tirao e r amaranto 

 Dei trapiantare ancora, e quell' altr' erbe 

 Che danno a questa greggia amabil cibo." 



Le Api del Rucellai. 



Thyme and the amaranth 

 Also transplant, and all such other herbs 

 As yield the winged flock a food they love. 



Moore speaks of them as being used for the hair, a pur- 

 pose for which they are peculiarly well adapted : 



" Amaranths such as crown the maids 

 That wander through Zamara's shades*.'' 



From a passage in Don Quixote one may suppose that 

 Amaranths were sometimes worn by the Spanish ladies in 

 the time of Cervantes; but the chief value of such passages 

 consists in showing us the probable taste of the author. It 

 is where he speaks of a set of ladies and gentlemen who 

 were amusing themselves by playing shepherds and shep- 

 herdesses in the woods, and who had hung some green 

 nets across the trees. And as he (Don Quixote) was go- 

 ing to pass forward and break through all (he took it for 

 the work of enchanters) " unexpectedly from among some 

 trees two most beautiful shepherdesses presented them- 

 selves before him : at least they were clad like shep- 

 herdesses, except that their waistcoats and petticoats were 

 of fine brocade, their habits were of rich gold tabby, 

 their hair, which for brightness might come in competition 

 with the rays of the sun, hanging loose about their shoul- 

 ders, and their heads crowned with garlands of green 

 laurel and red flower-gentles interwoven." The delicate 

 and sunny-coloured bay leaves of the south, and the red or 



* " The people of the Batta country, in Sumatra, or Zamara, when 

 not engaged in war, lead an idle inactive life, passing the day in playing 

 on a kind of flute, crowned with garlands of flowers, among which 

 the Globe Amaranth, a native of the country, mostly prevails." 



C 



