35 
letters of his name Ai, Ai, the ery of sorrow and anguish, alas! 
alas! It may have been in the markings on the petals of the 
martagon that ancient fancy traced the “ funesta litera ” and read 
the mournful story ; it cannot have been in the blue corolla of the 
hyacinth now bursting into bloom in our woods. 
Once more, Homer describes Ulysses as having hyacinthine 
hair :— 
‘* Back from his brow a length of hair unfurls 
His hyacinthine locks descend in wavy curls,” 
(Odyssey vi. 231.) 
so also Milton, using the epithet, doubtless because it was Homeric, 
and not heeding the meaning of the word, gives Adam’s hair the 
same hue. 
His fair large front and eye sublime declared 
Absolute rule ; and hyacinthine locks 
Round from his parted forelock manly hung clust’ring— 
Some say Homer means “ black” hair; but elsewhere he much 
more naturally gives his hero yellow or golden hair. In ancient 
poetry, however, the use of colours is so vague, that the epithet 
in any particular passage has to be translated rather according to 
the context than the actual meaning of the word. Where colour 
is concerned therefore the literary method is nearly useless. The 
same difficulty of literary identification, however, appears again in 
later times. We may grant that the names have been clearly 
attached to some one and the same plant for many generations, 
until learning and civilization began to conquer barbarism in 
northern Europe and to introduce its medicines and its drugs, that 
is, its dried plants, into Germany and England. But it could not 
introduce the actual denizens of southern Europe in a living con- 
dition, or at least only a few of them. But there exist ancient 
Saxon lists of plants, made up out of Dioscorides and Apuleius 
and the ancient authorities, and giving often the Greek and Latin 
and the English name for a plant, which it is physically impossible 
can be the same plant. To give two instances; Pliny has an 
asparagus which is probably the same plant as our original plant, 
in the Saxon lists this is translated “ wudu cerfille’’ wood chervil. 
Caltha (palustris, the marsh marigold), means in Columella, 
calendula officinalis, is a purely southern European plant, but in 
the Saxon list itis red clover. Such are the difficulties which 
beset us in trying to trace the plant by its name backwards to 
olden days, or forwards to our own. 
