3o6 pfant "bors, "begeT^/, and "bLjcIc/, 



pure light of Ormuzd, whose word was first carved on this noble 

 tree. Parsi traditions tell of a Cypress planted by Zoroaster him- 

 self, which grew to wondrous dimensions, and beneath the branches 

 of which he built himself a summer-house, forty yards high and 

 forty yards broad. This tree is celebrated in the songs of Firdusi 

 as having had its origin in Paradise. It is not surpising, therefore, 

 that the Cypress, a tree of Paradise, rising in a pyramidal form, 

 with its taper summit pointmg to the skies, like the generating 

 flame, should be planted at the gates of the most sacred fire- 

 temples, and, bearing the law inscribed by Zoroaster, should stand 

 in the forecourt of the royal palace and in the middle of pleasure 

 gardens, as a reminiscence of the lost Paradise. This is the reason 

 why sculptured images of the Cypress are found in the temples and 

 palaces of Persepolis; for the Persian kings were servants of 

 Ormuzd. Sacred Cypresses were also found in the very ancient 

 temple of Armavir, in Atropatene, the home of Zoroaster and his 

 light-worship. The Cypress, indeed, reverenced all over Persia, 

 was transmitted as a sacred tree down from the ancient Magi to 



the Mussulmans of modern times. From Asia, the Cypress 



passed to the island of Cyprus (which derived its name from the 

 tree), and here the primitive inhabitants worshipped, under the 

 Phoenician name Beroth, a goddess personified by the Cypress- 

 tree. According to Claudian, the Cypress was employed by the 



goddess Ceres as a torch, which she cast into the crater of Etna, 

 in order to stay the eruption of the volcano, and to imprison there 



Vulcan himself. An Italian tradition affirms that the Devil 



comes at midnight to carr}^ off three Cypresses confided to the care 

 of three brothers— a superstitious notion evidently derived from the 



facft that the tree was by the ancients consecrated to Pluto. 



Like all the trees connecfled with the Phallica, the Cj^press is at once 



a symbol of generation, of death, and of the immortal soul. In 



Eastern legends, the Cypress often represents a young lover, and the 

 Rose, his beloved. In a wedding song of the Isle of Crete, the bride- 

 groom is compared to the Cypress, the bride to the scented Narcissus. 

 In Miller's Chrestomathie is a popular Russian song, in which a young 

 girl tells her master that she has dreamed of a Cypress and of a 

 Sugar-tree. The master tells her that the Cypress typifies a hus- 

 band, and the Sugar-tree a wife; and that the branches are the 



children, who will gather around them. At Rome, according to 



Pliny, they used to plant a Cypress at the birth of a girl, and called 



it the dotem of the daughter. The oldest tree on record is the 



Cypress of Somma, in Lombardy. An ancient chronicle at Milan 

 proves it was a tree in Julius Caesar's time, B.C. 42. It is 121 feet 

 high, and 23 feet in circumference at one foot from the ground. 

 Napoleon, when laying down the plan for his great road over 

 the Simplon, diverged from a straight line to avoid injuring this 

 tree. To dream of a Cypress-tree denotes aftlitflion and obstruc- 

 tion in business. 



