MYTHOLOGY, AND HISTORY OF THE PEONY 



forth invoked by the cry " lo Psean " (ni 6aidv) 

 sometunes made to him as physician and at other 

 times made to him irrespective of his healing art. 

 Subsequently, a psean was a choral song to Apollo 

 or Artemis, his twin-sister (the burden being " lo 

 Paean"), in thanksgiving for deliverance from 

 evil. Later it was addressed to other gods on 

 similar occasions,^ and then to mortals. Now it 

 is a " loud and joyous song ": witness this book. 



The peony was known to Greek writers under 

 the name pseonia and also under the name glu- 

 cuside — " having sugar qualities " — evidently re- 

 ferring to the honey secretion of the flower buds. 

 It is mentioned in the works of a number of early 

 authors, among whom are Pliny, Theophrastus, 

 Dioscorides and Galen. 



Pliny, in his Natural History (about 77 a.d.) 

 gives the first detailed description of a peony 

 plant and seeds, but does not mention the flower. 

 He says : " The plant known as pseonia is the most 

 ancient of them all. It still retains the name of 

 him who was the first to discover it, being known 

 also as the ' pentorobus ' (from its five seeds 



* Liddell & Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (1888), 

 p. 1106. 



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