xiv ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORDS CROCUS AND SAFFRON. 



2. Turkish ^axjo- , cliig-dem, the Mower Crocus ; probably applied to various 

 species, and not confined to the Saffron-producing C. sativiis, for the glossaries 

 know of yellow, purple, and blue chig-dem. Probably the word is also applied to 

 other flowers of more or less similar appearance, f^&f- l5^' a J T ohig-dem, 'bitter 

 chtg-deml is a name for Colchicum. 



Crocus in the Greek and Latin Classics. 



In classical literature, both Greek and Latin, few flowers hold a more honourable 



place than the Crocus. This distinction it owes rather to the use made of Saffron 



than to any striking beauty of the flower itself. Yet it is hard to believe that the 



Greek poets at least were not struck by the glory of the golden-flowered crocuses 

 which they must have seen." 



The earliest occurrence of the word Kponos in extant literature is in Homer, 

 Iliad xiv, 347 : — ■ 



Toiat CV7TO %0WV <HX (j)VCl f V€oOrjf\>€» TTOtljV, 



\10rov 0' iparievra ISe KpoKov r]C vaicivOov, 



Here, as in the following passages in which a flower is spoken of, it is impossible 

 to say whether the Crocus of the poet's imagination is a cultivated Saffron Crocus, 

 or some wild species, possibly idealized, as Hehn suggests, in allusion to the royal 

 Saffron dye. At any rate, with the exception of the golden-flowered wild kinds, 

 they do not differ so much as the dog and briar roses of our hedges differ from 

 the garden rose. 



In the Homeric hymn to Ceres, Proserpine is gathering Crocus flowers, line 6 :— 



avOea T ati'imci'ip', pota Kai KpoKov ijf> i-a KaXa 

 again 428, vapKiaaov 9', ov i'cpvo', icairep KpoKov, evpCia jiOkv 



and 425, JltyBa KpoKov t arfavov Km u'jaWiCni ijC vaKtvBov. 



So too in the hymn to Pan, line 25 : — 



fcV fxa\aKW \ei[iu:vi, 70O1 KpoKos tjg vaKivOos 

 cvic&ti? @a\c0tvi> Kara/ncffyeTai uxpna ttolyj, 



* See below. For classical notices of Crocus, see the long, rambling, gossiping note of Bodaeus on Theophrastus, 

 Hist. Plant., vi, 6: Amsterdam, 1644. Folio, pp. 661, et sqq.; but above all, the delightful chapter on Saffron 

 in Helm's Kulturpjlanzen und Hausthiere. Both the first edition, Berlin, 1870, in which alone the quotations 

 are given in the original, and the fourth edition, Berlin, 1SS3, should be consulted. Unfortunately the author, 

 misled probably by the grossly erroneous statement in Fraas' Synopsis plantarum flora classics, p. 292, seems 

 to assume that the Greeks can only have been familiar with two species of Crocus, the cultivated ' Oriental Crocus 

 sitivus,' and 'the modest European spring Crocus, Crocus vermis? Now that we know that C. vermis, L., 

 does not grow in Greece or Asia Minor, but that several brilliant golden flowered species, e.g., Crocus aureus, 

 Crocus chrysantkus, Crocus Olivieri, occur there not uncommonly, it is impossible to follow him in any conclusions 

 which rest upon that assumption. 



