PETRARCH 31 



tilling incense, myrrh, aloe and lavender, resin, storax and balsaam, 

 and Indian laburnum. 



Saffron and sandyx will not be absent, if thou wilt follow our 

 counsel. Who has not experienced the virtues of thyme and 

 pennyroyal? Who is ignorant that borage and purslain are 

 devoted to uses of diet ? . . . The myrtle, too, is the friend 

 of temperance ; whence it comes that it is wont to be offered to 

 the goddess who is named Cypris, for the same reason that the 

 tufted bird is slain to Nux, the goddess of night, that the goat 

 is devoted to Bacchus, and the swine to Ceres. 



But those, whom such toil interests, distinguish between 

 heliotrope {solsequiuni) and our heliotrope, which is called 

 marigold (^calendula) ; and between wormwood, {artemisia) and 

 our wormwood, which is called centaury {febrtfugmm). 



It is agreed, too, that the beard of Jove {Jovis barba) is one 

 grass, and Jove's beard {barba Jovis) is another. 



The iris bears a purple flower, the marsh elder a white one ; 

 the gladiolus a yellow one \ but the foetid palm {Spatula fcetida) 

 has none. 



The horehound, hound's tongue, the Macedonian rock, parsley, 

 the hoop writhe (snakewood), groundsel, ground ash, which is also 

 the queen, three kinds of milk-vetch {astrologia) are well-known 

 herbs. But Macer and Dioscorides and many others make 

 diligent inquiries into the properties of herbs. Whence let us 

 now pass to other matters. — Of the Natures of Things. {On 

 herbs J trees, a?id fioivers which grow in the garden.)^ 



T HAVE made two gardens that please me wonderfully. I do PETRARCH 

 ■^ not think they are to be equalled in all the world. And I (1304-1374)- 

 must confess to you a more than female weakness with which I 

 am haunted. I am positively angry that there is anything so 

 beautiful out of Italy. 



1 Mr T. Hudson Turner, in his "Observations on the State of Horticulture 

 in England in Early Times" {Archaological Journal, vol. v.), a paper full of 

 antiquarian research and of great interest, regards Neckam's description of a 

 " noble garden " as in a great degree rhetorical and untrustworthy. ' 



