114 PROSERPINA. 



And thus you will begin to understand how 

 the poppy became in the heathen mind the type 

 at once of power, or pride, and of its loss ; and 

 therefore, both while Virgil represents the white 

 nymph Nais, " pallentes violas, et summa papa- 

 vera carpens," — gathering the pale flags, and the 

 highest poppies, — and the reason for the choice of 

 this rather than any other flower, in the story of 

 Tarquin's message to his son. 



14. But you are next to remember the word 

 Rhoeas in another sense. Whether originally in- 

 tended or afterwards caught at, the resemblance 

 of the word to ' Rhoea,' a pomegranate, mentally 

 connects itself with the resemblance of the poppy 

 head to the pomegranate fruit. 



And if I allow this flower to be the first we 

 take up for careful study in Proserpina, on account 

 of its simplicity of form and splendour of colour, 

 I wish you also to remember, in connection with 

 it, the cause of Proserpine's eternal captivity — her 

 having tasted a pomegranate seed, — the pome- 

 granate being in Greek mythology what the apple 

 is in the Mosaic legend ; and, in the whole worship 

 of Demeter, associated with the poppy by a multi- 

 tude of ideas which are not definitely expressed, 

 but can only be gathered out of Greek art and 

 literature, as we learn their symbolism. The chief 



