^ The Scented garden ($£ 



forth in their firmament of green. Most crocuses have a 

 faint warm scent, but only on really sunny days or in a 

 warm room. Many people do not regard them as scented 

 flowers, but Virgil knew their exquisite scent in Italian 

 sunshine. Sometimes one wonders whether our modern 

 eyes are dimmed to the amazing beauty of these flowers, 

 especially the orange-coloured ones. Homer's carpet of 

 the gods was of hyacinths, crocuses, and lotus flowers, 

 and all the classical writers used ' crocus-coloured ' to 

 describe a glowing orange golden colour, for which 

 indeed there is no other word. The golden crocus turns 

 the earth to sheets of living flame. To quote Homer, 

 i the flaming crocus made the mountain glow.' 



Saffron yellow, the colour of light, was apparently the 

 royal and sacred colour of the most ancient days. The 

 Persian kings wore saffron yellow shoes in imitation of the 

 still older Babylonio-Median costume. In Aeschylus' 

 Persians Darius is summoned from the nether-world 

 by the chorus, ' Rise, ancient ruler, rise ; come with the 

 saffron-dyed sumaris on thy feet ... a royal tiara on 

 thy head.' When Jason prepared to plough the field in 

 Colchis with the fire-breathing bulls, he threw off his 

 saffron-coloured garments. Bacchus wore Krokotos, the 

 saffron dress. The new-born Herakles Pindar describes 

 as swathed in crocus-yellow. The crocus dress of Pallas 

 Athene the Attic maidens embroidered with many 

 colours. Antigone let fall her crocus-coloured stole in 

 her despair at the death of her mother and brothers. 

 Helena took with her from Mycenae her gold-embroidered 

 palla, a crocus-bordered veil. In the Epics, Eos, the dawn, 

 is ever saffron- veiled. The companions of Europa, when 

 Jupiter approached her in the form of a bull, were 



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