60 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



one's own garden give no suggestions of this 

 prodigal wealth of colour, but they are at least 

 reminiscent, and therefore welcome. 



" The root of Hyacinth, boyled in wine, and 

 drunke," we are told by one of the old herbalists, 

 "helpeth against the venemous bitings of the field 

 Spider : being beaten and applied with white wine 

 they keepe back the growth of haires. The root is 

 full of a shiny glewish juyce, which wil serue to 

 set feathers vpon arrowes in stead of glew, or to 

 paste bookes with." 



If we are to believe the ancient poets and their 

 imitators, the original Hyacinthus was not a flower at 

 all, but a youth who was greatly beloved by Apollo 

 and Zephyr. He unfortunately displayed so marked 

 a preference for the former that the latter grew out- 

 rageously jealous, and one day when the injudicious 

 youth was indulging in a game of quoits with the 

 Sun-god, the quoit of Apollo was blown by Zephyr 

 on to the head of Hyacinthus with such hearty ill- 

 will that nothing would have remained in these 

 matter-of-fact days but to hold the inquest and make 

 the necessary funeral arrangements. Instead of 

 this prosaic ending, however, Apollo changed him 

 into the flower that has ever since borne his name. 

 The " fair-haired hyacinth" that Ben Jonson sings 

 of does not derive its epithet from any hirsute 

 feature now visible in the flower : the reference is 

 to the flowing locks of the original bearer of the 



