DAFFODIL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION. 



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objected to the Homeric Hymns as not being actually the works 

 of any particular man, but, if not actually Homer's work, the 

 " Hymn to Demeter " is so beautiful for its own sake, and also 

 so Homeresque, as to be well worth giving. I do not at all agree 

 with modem scholars who try to split up the immortal Homer 

 into fragmental nebulae Both Homer and Sophocles mention 

 the Narcissus for its fragrance, and there is no doubt but that 

 the mention of Narcissus in the " (Edipus " refers to the 

 "clustered Narcissus" (N. Tazetta, fig. 19, p. 367). 



This is what the oldest and greatest poet of Greece says of 

 our flower : — 



And the Narcissus wondrously glittering, a noble sight for all, whether 

 immortal Gods or mortal men ; from whose root a hundred heads spring- 

 forth, and at the fragrant odour [thereof] all the broad heaven above, and 

 all the earth laughed, and the salt-wave of the sea. — " Hymn to Demeter," 

 8-14. 



The following extract is from the "(Edipus at Colonus" of 

 Sophocles : — 



Stranger in this land of goodly steeds, thou hast come to earth's fairest 

 home, even to our white Colonus, where the nightingale, a constant guest, 

 trills her clear note in the covert of green glades, dwelling amid the wine- 

 dark Ivy and the God's inviolate bowers, rich in berries and fruit, unvisited 

 by sun, unvexed by wind of any storm, where the reveller Dionysus ever 

 walks the ground, companion of the nymphs that nursed him. 



And fed of heavenly dew the Narcissus blooms morn by morn with fair 

 clusters, crown of the great goddesses from of yore, and the Crocus blooms 

 with golden beam. 



Much of floral history must ever remain unknown. We may 

 nowadays, for example, never know what was the favourite 

 flower of Helen of Troy or that of the great Cleopatra, Egypt's 

 fascinating queen ; but no doubt both these great and beautiful 

 women must often have seen the " clustered Narcissus " (N. 

 Tazetta) ; and even if blue-eyed Helen did not, like Persephone, 

 stoop to gather it from the grass of the Grecian meadows, it was 

 more than probable that incense-loving Cleopatra, when tired of 

 fiery Pomegranate buds, had often worn clusters of the Narcissus 

 in her blue-black hair, just as do the wives and daughters of 

 sunshiny Egypt and of Arabia to-day. 



From poetry and speculation, and possible doubt, it is inter- 

 esting to turn to a very matter-of-fact incident in the history 

 of N. Tazetta, as found naturalised or cultivated in Egypt. In 



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