NARCISSUS. 
65 
Drayton in his Pastorals makes the Daffodil 
the same flower with the Lily : 
See that there be store of lilies. 
(Called by shepherds Daffodillies.) 
The Narcissus major, the largest of this fa¬ 
mily of flowers, a native of Spain, is common 
in our gardens, and rarely seen single. Its 
magnificent gold-coloured flowers are supported 
by a stalk nearly two feet high. 
A modern poet has taken the Narcissus for 
an emblem of the pains of unrequited love. 
Thus, too, the ancients, on account of its nar¬ 
cotic properties, regarded it as the flower of 
deceit, which, as Homer assures us, delights 
heaven and earth by its odour and external 
beauty, but, at the same time, produces stupor 
and even death. It was therefore consecrated 
to the Eumenides, Ceres, and Proserpine, on 
which account Sophocles calls it the garland of 
the great goddesses; and Pluto, by the advice 
of Venus, employed it to entice Proserpine to 
the lower world. 
In the East, the Daffodil is a particular fa¬ 
vourite. The Persians call it, by way of emi¬ 
nence, Zerrin, which signifies golden; and by 
