wherein one may occasionally find a popular or traditional symbol; but,
as a rule, these expressions are generally the wild fancies of the author
himself." Hence, in dealing with plant language, one is confronted with a
host of handbooks, many of which are not only inaccurate, but
misleading. But in enumerating the recognised and well-known plants
that have acquired a figurative meaning, it will be found that in a variety
of cases this may be traced to their connection with some particular
event in years past, and not to some chance or caprice, as some would
make us believe. The amaranth, for instance, which is the emblem of
immortality, received its name, "never-fading," from the Greeks on
account of the lasting nature of its blossoms. Accordingly, Milton crowns
with amaranth the angelic multitude assembled before the Deity:--
"To the ground,
With solemn adoration, down they cast
Their crowns, inwove with amaranth and gold.
Immortal amaranth, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon, for man's offence,
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows
And flowers aloft, shading the font of life," &c.
And in some parts of the Continent churches are adorned at
Christmas-tide with the amaranth, as a symbol "of that immortality to
which their faith bids them look."
Grass, from its many beneficial qualities, has been made the emblem
of usefulness; and the ivy, from its persistent habit of clinging to the
heaviest support, has been universally adopted as the symbol of
confiding love and fidelity. Growing rapidly, it iron clasps:--
"The fissured stone with its entwining arms,
And embowers with leaves for ever green,
And berries dark."
According to a Cornish tradition, the beautiful Iseult, unable to
endure the loss of her betrothed--the brave Tristran--died of a broken
heart, and was buried in the same church, but, by order of the king, the
two graves were placed at a distance from each other. Soon, however,
there burst forth from the tomb of Tristran a branch of ivy, and another
from the grave of Iseult; these shoots gradually growing upwards, until
at last the lovers, represented by the clinging ivy, were again united
beneath the vaulted roof of heaven.[2]