298 i Flora Unveiled
It seems unlikely that Catullus’s poem represents an isolated instance in late antiquity
of the use of “deflower” to denote loss of virginity. The earliest known use of “deflower”
in English occurred in 1393, in John Wyclif ’s Bible: “The lust of the gelding deflourede the
{ygh}unge woman” (Ecclesiasticus 20:2).^22 The phrase rose brechen (“picking a rose”) is the
medieval German equivalent of the English word “deflower.” ^23
A related metaphor is the term “flowers” used to denote menstruation in the medical
literature of the Middle Ages. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest
known usage of “flowers” in this sense occurred in 1400: “A woman schal in the harme
blede For stoppyng of hure flowrys.”^24 The English term “flowrys” (flowers) comes from the
French word, fleurs, which was derived from the Old French word for flower: flor or flour.
French scholars believe that the word fleurs, meaning “menses,” originally arose as a cor-
ruption of the word flueur, meaning “flow.” The use of the term “flowers” for menstruation
continued up until at least the mid- eighteenth century in England.
How Eve’s Apple Became EvilThe domestic sweet apple, Malus pumila, a member of the Rose family, is the most iconic
fruit in the Western world. Villages, private residences, and families are named after it.
“Apple” is even assimilated into the names of other fruits and vegetables such as pineapple
and star apple in English, and, in Romance languages (based on the name that derives from
Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees and gardens), pomme de terre, or apple of the
earth (French for potato); pomodoro, or golden apple (Italian for tomato); and pomegranate,
or apple with many seeds.^25
Wherever the apple spread, it was either lionized or demonized in literature, art, music,
mythology, and philosophy. In Classical antiquity, myth surrounded it with themes of
immortality, sexuality, or deception— or all three. For example, Hera, goddess of marriage,
received her golden apples, which conferred immortality on anyone who ate them, as a wed-
ding present from the earth goddess Gaia. In the Judgment of Paris, the Apple of Discord
awarded to Aphrodite as a prize for beauty led to the Trojan War when Paris seized Helen,
the wife of Menalaus. Atalanta, a sworn virgin, was betrayed into marriage by Aphrodite’s
magic apples. Elsewhere, like Hera’s apples, the apples of Freya (or Idun) goddess of love,
lust, and beauty in Norse mythology also conferred immortality. The mythological history
of apples is highly fraught.
Much of the apple’s notoriety in the West arose from its identification in the Middle
Ages with the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden. However, the identity of the “Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil” is never given in the Bible, and the Bible’s area of origin
is for the most part too hot and dry for apple cultivation. Other instances in the Bible
where the apple is mentioned by name, such as the “Song of Songs,” are now considered
to be mistranslations of the Hebrew word tappuah. Plausible candidates for the fruit of
tappuah include quince and pomegranate, both of which were well- attested in the ancient
Near East.
Whether or not the apples of Eden were actually quinces, how did the domesticated
sweet apple come to be associated with the biblical forbidden fruit? During the Middle
Ages, etymology was often used to discern the hidden meanings of words. Isidore of Seville