The Works of Sir Thomas Browne Volume III Part 19

[Sidenote: Rubus.]

5. Whether the Bush which burnt and consumed not, were properly a _Rubus_ or Bramble, was somewhat doubtfull from the Original and some Translations, had not the Evangelist, and S. _Paul_ express'd the same by the Greek word B?tos, which from the description of _Dioscorides_, Herbarists accept for _Rubus_; although the same word B?tos expresseth not onely the _Rubus_ or kinds of Bramble, but other Thorn-bushes, and the Hipp-briar is also named ????s?t??, or the Dog-briar or Bramble.

[Sidenote: Myrica. Cant. 1. 14.]

6. That _Myrica_ is rendred, Heath, sounds instructively enough to our ears, who behold that Plant so common in barren Plains among us: But you cannot but take notice that _Erica_, or our Heath is not the same Plant with _Myrica_ or Tammarice, described by _Theophrastus_ and _Dioscorides_, and which _Bellonius_ declareth to grow so plentifully in the Desarts of _Judaea_ and _Arabia_.

[Sidenote: _Cypress._ Cant. 1. 14.]

7. That the ?t??? t?? ??p???, _botrus Cypri_, or Cl.u.s.ters of Cypress, should have any reference to the Cypress Tree, according to the original _Copher_, or Cl.u.s.ters of the n.o.ble Vine of _Cyprus_, which might be planted into _Judaea_, may seem to others allowable in some lat.i.tude. But there seeming some n.o.ble Odour to be implied in this place, you may probably conceive that the expression drives at the ??p??? of _Dioscorides_, some oriental kind of _Ligustrum_ or _Alcharma_, which _Dioscorides_ and _Pliny_ mention under the name of ??p??? and _Cyprus_, and to grow about _aegypt_ and _Ascalon_, producing a sweet and odorate bush of Flowers, and out of which was made the famous _Oleum Cyprinum_.

But why it should be rendred Camphyre your judgment cannot but doubt, who know that our Camphyre was unknown unto the Ancients, and no ingredient into any composition of great Antiquity: that learned men long conceived it a bituminous and fossile Body, and our latest experience discovereth it to be the resinous substance of a Tree, in _Borneo_ and _China_; and that the Camphyre that we use is a neat preparation of the same.

[Sidenote: _s.h.i.+ttah Tree_, etc. Isa. 41. 19.]

8. When 'tis said in _Isaiah 41. I will plant in the wilderness the Cedar, the s.h.i.+ttah Tree, and the Myrtle and the Oil Tree, I will set in the Desart, the Firre Tree, and the Pine, and the Box Tree_: Though some doubt may be made of the s.h.i.+ttah Tree, yet all these Trees here mentioned being such as are ever green, you will more emphatically apprehend the mercifull meaning of G.o.d in this mention of no fading, but always verdant Trees in dry and desart places.

[Sidenote: _Grapes of_ Eshcol. Num. 13. 23.]

9. _And they cut down a Branch with one cl.u.s.ter of Grapes, and they bare it between two upon a Staff, and they brought Pomegranates and Figgs._ This cl.u.s.ter of Grapes brought upon a Staff by the Spies, was an incredible sight, in _Philo Judaeus_,[190] seem'd notable in the eyes of the Israelites, but more wonderfull in our own, who look onely upon Northern Vines. But herein you are like to consider, that the Cl.u.s.ter was thus carefully carried to represent it entire, without bruising or breaking; that this was not one Bunch but an extraordinary Cl.u.s.ter, made up of many depending upon one gross stalk. And however, might be parallel'd with the Eastern Cl.u.s.ters of _Margiana_ and _Caramania_, if we allow but half the expressions of _Pliny_ and _Strabo_, whereof one would lade a Curry or small Cart; and may be made out by the cl.u.s.ters of the Grapes of _Rhodes_ presented unto Duke _Radzivil_[191] each containing three parts of an Ell in compa.s.s, and the Grapes as big as Prunes.

[190] ?p?st?? ??a. Philo.

[191] Radzivil _in his Travels_.

[Sidenote: _Ingred. of holy Perfume._ _Stacte_, etc. Exod. 30.34, 35.]

10. Some things may be doubted in the species of the holy Ointment and Perfume. With Amber, Musk and Civet we meet not in the Scripture, nor any Odours from Animals; except we take the Onycha of that Perfume for the Covercle of a Sh.e.l.l-fish called _Unguis Odoratus_, or _Blatta Byzantina_, which _Dioscorides_ affirmeth to be taken from a Sh.e.l.l-fish of the Indian Lakes, which feeding upon the Aromatical Plants is gathered when the Lakes are drie. But whether that which we now call _Blatta Byzantina_, or _Unguis Odoratus_, be the same with that odorate one of Antiquity, great doubt may be made; since _Dioscorides_ saith it smelled like _Castoreum_, and that which we now have is of an ungratefull odour.

No little doubt may be also made of Galbanum prescribed in the same Perfume, if we take it for Galbanum which is of common use among us, approaching the evil scent of _a.s.sa Ftida_; and not rather for Galbanum of good odour, as the adjoining words declare, and the original _Chelbena_ will bear; which implies a fat or resinous substance, that which is commonly known among us being properly a gummous body and dissoluble also in Water.

The holy Ointment of Stacte or pure Myrrh, distilling from the Plant without expression or firing, of Cinnamon, Ca.s.sia and Calamus, containeth less questionable species, if the Cinnamon of the Ancients were the same with ours, or managed after the same manner. For thereof _Dioscorides_ made his n.o.ble Unguent. And Cinnamon was so highly valued by Princes, that _Cleopatra_ carried it unto her Sepulchre with her Jewels; which was also kept in wooden Boxes among the rarities of Kings: and was of such a lasting nature, that at his composing of Treacle for the Emperor _Severus_, _Galen_ made use of some which had been laid up by _Adria.n.u.s_.

[Sidenote: _Husks eaten by the Prodigal._ Luke 15. 16.]

11. That the Prodigal Son desired _to eat of Husks_ given unto Swine, will hardly pa.s.s in your apprehension for the Husks of Pease, Beans, or such edulious Pulses; as well understanding that the textual word ?e??t??? or _Ceration_, properly intendeth the Fruit of the _Siliqua_ Tree so common in _Syria_, and fed upon by Men and Beasts; called also by some the Fruit of the Locust Tree, and _Panis Sancti Johannis_, as conceiving it to have been part of the Diet of the _Baptist_ in the Desart. The Tree and Fruit is not onely common in _Syria_ and the Eastern parts, but also well known in _Apuglia_, and the Kingdom of _Naples_, growing along the _Via Appia_, from _Fundi_ unto _Mola_; the hard Cods or Husks making a rattling noise in windy weather, by beating against one another: called by the Italians _Carobe_ or _Carobole_, and by the French _Carouges_. With the sweet Pulp hereof some conceive that the Indians preserve Ginger, Mirabolans and Nutmegs. Of the same (as _Pliny_ delivers) the Ancients made one kind of Wine, strongly expressing the Juice thereof; and so they might after give the expressed and less usefull part of the Cods, and remaining Pulp unto their Swine: which being no gustless or unsatisfying Offal, might be well desired by the Prodigal in his hunger.

[Sidenote: _Cuc.u.mbers_ etc. _of_ aegypt.]

12. No marvel it is that the Israelites having lived long in a well watred Country, and been acquainted with the n.o.ble Water of _Nilus_, should complain for Water in the dry and barren Wilderness. More remarkable it seems that they should extoll and linger after the Cuc.u.mbers and Leeks, Onions and Garlick in _aegypt_: wherein notwithstanding lies a pertinent expression of the Diet of that Country in ancient times, even as high as the building of the Pyramids, when _Herodotus_ delivereth, that so many Talents were spent in Onions and Garlick, for the Food of Labourers and Artificers; and is also answerable unto their present plentifull Diet in Cuc.u.mbers, and the great varieties thereof, as testified by _Prosper Alpinus_, who spent many years in _aegypt_.

[Sidenote: _Forbidden Fruit._ Gen. 2. 17. etc.]

13. What Fruit that was which our first Parents tasted in Paradise, from the disputes of learned men seems yet indeterminable. More clear it is that they cover'd their nakedness or secret parts with Figg Leaves; which when I reade, I cannot but call to mind the several considerations which Antiquity had of the Figg Tree, in reference unto those parts, particularly how Figg Leaves by sundry Authours are described to have some resemblance unto the Genitals, and so were aptly formed for such contection of those parts; how also in that famous Statua of _Praxiteles_, concerning _Alexander_ and _Bucephalus_, the Secret Parts are veil'd with Figg Leaves; how this Tree was sacred unto _Priapus_, and how the Diseases of the Secret Parts have derived their Name from Figgs.

[Sidenote: _Balsam. Oil._ Luke 10. 34.]

14. That the good Samaritan coming from _Jericho_ used any of the Judean Balsam upon the wounded Traveller, is not to be made out, and we are unwilling to disparage his charitable Surgery in pouring Oil into a green Wound; and therefore when 'tis said he used Oil and Wine, may rather conceive that he made an _Oinelaeum_ or medicine of Oil and Wine beaten up and mixed together, which was no improper Medicine, and is an Art now lately studied by some so to incorporate Wine and Oil that they may lastingly hold together, which some pretend to have, and call it _Oleum Samaritanum_, or Samaritans Oil.

[Sidenote: _Pulse of_ Daniel. Dan. 1. 12.]

15. When _Daniel_ would not pollute himself with the Diet of the Babylonians, he probably declined Pagan commensation, or to eat of Meats forbidden to the Jews, though common at their Tables, or so much as to taste of their Gentile Immolations, and Sacrifices abominable unto his Palate.

But when 'tis said that he made choice of the Diet of Pulse and Water, whether he strictly confined unto a leguminous Food, according to the Vulgar Translation, some doubt may be raised, from the original word _Zeragnim_, which signifies _Seminalia_, and is so set down in the Margin of _Arias Monta.n.u.s_; and the Greek word _Spermata_, generally expressing Seeds, may signifie any edulious or cerealious Grains besides ?sp??a or leguminous Seeds.

Yet if he strictly made choice of a leguminous Food, and Water instead of his portion from the King's Table, he handsomely declined the Diet which might have been put upon him, and particularly that which was called the _Potibasis_ of the King, which as _Athenaeus_ informeth implied the Bread of the King, made of Barley, and Wheat, and the Wine of _Cyprus_, which he drank in an oval Cup. And therefore distinctly from that he chose plain Fare of Water, and the gross Diet of Pulse, and that perhaps not made into Bread, but parched, and tempered with Water.

Now that herein (beside the special benediction of G.o.d) he made choice of no improper Diet to keep himself fair and plump and so to excuse the Eunuch his Keeper, Physicians will not deny, who acknowledge a very nutritive and impinguating faculty in Pulses, in leguminous Food, and in several sorts of Grains and Corns, is not like to be doubted by such who consider that this was probably a great part of the Food of our Forefathers before the Floud, the Diet also of _Jacob_: and that the Romans (called therefore _Pultif.a.gi_) fed much on Pulse for six hundred years; that they had no Bakers for that time: and their Pistours were such as, before the use of Mills, beat out and cleansed their Corn. As also that the Athletick Diet was of Pulse, _Alphiton_, _Maza_, Barley and Water; whereby they were advantaged sometimes to an exquisite state of health, and such as was not without danger. And therefore though _Daniel_ were no Eunuch, and of a more fatning and thriving temper, as some have phancied, yet was he by this kind of Diet, sufficiently maintained in a fair and carnous state of Body, and accordingly his Picture not improperly drawn, that is, not meagre and lean, like _Jeremy's_, but plump and fair, answerable to the most authentick draught of the _Vatican_, and the late German _Luther's_ Bible.

The Cynicks in _Athenaeus_ make iterated Courses of Lentils, and prefer that Diet before the Luxury of _Seleucus_. The present aegyptians, who are observed by _Alpinus_ to be the fattest Nation, and Men to have b.r.e.a.s.t.s like Women, owe much, as he conceiveth, unto the Water of _Nile_, and their Diet of Rice, Pease, Lentils and white Cicers. The Pulse-eating Cynicks and Stoicks, are all very long livers in _Laertius_. And _Daniel_ must not be accounted of few years, who, being carried away Captive in the Reign of _Joachim_, by King _Nebuchadnezzar_, lived, by Scripture account, unto the first year of _Cyrus_.

[Sidenote: Jacob's _Rods_. Gen. 30. 31.]

16. _And Jacob took Rods of green Poplar, and of the Hazel and the Chesnut Tree, and pilled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the Rods_, etc. Men multiply the Philosophy of _Jacob_, who, beside the benediction of G.o.d, and the powerfull effects of imagination, raised in the Goats and Sheep from pilled and party-coloured objects, conceive that he chose out these particular Plants above any other, because he understood they had a particular virtue unto the intended effects, according unto the conception of _Georgius Venetus_.[192]

[192] G. Venetus _Problem_ 200.

Whereto you will hardly a.s.sent, at least till you be better satisfied and a.s.sured concerning the true species of the Plants intended in the Text, or find a clearer consent and uniformity in the Translation: For what we render Poplar, Hazel and Chesnut, the Greek translateth _Virgam styracinam, nucinam, plataninam_, which some also render a Pomegranate: and so observing this variety of interpretations concerning common and known Plants among us, you may more reasonably doubt, with what propriety or a.s.surance others less known be sometimes rendred unto us.

[Sidenote: _Lilies of the Field._ Matt. 6. 28.]

17. Whether in the Sermon of the Mount, the _Lilies of the Field_ did point at the proper Lilies, or whether those Flowers grew wild in the place where our Saviour preached, some doubt may be made: because ??????

the word in that place is accounted of the same signification with ?e?????, and that in _Homer_ is taken for all manner of specious Flowers: so received by _Eustachius_, _Hesychius_, and the Scholiast upon _Apollonius Rhodius_, ?a????? t? ???? ?e???a ???eta?. And ??????

is also received in the same lat.i.tude, not signifying onely Lilies, but applied unto Daffodils, Hyacinths, Iris's, and the Flowers of _Colocynthis_.

Under the like lat.i.tude of acception, are many expressions in the _Canticles_ to be received. And when it is said _he feedeth among the Lilies_, therein may be also implied other specious Flowers, not excluding the proper Lilies. But in that expression, _the Lilies drop forth Myrrhe_, neither proper Lilies nor proper Myrrhe can be apprehended, the one not proceeding from the other, but may be received in a Metaphorical sense: and in some lat.i.tude may be also made out from the roscid and honey drops observable in the Flowers of Martagon, and inverted flowred Lilies, and, 'tis like, is the standing sweet Dew on the white eyes of the Crown Imperial, now common among us.

And the proper Lily may be intended in that expression of 1 _Kings_ 7.

that the brazen Sea was of the thickness of a hand breadth, and the brim like a Lily. For the figure of that Flower being round at the bottom, and somewhat repandous, or inverted at the top, doth handsomely ill.u.s.trate the comparison.

But that the Lily of the Valley, mention'd in the _Canticles_[SN: Cant.

2.], _I am the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the Valleys_, is that Vegetable which pa.s.seth under the same name with us, that is _Lilium convallium_, or the _May_ Lily, you will more hardly believe, who know with what insatisfaction the most learned Botanists reduce that Plant unto any described by the Ancients; that _Anguillara_ will have it to be the _Oenanthe_ of _Athenaeus_, _Cordus_ the _Pothos_ of _Theophrastus_; and _Lobelius_ that the Greeks had not described it; who find not six Leaves in the Flower agreeably to all Lilies, but onely six small divisions in the Flower, who find it also to have a single, and no bulbous Root, nor Leaves shooting about the bottom, nor the Stalk round, but angular. And that the learned _Bauhinus_ hath not placed it in the Cla.s.sis of Lilies, but nervifolious Plants.

[Sidenote: _Fitches_, _c.u.mmin_, &c. _in_ Isa. 28. 25]

18. _Doth he not cast abroad the Fitches, and scatter the c.u.mmin Seed, and cast in the princ.i.p.al Wheat, and the appointed Barley, and the Rye in their place_: Herein though the sense may hold under the names a.s.signed, yet is it not so easie to determine the particular Seeds and Grains, where the obscure original causeth such differing Translations.

For in the Vulgar we meet with _Milium_ and Gith, which our Translation declineth, placing Fitches for Gith, and Rye for _Milium_ or Millet, which notwithstanding is retained by the Dutch.

That it might be _Melanthium_, _Nigella_, or Gith, may be allowably apprehended, from the frequent use of the Seed thereof among the Jews and other Nations, as also from the Translation of _Tremellius_; and the Original implying a black Seed, which is less than c.u.mmin, as, out of _Aben Ezra_, _Buxtorfius_ hath expounded it.

But whereas _Milium_ or ??????? of the Septuagint is by ours rendred Rye, there is little similitude or affinity between those Grains; For _Milium_ is more agreeable unto _Spelta_ or Espaut, as the Dutch and others still render it.

That we meet so often with c.u.mmin Seed in many parts of Scripture in reference unto _Judaea_, a Seed so abominable at present unto our Palates and Nostrils, will not seem strange unto any who consider the frequent use thereof among the Ancients, not onely in medical but dietetical use and practice: For their Dishes were filled therewith, and the n.o.blest festival preparations in _Apicius_ were not without it: And even in the _Polenta_, and parched Corn, the old Diet of the Romans, (as _Pliny_ recordeth) unto every Measure they mixed a small proportion of Lin-seed and c.u.mmin-seed.

And so c.u.mmin is justly set down among things of vulgar and common use, when it is said in _Matthew_ 23. v. 23. _You pay t.i.the of Mint, Annise and c.u.mmin_: but how to make out the translation of Annise we are still to seek, there being no word in that Text which properly signifieth Annise: the Original being ??????, which the Latins call _Anethum_, and is properly englished Dill.

That among many expressions, allusions and ill.u.s.trations made in Scripture from Corns, there is no mention made of Oats, so usefull a Grain among us, will not seem very strange unto you, till you can clearly discover that it was a Grain of ordinary use in those parts; who may also find that _Theophrastus_, who is large about other Grains, delivers very little of it. That _Dioscorides_ is also very short therein. And _Galen_ delivers that it was of some use in _Asia minor_, especially in _Mysia_, and that rather for Beasts than Men: And _Pliny_ affirmeth that the _Pulticula_ thereof was most in use among the Germans. Yet that the Jews were not without all use of this Grain seems confirmable from the Rabbinical account, who reckon five Grains liable unto their Offerings, whereof the Cake presented might be made; that is, Wheat, Oats, Rye, and two sorts of Barley.

[Sidenote: _Ears of Corn._ Matt. 12. 1.]