Proserpina, Volume 1. Ruskin John

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СКАЧАТЬ leaves, and of wild creatures, nurse of the snow, darling of Diana," (Phœnissæ, 801)). How wild the climate of this pine region is, you may judge from the pieces in the note below22 out of Colonel Leake's diary in crossing the Mænalian range in spring. And then, lastly, you have the laurel and vine region, full of sweetness and Elysian beauty.

      28. Now as Mercury is the ruling power of the hill enchantment, so Daphne of the leafy peace. She is, in her first life, the daughter of the mountain river, the mist of it filling the valley; the Sun, pursuing, and effacing it, from dell to dell, is, literally, Apollo pursuing Daphne, and adverse to her; (not, as in the earlier tradition, the Sun pursuing only his own light). Daphne, thus hunted, cries to her mother, the Earth, which opens, and receives her, causing the laurel to spring up in her stead. That is to say, wherever the rocks protect the mist from the sunbeam, and suffer it to water the earth, there the laurel and other richest vegetation fill the hollows, giving a better glory to the sun itself. For sunshine, on the torrent spray, on the grass of its valley, and entangled among the laurel stems, or glancing from their leaves, became a thousandfold lovelier and more sacred than the same sunbeams, burning on the leafless mountain-side.

      And farther, the leaf, in its connection with the river, is typically expressive, not, as the flower was, of human fading and passing away, but of the perpetual flow and renewal of human mind and thought, rising "like the rivers that run among the hills"; therefore it was that the youth of Greece sacrificed their hair—the sign of their continually renewed strength,—to the rivers, and to Apollo. Therefore, to commemorate Apollo's own chief victory over death—over Python, the corrupter,—a laurel branch was gathered every ninth year in the vale of Tempe; and the laurel leaf became the reward or crown of all beneficent and enduring work of man—work of inspiration, born of the strength of the earth, and of the dew of heaven, and which can never pass away.

      29. You may doubt at first, even because of its grace, this meaning in the fable of Apollo and Daphne; you will not doubt it, however, when you trace it back to its first eastern origin. When we speak carelessly of the traditions respecting the Garden of Eden, (or in Hebrew, remember, Garden of Delight,) we are apt to confuse Milton's descriptions with those in the book of Genesis. Milton fills his Paradise with flowers; but no flowers are spoken of in Genesis. We may indeed conclude that in speaking of every herb of the field, flowers are included. But they are not named. The things that are named in the Garden of Delight are trees only.

      The words are, "every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food;" and as if to mark the idea more strongly for us in the Septuagint, even the ordinary Greek word for tree is not used, but the word ξυλον,—literally, every 'wood,' every piece of timber that was pleasant or good. They are indeed the "vivi travi,"—living rafters, of Dante's Apennine.

      Do you remember how those trees were said to be watered? Not by the four rivers only. The rivers could not supply the place of rain. No rivers do; for in truth they are the refuse of rain. No storm-clouds were there, nor hidings of the blue by darkening veil; but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the face of the ground,—or, as in Septuagint and Vulgate, "There went forth a fountain from the earth, and gave the earth to drink."

      30. And now, lastly, we continually think of that Garden of Delight, as if it existed, or could exist, no longer; wholly forgetting that it is spoken of in Scripture as perpetually existent; and some of its fairest trees as existent also, or only recently destroyed. When Ezekiel is describing to Pharaoh the greatness of the Assyrians, do you remember what image he gives of them? "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches; and his top was among the thick boughs; the waters nourished him, and the deep brought him up, with her rivers running round about his plants. Under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young; and under his shadow dwelt all great nations."

      31. Now hear what follows. "The cedars in the Garden of God could not hide him. The fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the Garden of God was like unto him in beauty."

      So that you see, whenever a nation rises into consistent, vital, and, through many generations, enduring power, there is still the Garden of God; still it is the water of life which feeds the roots of it; and still the succession of its people is imaged by the perennial leafage of trees of Paradise. Could this be said of Assyria, and shall it not be said of England? How much more, of lives such as ours should be,—just, laborious, united in aim, beneficent in fulfilment, may the image be used of the leaves of the trees of Eden! Other symbols have been given often to show the evanescence and slightness of our lives—the foam upon the water, the grass on the housetop, the vapour that vanishes away; yet none of these are images of true human life. That life, when it is real, is not evanescent; is not slight; does not vanish away. Every noble life leaves the fibre of it interwoven for ever in the work of the world; by so much, evermore, the strength of the human race has gained; more stubborn in the root, higher towards heaven in the branch; and, "as a teil tree, and as an oak,—whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves,—so the holy seed is in the midst thereof."

      32. Only remember on what conditions. In the great Psalm of life, we are told that everything that a man doeth shall prosper, so only that he delight in the law of his God, that he hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor sat in the seat of the scornful. Is it among these leaves of the perpetual Spring,—helpful leaves for the healing of the nations,—that we mean to have our part and place, or rather among the "brown skeletons of leaves that lag, the forest brook along"? For other leaves there are, and other streams that water them,—not water of life, but water of Acheron. Autumnal leaves there are that strew the brooks, in Vallombrosa. Remember you how the name of the place was changed: "Once called 'Sweet water' (Aqua bella), now, the Shadowy Vale." Portion in one or other name we must choose, all of us,—with the living olive, by the living fountains of waters, or with the wild fig trees, whose leafage of human soul is strewed along the brooks of death, in the eternal Vallombrosa.

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      At least, it throws off its flowers on each side in a bewilderingly pretty way; a real lily can't branch, I believe: but, if not, what is the use of the botanical books saying "on an unbranched stem"?

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      I have by happy chance just added to my Oxford library the poet Gray's copy of Linnæus, with its exquisitely written Latin notes, exemplary alike to scholar and naturalist.

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      It was in the year 1860, in June.

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