I believe this is the 4th time I’ve posted to the blog my “improvisations” on passages from John Gerard’s Herbal. Copied below is the introduction for my initial set of poems submitted in 2017, describing my intent and methodology. Following these introductory remarks are new poems on three spring-flowering bulbs present in the Coe Alumni House Garden: Daffodils, Tulips, and Fritillary.
In 1597 appeared John Gerard’s Historie of Plants, a book that quickly exerted a powerful influence on English gardeners. Despite its many errors–and its unacknowledged appropriation of lengthy passages from other sources–Gerard’s Herbal has endured as one of the great gardening books, primarily due to Thomas Johnson’s edition in 1633. My copy of Gerard’s Herbal, edited by Marcus Woodward and published in 1927, is a substantially condensed and edited version of the Gerard/Johnson folio edition, which stretches beyond 1600 pages. Although Woodward deleted over 80% of the 1633 edition, he claims to have retained the “pure essence” of Gerard’s glorious Elizabethan prose: “No word has been altered, though all that is tedious or gross has been omitted.”
Copied below are several of my verse renditions of Gerard’s portraits of plants. The inspiration for this project came from a writing assignment I occasionally used in my composition courses. I would ask students to transform a prose passage from an academic textbook into a poem. Students were free to rearrange the order of words and phrases, delete unnecessary verbiage, and modify the punctuation, but they were to refrain from adding their own words. The goal was to “find” the poetry in the original text.
Although the assignment certainly did not work with all writers, it would on occasion produce remarkable results–not only producing some interesting poems but also enhancing the students’ appreciation and/or understanding of the original author’s language and meaning. I particularly recall one morning when a student in Honors Composition came to my office, frustrated with all aspects of the assignment. To help her get started with the task, I asked her to choose a passage in her physics textbook that she found difficult to comprehend. Sitting at the computer, I began copying the passage, asking the student to identify key phrases while eliminating whatever seemed of secondary importance. Once we had the important language copied, we began making further deletions while inserting line breaks based on the emerging rhythm of the language. Suddenly the student shouted, “Oh my God, I now see what this paragraph means!”
For my own entertainment--and edification--I’ve attempted a similar approach to Gerard’s Herbal. Using the Woodward edition, I’ve chosen to play with the “histories” of plants that can be found in the Alumni House Garden. My revising rules were similar to what I asked of my students:
• Except for adding the plant’s scientific name, I do not introduce any words, phrases, or information not found in Gerard’s Herbal.
• Although I attempt to retain the underlying structure of Gerard’s text, I often do change the word order and the sequencing of information. For example, Gerard typically provides the various common names for a plant in the middle of his commentary; in my versions, this information is usually moved to the beginning.
• I have retained Gerard’s Elizabethan spelling; however, I frequently amend the punctuation.
While my Gerard poems may be evidence of my lack of originality, I prefer to think of these Gerard riffs as comparable to a jazz musician improvising on old melodies, bringing together an Englishman’s 16th-century understanding of the natural world with an American’s interests and sensibilities. Although I doubt that Gerard (or Johnson) would be impressed with my renditions, I do hope they might appreciate that these versifications were intended as a tribute to a text that has brought me many hours of joy and pleasure. ~Bob
Of Daffodils
The first of the Daffodils,
what with the purple crowne,
small narrow leaves, full of slimie juice.
Among the thicke, fat leaves
riseth up a naked stalke, smooth and hollow, a foot hight,
bearing at the top a faire milke white floure,
growing forth of a hood
such as the flours of onions are wrapped in.
In the midst of the floure a small coronet,
yellowish, bordered with a pleasant purple colour.
The floure in the Spring, from the beginning
of February unto the end of Aprill.
Being past, there followeth a thicke button
containing blacke round seed.
The root is white, bulbous, onion-fashion.
The Daffodils with purple coronets grow wilde
in sundry places, chief in Burgondie
and in Switzerland in medowes.
We have them all & everie one of them
in our London gardens, in great abundance.
In his Eidyl, Theocritus affirmeth
the Daffodils to grow in medowes,
He writeth that the faire Lady Europea
entring with her Nymphs into the medowes
did gather the sweet smelling daffodils:
But when the Girles were come into
The medowes flouring all in sight,
That Wench with these, this Wench with those
Trim floures, themselves did all delight:
She with the Narcisse good in sent,
And she with Hyacinths content.
Galen saith the roots of Narcissus
have such wonderful qualities in drying,
they consound and glew together
very great wounds, gashes, cuts about the veins.
The foot of Narcissus stamped with hony
and applied plaister-wise, it helpeth
the great wrenches of the ancles,
the aches and pains of the joins;
it helpeth them that are burned with fire
and joineth together sinues that are cut in sunder.
Being stamped with the meale of Darnel and hony,
it draweth forth thorns and stubs
out of any part of the body.
Tulipa, the Dalmatian Cap
Tulipa, the Damatian Cap, a strange and forrein bulbed floure.
The Tulipa of Bolonia hath fat thicke and grosse leaves,
hollow, furrowed or channelled, bended a little backward,
at first coming up a reddish colour,
and being throughly growne turne into a whitish greene.
In the midst of those leaves riseth up
a naked fat stalke a foot high,
on the top whereof standeth one or two yellow floures,
sometimes three or more, consisting of six smal leaves.
Another of greater beautie, very much desired of all,
with white floures dasht on the backside
with a light wash of watchet colour.
After some few days floured, the points and brims
turn backward, like a Dalmatian or Tukish Cap.
The threds in the middle of the floure be sometimes yellow,
otherwhiles blackish or purplish, Nature seeming to play
more with this floure than with any other.
Of a reasonable pleasant smell, this flour common
in all the English gardens of such as affect floures.
They floure from the end of February
unto the beginning of May, and somewhat after.
Tulipa groweth wilde in Thracia, Cappadocia, and Italy,
in Bizantia and at Tripolis and Aleppo in Syria.
The roots preserved with sugar may be eaten
and are no unpleasant nor any way offensive meat,
but rather good and nourishing.
I do thinke these are the Lillies of the field
mentioned by our Saviour, for he said,
“That Solomon in all his royaltie was not arrayed like one of these.”
Their floures resemble Lillies and in these places
where our Savious was conversant they grow wilde in the fields,
floures of infinite varietie of colour and wondrous beautie.
The Turkie or Ginny-hen Floure
The Checquered Daffodill , the Ginny-hen Floure,
small narrow grassie leaves, among which there riseth up
a stalke three hands light, having at the top
one or two floures, sometimes three,
with six small leaves checquered most strangely,
the Creator surpassing–as in all other things–
the curiousest painting that Art can set down.
One square is a greenish yellow, the other purple,
keeping the same order on the floure’s backside and inside,
although they are black in one square, a Violet in an other.
A second Checquered Daffodill hath a floure dasht over
with a light purple and is somewhat greater than the other.
Every leafe seemeth to be the feather of a Ginny hen.
The root is small, white, the bigness of halfe a garden beane.
The Ginny hen floure called Dodonaus and Flos Meleagris
and Lilio-narcissus variegate, for it hath
the floure of a Lilly and the root of Narcissue.
It has been called Fritillaria, of the table
upon which men play at Chesse,
which square checkers the floure doth much resemble.
In English we may call it Turkey-hen
or Ginny-hen Floure, and also
Checquered Daffodill and Fritillarie.
Of the faculties of these pleasant floures
there is nothing set downe in the antient or later Writers,
but they are greatly esteemed for the beautifying of our gardens,
and the bosoms of the beautiful.