In 2017 and 2018 I posted several poems that adapted passages describing flowers and vegetables in John Gerard’s Herbal, edited by Thomas Johnson and published in 1633. This blog posting offers four more of these free verse adaptations, resurrecting Gerard’s portrayal of Daffodils, Tulips, Fritillaries, and Fleur-de-lis. Although my verse condenses and rearranges Gerard and Johnson’s 17th-century text, all the words and phrasing–including the spellings–are taken directly from the original passages. I would hope my versifications manage to accentuate Gerard’s enchanting celebrations of plants and gardens, the “bosoms of the beautiful.” ~Bob
Of the Floure de-luce
There be many kinds of Iris or Floure de-luce,
some tall and great, some little, small, and low;
some smell exceeding sweet in the root, some not smell at all.
Some floures are sweet in smell, and some without:
some of one color, some of many colours mixed:
vertues attributed to some, others not remembred.
Some have tuberous or knobby roots, others bulbous or Onion;
some have leaves like flags, others like grasse or rushes.
The common Floure de-luce hath long, large, flaggy leaves
like the blade of a sword with two edges,
amongst which spring up smooth and plaine stalks,
bearing floures compact of six leaves joyned together.
The roots be thicke, long, and knobby, with many hair threds.
The water Floure de-luce, or water Flag, or Acorus,
is like the garden Floure de-luce, but the leaves
are narrower, longer, sometimes the height of foure cubits.
The floure is of a perfect yellow, the root knobby like the other;
but being cut, it seems to be the colour of raw flesh.
The water Floure de-luce prospereth well in moist medowes,
and in the borders and brinks of Rivers, ponds, standing lakes.
Although a watery plant of nature, yet being planted
in gardens it prospereth well.
The root of the common Floure de-luce cleane washed,
and stamped with a few drops of Rose-water,
and laid plaisterwise upon the face of man or woman,
doth in two daies at the most take away
the blackness or blewness of any stroke or bruse:
if the skinne of any person be tender and delicate,
it shall be needfull that ye lay a piece of silke, sindall, or fine laune
betweene the plaister and the skinne; otherwise in such tender bodies
it often causeth heat and inflammation.
Of Daffodils
The first of the Daffodils, with the purple crowne,
small narrow leaves, thicke, fat, full of slimie juice,
among which riseth up a naked stalke smooth and hollow,
a foot high, bearing a faire milke white floure
growing forth of a hood such as onion flours are wrapped in.
In the floure is a small coronet, yellowish, bordered
about the edge with a pleasant, purple ring.
There followeth a thicke knob wherein is contained
the blacke round seed.
The root is white, bulbous, Onion-fashion.
The second kind of Daffodill is that Primrose peerelesse
most common in our country gardens, knowne everie where,
the floure of a yellowish white color,
with a yellow crowne in the middle,
floureth in the moneth of Aprill, sometimes sooner.
The Daffodils with purple coronets grow wilde in sundry places,
chiefly in Burgondie, and in meadowes in Suitzerland.
Theocritus affirmeth the Daffodils grow in medowes.
In his 19 Eidyl he writeth that the faire Lady Europe
entering with her Nymphs into the medowes,
did gather the sweet smelling daffodils, which we may English thus:
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.
The common wilde Daffodill groweth wilde in fields
and sides of woods in the West parts of England.
Galen saith that the roots of Narcissus
have such wonderful qualities in drying, that they consound
and glew together very great wounds,
and such gashes or cuts as happen about the veins,
sinues, and tendons. They have a certaine cleansing facultie.
The root of Narcissus stamped with hony and applied plaisterwise,
helpeth them that are burned with fire,
and joineth together sinues cut in sunder.
Being used in manner aforesaid, it helpeth
the great wrenches of the ancles, the aches and pains of the joints.
The same applied with hony and nettle seed helpeth Sun burning.
Being stamped with the meale of Darnel and hony,
it draweth forth thorns and stubs out of any part of the body.
[The complete set of four poems can be accessed by clicking on this link to Four Gerard Poems, September 2020.]