Tabesne cadavera solvat
An rogus baud refert.54
The Garden of Cyrus
[The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincunciall, Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Considered, was first published jointly with Hydriotaphia in 1658. See also the discussion above, pp. 40 ff.; and for further bibliographical details: below, p. 554.]
TO MY WORTHY AND HONORED FRIEND
NICHOLAS BACON
OF GILLINGHAM ESQUIRE.1
Had I not observed that Purblinde men have discoursed well of sight, and some without issue, excellently of Generation;2 I that was never master of any considerable garden, had not attempted this Subject. But the Earth is the Garden of Nature, and each fruitfull Countrey a Paradise. Dioscorides made most of his Observations in his march about with Antonius; and Theophrastus raised his generalities chiefly from the field.
Beside we write no Herball, nor can this Volume deceive you, who have handled the massiest thereof: who know that three Folio’s are yet too little, and how New Herbals fly from America upon us, from persevering Enquirers, and old in those singularities, we expect such Descriptions.3 Wherein England is now so exact, that ityeelds not to other Countreys.4
We pretend not to multiply vegetable divisions by Quincuncial and Reticulate5 plants; or erect a new Phytology.6 The Field of knowledge hath been so traced, it is hard to spring any thing new. Of old things we write something new, If truth may receive addition, or envy will have any thing new; since the Ancients knew the late Anatomicall discoveries, and Hippocrates the Circulation.7
You have been so long out of trite learning, that ’tis hard to finde a subject proper for you; and if you have met with a Sheet upon this, we have missed our intention. In this multiplicity of writing, bye and barren Themes are best fitted for invention; Subjects so often discoursed confine the Imagination, and fix our conceptions unto the notions of fore-writers. Beside, such Discourses allow excursions, and venially admit of collaterall truths, though at some distance from their principals. Wherein if we sometimes take wide liberty, we are not single, but erre by great example.8
He that will illustrate the excellency of this order, may easily fail upon so spruce a Subject, wherein we have not affrighted the common Reader with any other Diagramms, then of it self;9 and have industriously declined illustrations from rare and unknown plants.
Your discerning judgement so well acquainted with that study, will expect herein no mathematicall truths, as well understanding how few generalities and U finita’s10 there are in nature. How Scaliger hath found exceptions in most Universals of Aristotle and Theophrastus. How Botanicall Maximes must have fair allowance, and are intolerably currant,11 if not intolerably over-ballanced by exceptions.
You have wisely ordered your vegetable delights, beyond the reach of exception. The Turks who passt their dayes in Gardens here, will have Gardens also hereafter, and delighting in Flowers on earth, must have Lillies and Roses in Heaven. In Garden Delights ’tis not easie to hold a Mediocrity; that insinuatingpleasure is seldome without some extremity. The Antients venially delighted in flourishing Gardens; Many were Florists that knew not the true use of a Flower; And in Plinies dayes none had directly treated of that Subject. Some commendably affected Plantations of venemous Vegetables,12 some confined their delights unto single plants, and Cato seemed to dote upon Cabbage; While the Ingenuous delight of Tulipists, stands saluted with hard language, even by their own Professors.13
That in this Garden Discourse, we range into extraneous things, and many parts of Art and Nature, we follow herein the example of old and new Plantations, wherein noble spirits contented not themselves with Trees, but by the attendance of Aviaries, Fish Ponds, and all variety of Animals, they made their gardens the Epitome of the earth, and some resemblance of the secular shows of old.
That we conjoyn these parts of different Subjects, or that this should succeed the other; Your judgement will admit without impute of incongruity; Since the delightfull World comes after death, and Paradise succeeds the Grave.14 Since the verdant state of things is the Symbole of the Resurrection, and to flourish in the state of Glory, we must first be sown in corruption.15 Beside the antient practise of Noble Persons, to conclude in Garden-Graves, and Urnes themselves of old, to be wrapt up in flowers and garlands.
Nullum sine venia placuisse eloquium,16 is more sensibly understood by Writers, then by Readers; nor well apprehended by either, till works have hanged out like Apelles his Pictures;17 wherein even common eyes will finde something for emendation.
To wish all Readers of your abilities, were unreasonably to multiply the number of Scholars beyond the temper of these times. But unto this ill-judging age, we charitably desire a portion of your equity, judgement, candour, and ingenuity; wherein you are so rich, as not to lose by diffusion. And being a flourishing branch of that Noble Family,18 unto which we owe so much observance, you are not new set, but long rooted in such perfection; whereof having had so lasting confirmation in your worthy conversation, constant amity, and expression; and knowing you a serious Student in the highest arcana’s of Nature; with much excuse we bring these low delights, and poor maniples19 to your Treasure.
Norwich May 1.
[1658]
Your affectionate Friend
and Servant,
THOMAS BROWNE
[See p. 320, note 9]
THE GARDEN OF CYRUS
OR,
THE QUINCUNCIALL, LOZENGE, OR NET-WORK PLANTATIONS OF THE ANCIENTS, ARTIFICIALLY, NATURALLY, MYSTICALLY CONSIDERED
CHAPTER I1
That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile Theology, may passe for no blinde apprehension of the Creation of the Sunne and Moon, in the work of the fourth day; When the diffused light contracted into Orbes, and shooting rayes, of those Luminaries.2 Plainer Descriptions there are from Pagan pens, of the creatures of the fourth day; While the divine Philosopher unhappily omitteth the noblest part of the third;3 And Ovid (whom many conceive to have borrowed his description from Moses) coldly deserting the remarkable account of the text, in three words,4 describeth this work of the third day; the vegetable creation, and first ornamentall Scene of nature; the primitive food of animals, and first story of Physick,5 in Dietetical conservation.
For though Physick may pleade high, from that medicall act of God, in casting so deep a sleep upon our first Parent; And Chirurgery6 finde its whole art, in that one passage concerning the Rib of Adam, yet is there no rivality with7 Garden contrivance and Herbery. For if Paradise were planted the third day of the Creation, as wiser Divinity concludeth, the Nativity thereof was too early for Horoscopie; Gardens were before Gardiners, and but some hours after the earth.8
Of deeper doubt is its Topography, and locall designation, yet being the primitive garden, and without much controversie seated in the East;9 it is more then probable the first curiosity, and cultivation of plants, most flourished in those quarters. And since the Ark of Noah first toucht upon some mountains of Armenia,10 the planting art arose again in the East, and found its revolution not far from the place of its Nativity, about the Plains of those Regions. And if Zoroaster were either Cham, Chus, or Mizraim, they were early proficients therein, who left (as Pliny delivereth) a work of Agriculture.11
However the account of the Pensill or hanging gardens of Babylon, if made by Semiramis, the third or fourth from Nimrod, is of no slender antiquity; which being not framed upon ordinary levell of ground, but raised upon pillars, admitting under-passages, we cannot accept as the first Babylonian Gardens; But a more eminent progress and advancement in that art, then any that went before it: Somewhat answering or hinting the old Opinion concerning Paradise it self, with many conceptions12 elevated, above the plane of the Earth.
Nebuchodonosor whom some will have to be the famous Syrian King of Diodorus, beautifully repaired that City; and so magnificently built his hanging gardens; that from succeeding Writer
s he had the honour of the first.13 From whence overlooking Babylon, and all the Region about it, he found no circumscription to the eye of his ambition, till over-delighted with the bravery of this Paradise; in his melancholy metamorphosis,14 he found the folly of that delight, and a proper punishment, in the contrary habitation, in wilde plantations and wandrings of the fields.
The Persian Gallants who destroyed this Monarchy, maintained their Botanicall bravery. Unto whom we owe the very name of Paradise: 15 wherewith we meet not in Scripture before the time of Solomon, and conceived originally Persian. The word for that disputed Garden, expressing in the Hebrew no more then a Field enclosed, which from the same Root is content to derive a garden and a Buckler.
Cyrus the elder brought up in Woods and Mountains, when time and power enabled, pursued the dictate of his education, and brought the treasures of the field into rule and circumscription. So nobly beautifying the hanging Gardens of Babylon, that he was also thought to be the authour thereof.
Ahasuerus (whom many conceive to have been Artaxerxes Longi-manus) in the Countrey and City of Flowers,16 and in an open Garden, entertained his Princes and people, while Vasthi more modestly treated the Ladies within the Palace thereof.
But if (as some opinion) King Ahasuerus were Artaxerxes Mnemon, that found a life and reign answerable unto his great memory, our magnified Cyrus was his second17 Brother: who gave the occasion of that memorable work, and almost miraculous retrait of Xenophon.18 A person of high spirit and honour, naturally a King, though fatally prevented by the harmlesse chance of post-geniture: Not only a Lord of Gardens, but a manuall planter thereof: disposing his trees like his armies in regular ordination.19 So that while old Laertas hath found a name in Homer for pruning hedges, and clearing away thorns and bryars;20 while King Attalus lives for his poysonous plantations of Aconites, Henbane, Hellebore, and plants hardly admitted within the walls of Paradise;21 While many of the Ancients do poorly live in the single names of Vegetables;22 All stories do look upon Cyrus, as the splendid and regular planter.
According whereto Xenophon describeth his gallant plantation at Sardis, thus rendred by Strebæus. Arbores pari intervallo sitas, rectos ordines, & omnia perpulchre in Quincuncem directa.23 Which we shall take for granted as being accordingly rendred by the most elegant of the Latines;24 and by no made term, but in use before by Varro. That is the rows and orders so handsomly disposed; or five trees so set together, that a regular angularity, and through prospect, was left on every side, Owing this name not only unto the Quintuple number of Trees, but the figure declaring that number. Which being doubled at the angle, makes up the Letter x, that is the Emphaticall decussation,25 or fundamentall figure.
Now though in some ancient and modern practice the area or decussated plot, might be a perfect square, answerable to a Tuscan Pedestall,26 and the Quinquernio or Cinque-point of a dye; wherein by Diagonall lines the intersection was rectangular;27 accomodable unto Plantations of large growing Trees; and we must not deny our selves the advantage of this order; yet shall we chiefly insist upon that of Curtius and Porta,28 in their brief description hereof. Wherein the decussis is made within a longilaterall square,29 with opposite angles, acute and obtuse at the intersection; and so upon progression making a Rhombus or Lozenge figuration, which seemeth very agreeable unto the Originall figure; Answerable whereunto we observe the decussated characters in many consulary Coynes, and even in those of Constantine and his Sons, which pretend their pattern in the Sky;30 the crucigerous Ensigne carried this figure, not transversly or rectangularly intersected, but in a decussation, after the form of an Andrean or Burgundian cross,31 which answereth this description.
Whereby the way we shall decline the old Theme, so traced by antiquity of crosses and crucifixion: Whereof some being right,32 and of one single peece without traversion or transome,33 do little advantage our subject. Nor shall we take in the mysticall Tau, or the Crosse of our blessed Saviour,34 which having in some descriptions an Empedon35 or crossing foot-stay, made not one single transversion. And since the Learned Lipsius hath made some doubt even of the Crosse of St Andrew, since some Martyrologicall Histories deliver his death by the generall Name of a crosse, and Hippolitus will have him suffer by the sword; we should have enough to make out the received Crosse of that Martyr. Nor shall we urge the labarum, and famous Standard of Constantine, or make further use thereof, then as the first Letters in the Name of our Saviour Christ,36 in use among Christians, before the dayes of Constantine, to be observed in Sepulchral Monuments of Martyrs,37 in the Reign of Adrian, and Antoninus; and to be found in the Antiquities of the Gentiles, before the advent of Christ, as in the Medall of King Ρto-lomy, signed with the same characters, and might be the beginning of some word or name, which Antiquaries have not hit on.
We will not revive the mysterious crosses of Ægypt, with circles on their heads, in the breast of Serapis, and the hands of their Geniall spirits, not unlike the characters of Venus,38 and looked on by ancient Christians, with relation unto Christ. Since however they first began, the Ægyptians thereby expressed the processe and motion of the spirit of the world, and the diffusion thereof upon the Celestiall and Elementall nature; implyed by a circle and right-lined intersection. A secret in their Telesmes39 and magicall Characters among them. Though he that considereth the plain crosse40 upon the head of the Owl in the Laterane Obelisk, or the crosse erected upon a picher diffusing streams of water into two basins, with sprinkling branches in them, and all described upon a two-footed Altar, as in the Hieroglyphicks of the brazen Table of Bembus;41 will hardly decline all thought of Christian signality in them.
We shall not call in the Hebrew Tenupha, or ceremony of their Oblations, waved by the Priest unto the four quarters of the world, after the form of a cross;42 as in the peace-offerings. And if it were clearly made out what is remarkably delivered from the Traditions of the Rabbins, that as the Oyle was powred coronally or circularlly upon the head of Kings, so the High-Priest was anointed decussatively or in the form of a X; though it could not escape a typicall thought43 of Christ, from mysticall considerators; yet being the conceit is Hebrew, we should rather expect its verification from Analogy in that language, then to confine the same unto the unconcerned Letters of Greece, or make it out by the characters of Cadmus or Palamedes.
Of this Quincunciall Ordination the Ancients practised much discoursed little; and the Moderns have nothing enlarged; which he that more nearly considereth, in the form of its square Rhombus, and decussation, with the severall commodities, mysteries, parallelismes, and resemblances, both in Art and Nature, shall easily discern the elegancy of this order.
That this was in some wayes of practice in diverse and distant Nations, hints or deliveries there are from no slender Antiquity. In the hanging Gardens of Babylon, from Abydenus, Eusebius, and others, Curtius describeth this Rule of decussation.44 In the memorable Garden of Alcinous anciently conceived an originall phancy, from Paradise, mention there is of well contrived order; For so hath Didymus and Eustathius expounded the emphatical word.45 Diomedes describing the Rurall possessions of his father, gives account in the same Language of Trees orderly planted.46 And Ulysses being a boy was promised by his Father fourty Figge-trees, and fifty rows of Vines producing all kinde of grapes.47
That the Eastern Inhabitants of India, made use of such order, even in open Plantations, is deducible from Theophrastus; who describing the trees whereof they made their garments, plainly delivereth that they were planted κ’ ρχονς,48 and in such order that at a distance men would mistake them for Vineyards. The same seems confirmed in Greece from a singular expression in Aristotle49 concerning the order of Vines, delivered by a military term representing the orders of Souldiers, which also confirmeth the antiquity of this form yet used in vineall plantations.
That the same was used in Latine plantations is plainly confirmed from the commending penne of Varro, Quintilian, and handsome Description of Virgil.50
That the first Plantations not long after
the Floud were disposed after this manner, the generality and antiquity of this order observed in Vineyards, and Wine plantations, affordeth some conjecture. And since from judicious enquiry, Saturn who divided the world between his three sonnes, who beareth a Sickle in his hand, who taught the plantations of Vines, the setting, grafting of trees, and the best part of Agriculture, is discovered to be Noah,51 whether this early dispersed Husbandry in Vineyards, had not its Originall in that Patriarch, is no such Paralogicall52 doubt.
And if it were clear that this was used by Noah after the Floud, I could easily beleeve it was in use before it; Not willing to fix [to] such ancient inventions no higher originall then Noah; Nor readily conceiving those aged Heroes, whose diet was vegetable, and only, or chiefly consisted in the fruits of the earth, were much deficient in their splendid cultivations; or after the experience of fifteen hundred years, left much for future discovery in Botanicall Agriculture. Nor fully perswaded that Wine was the invention of Noah, that fermented Liquors, which often make themselves, so long escaped their Luxury or experience; that the first sinne of the new world53 was no sin of the old. That Cain and Abel were the first that offered Sacrifice; or because the Scripture is silent that Adam or Isaac offered none at all.
Whether Abraham brought up in the first planting Countrey, observed not some rule hereof, when he planted a grove at Beer-sheba; or whether at least a like ordination were not in the Garden of Solomon,54 probability may contest. Answerably unto the wisedom of that eminent Botanologer,55 and orderly disposer of all his other works. Especially since this was one peece of Gallantry, wherein he pursued the specious56 part of felicity, according to his own description.57 I made me Gardens and Orchards, and planted Trees in them of all kindes of fruit. I made me Pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth Trees, which was no ordinary plantation, if according to the Targam, or Chaldee Paraphrase, it contained all kindes of Plants, and some fetched as far as India; And the extent thereof were from the wall of Jerusalem unto the water of Siloah.58
The Major Works (English Library) Page 29