Horace Hayman Wilson, a high authority on all Oriental customs, clearly
alludes in the following lines to the launching of floating lamps by
Hindu females.
Grave in the tide the Brahmin stands,
And folds his cord or twists his hands,
And tells his beads, and all unheard
Mutters a solemn mystic word
With reverence the Sudra dips,
And fervently the current sips,
That to his humbler hope conveys
A future life of happier days.
But chief do India's simple daughters
Assemble in these hallowed waters,
With vase of classic model laden
Like Grecian girl or Tuscan maiden,
Collecting thus their urns to fill
From gushing fount or trickling rill,
And still with pious fervour they
To Gunga veneration pay
And with pretenceless rite prefer,
The wishes of their hearts to her
The maid or matron, as she throws
Champae or lotus, Bel or rose,
Or sends the quivering light afloat
In shallow cup or paper boat,
Prays for a parent's peace and wealth
Prays for a child's success and health,
For a fond husband breathes a prayer,
For progeny their loves to share,
For what of good on earth is given
To lowly life, or hoped in heaven,
H.H.W.
On seeing Miss Carshore's criticism I referred the subject to an
intelligent Hindu friend from whom I received the following answer:--
My dear Sir,
The Beara, strictly speaking, is a Mahomedan festival. Some of
the lower orders of the Hindus of the NW Provinces, who have
borrowed many of their customs from the Mahomedans, celebrate
the Beara. But it is not observed by the Hindus of Bengal, who
have a festival of their own, similar to the Beara. It takes
place on the evening of the Saraswati Poojah, when a small
piece of the bark of the Plantain Tree is fitted out with all
the necessary accompaniments of a boat, and is launched in a
private tank with a lamp. The custom is confined to the women
who follow it in their own house or in the same neighbourhood.
It is called the Sooa Dooa Breta.
Yours truly,
Mrs. Carshore it would seem is partly right and partly wrong. She is
right in calling the Beara a Moslem Festival. It is so; but we have
the testimony of Horace Hayman Wilson to the fact that Hindu maids and
matrons also launch their lamps upon the river. My Hindu friend
acknowledges that his countrymen in the North West Provinces have
borrowed many of their customs from the Mahomedans, and though he is not
aware of it, it may yet be the case, that some of the Hindus of
Bengal, as elsewhere, have done the same, and that they set lamps
afloat upon the stream to discover by their continued burning or sudden
extinction the fate of some absent friend or lover. I find very few
Natives who are able to give me any exact and positive information
concerning their own national customs. In their explanations of such
matters they differ in the most extraordinary manner amongst themselves.
Two most respectable and intelligent Native gentlemen who were proposing
to lay out their grounds under my directions, told me that I must not
cut down a single cocoa-nut tree, as it would be dreadful sacrilege--
equal to cutting the throats of seven brahmins! Another equally
respectable and intelligent Native friend, when I mentioned the fact,
threw himself back in his chair to give vent to a hearty laugh. When he
had recovered himself a little from this risible convulsion he observed
that his father and his grandfather had cut down cocoa-nut trees in
considerable numbers without the slightest remorse or fear. And yet
again, I afterwards heard that one of the richest Hindu families in
Calcutta, rather than suffer so sacred an object to be injured, piously
submit to a very serious inconvenience occasioned by a cocoa-nut tree
standing in the centre of the carriage road that leads to the portico of
their large town palace. I am told that there are other sacred trees
which must not be removed by the hands of Hindus of inferior caste,
though in this case there is a way of getting over the difficulty, for
it is allowable or even meritorious to make presents of these trees to
Brahmins, who cut them down for their own fire-wood. But the cocoa-nut
tree is said to be too sacred even for the axe of a Brahmin.
I have been running away again from my subject;--I was discoursing upon
May-day in England. The season there is still a lovely and a merry one,
though the most picturesque and romantic of its ancient observances, now
live but in the memory of the "oldest inhabitants," or on the page of
history.[055]
See where, amidst the sun and showers,
The Lady of the vernal hours,
Sweet May, comes forth again with all her flowers.
Barry Cornwall.
The May-pole on these days is rarely seen to rise up in English towns
with its proper floral decorations[056]. In remote rural districts a
solitary May-pole is still, however, occasionally discovered. "A May-
pole," says Washington Irving, "gave a glow to my feelings and spread a
charm over the country for the rest of the day: and as I traversed a
part of the fair plains of Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of Wales
and looked from among swelling hills down a long green valley, through
which the Deva wound its wizard stream, my imagination turned all into a
perfect Arcadia. One can readily imagine what a gay scene old London
must have been when the doors were decked with hawthorn; and Robin Hood,
Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, Morris dancers, and all the other fantastic
dancers and revellers were performing their antics about the May-pole in
every part of the city. I value every custom which tends to infuse
poetical feeling into the common people, and to sweeten and soften the
rudeness of rustic manners without destroying their simplicity."
Another American writer--a poet--has expressed his due appreciation of
the pleasures of the season. He thus addresses the merrie month of
MAY.[057]
MAY.
Would that thou couldst laugh for aye,
Merry, ever merry May!
Made of sun gleams, shade and showers
Bursting buds, and breathing flowers,
Dripping locked, and rosy vested,
Violet slippered, rainbow crested;
Girdled with the eglantine,
Festooned with the dewy vine
Merry, ever Merry May,
Would that thou could laugh for aye!
W.D. Gallagher.
I must give a dainty bit of description from the poet of the poets--our
own romantic Spenser.
Then comes fair May, the fayrest mayde on ground,
Decked with all dainties of the season's pryde,
And throwing flowres out of her lap around.
Upon two brethren's shoulders she did ride,
The twins of Leda, which, on eyther side,
Supported her like to their Sovereign queene
Lord! how all creatures laught when her they spide,
And leapt and danced as they had ravisht beene!
And Cupid's self about her fluttred all in greene.
Here are a few lines from Herrick.
Fled are the frosts, and now the fields appeare
Re-clothed in freshe and verdant diaper;
Thawed are the snowes, and now the lusty spring
Gives to each mead a neat enameling,
The palmes[058] put forth their gemmes, and every tree
Now swaggers in her leavy gallantry.
The Queen of May--Lady Flora--was the British representative of the
Heathen Goddess Flora. May still returns and ever will return at her
proper season, with all her bright leaves and fragrant blossoms, but men
cease to make the same use of them as of yore. England is waxing
utilitarian and prosaic.
The poets, let others neglect her as they will, must ever do fitting
observance, in songs as lovely and fresh as the flowers of the hawthorn,
To the lady of the vernal hours.
Poor Keats, who was passionately fond of flowers, and everything
beautiful or romantic or picturesque, complains, with a true poet's
earnestness, that in his day in England there were
No crowds of nymphs, soft-voiced and young and gay
In woven baskets, bringing ears of corn,
Roses and pinks and violets, to adorn
The shrine of Flora in her early May.
The Floral Games--Jeux Floraux--of Toulouse--first celebrated at the
commencement of the fourteenth century, are still kept up annually with
great pomp and spirit. Clemence Isaure, a French lady, bequeathed to the
Academy of Toulouse a large sum of money for the annual celebration of
these games. A sort of College Council is formed, which not only confers
degrees on those poets who do most honor to the Goddess Flora, but
sometimes grants them more substantial favors. In 1324 the poets were
encouraged to compete for a golden violet and a silver eglantine and
pansy. A century later the prizes offered were an amaranthus of gold of
the value of 400 livres, for the best ode, a violet of silver, valued at
250 livres, for an essay in prose, a silver pansy, worth 200 livres, for
an eclogue, elegy or idyl, and a silver lily of the value of sixty
livres, for the best sonnet or hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary,--for
religion is mixed up with merriment, and heathen with Christian rites.
He who gained a prize three times was honored with the title of Doctor
en gaye science, the name given to the poetry of the Provençal
troubadours. A mass, a sermon, and alms-giving, commence the ceremonies.
The French poet, Ronsard who had gained a prize in the floral games, so
delighted Mary Queen of Scots with his verses on the Rose that she
presented him with a silver rose worth £500, with this inscription--"A
Ronsard, l'Apollon de la source des Muses."
At Ghent floral festivals are held twice a year when amateur and
professional florists assemble together and contribute each his share of
flowers to the grand general exhibition which is under the direct
patronage of the public authorities. Honorary medals are awarded to the
possessors of the finest flowers.
The chief floral festival of the Chinese is on their new year's day,
when their rivers are covered with boats laden with flowers, and gay
flags streaming from every mast. Their homes and temples are richly hung
with festoons of flowers. Boughs of the peach and plum trees in blossom,
enkíanthus quinque-flòra, camelias, cockscombs, magnolias, jonquils are
then exposed for sale in all the streets of Canton. Even the Chinese
ladies, who are visible at no other season, are seen on this occasion in
flower-boats on the river or in the public gardens on the shore.
The Italians, it is said, still have artificers called Festaroli,
whose business it is to prepare festoons and garlands. The ancient
Romans were very tasteful in their nosegays and chaplets. Pliny tells us
that the Sicyonians were especially celebrated for the graceful art
exhibited in the arrangement of the varied colors of their garlands, and
he gives us the story of Glycera who, to please her lover Pausias, the
painter of Sicyon, used to send him the most exquisite chaplets of her
own braiding, which he regularly copied on his canvas. He became very
eminent as a flower-painter. The last work of his pencil, and his
master-piece, was a picture of his mistress in the act of arranging a
chaplet. The picture was called the Garland Twiner. It is related that
Antony for some time mistrusting Cleopatra made her taste in the first
instance every thing presented to him at her banquets. One day "the
Serpent of old Nile" after dipping her own coronet of flowers into her
goblet drank up the wine and then directed him to follow her example. He
was off his guard. He dipped his chaplet in his cup. The leaves had been
touched with poison. He was just raising the cup to his lips when she
seized his arm, and said "Cease your jealous doubts, for know, that if
I had desired your death or wished to live without you, I could easily
have destroyed you." The Queen then ordered a prisoner to be brought
into their presence, who being made to drink from the cup, instantly
expired.[059]
Some of the nosegays made up by "flower-girls" in London and its
neighbourhood are sold at such extravagant prices that none but the very
wealthy are in the habit of purchasing them, though sometimes a poor
lover is tempted to present his mistress on a ball-night with a bouquet
that he can purchase only at the cost of a good many more leaves of
bread or substantial meals than he can well spare. He has to make every
day a banian-day for perhaps half a month that his mistress may wear a
nosegay for a few hours. However, a lover is often like a cameleon and
can almost live on air--for a time--"promise-crammed." 'You cannot
feed capons so.'
At Covent Garden Market, (in London) and the first-rate Flower-shops, a
single wreath or nosegay is often made up for the head or hand at a
price that would support a poor labourer and his family for a month. The
colors of the wreaths are artfully arranged, so as to suit different
complexions, and so also as to exhibit the most rare and costly flowers
to the greatest possible advantage.
All true poets
--The sages
Who have left streaks of light athwart their pages--
have contemplated flowers--with a passionate love, an ardent admiration;
none more so than the sweet-souled Shakespeare. They are regarded by the
imaginative as the fairies of the vegetable world--the physical
personifications of etherial beauty. In The Winter's Tale our great
dramatic bard has some delightful floral allusions that cannot be too
often quoted.
Here's flowers for you,
Hot lavender, mint, savory, majoram,
The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age.
O, Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett'st fall
From Dis's waggon! Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty, violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath, pale primroses,
That die unmarried ere they can behold
Great Phoebus in his strength,--a malady
Most incident to maids, bold oxlips and
The crown imperial, lilies of all kinds,
The flower de luce being one
Shakespeare here, as elsewhere, speaks of "pale primroses." The poets
almost always allude to the primrose as a pale and interesting
invalid. Milton tells us of
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose[060]
The poet in the manuscript of his Lycidas had at first made the
primrose "die unwedded," which was a pretty close copy of Shakespeare.
Milton afterwards struck out the word "unwedded," and substituted the
word "forsaken." The reason why the primrose was said to "die
unmarried," is, according to Warton, because it grows in the shade
uncherished or unseen by the sun, who was supposed to be in love with
certain sorts of flowers. Ben Jonson, however, describes the primrose as
a wedded lady--"the Spring's own Spouse"--though she is certainly
more commonly regarded as the daughter of Spring not the wife. J
Fletcher gives her the true parentage:--
Primrose, first born child of Ver
There are some kinds of primroses, that are not pale. There is a
species in Scotland, which is of a deep purple. And even in England (in
some of the northern counties) there is a primrose, the bird's-eye
primrose, (Primula farinosa,) of which the blossom is lilac colored and
the leaves musk-scented.
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