Fig

“ Such, I think, is the nature of the fig in general, but the kind that grows with us is much better than others; so that in proportion as the fig is more valuable than other plants, our fig is more admirable than the fig in general ”

“ And then the fig has kept her secret long enough.
So it explodes, and you see through the fissure the scarlet.
And the fig is finished, the year is over.
That’s how the fig dies, showing her crimson through the purple slit
Like a wound, the exposure of her secret, on the open day.
Like a prostitute, the bursten fig, making a show of her secret.
That’s how women die too.
The year is fallen over-ripe,
The year of our women.
The year of our women is fallen over-ripe. ”

“ It may have struck the reader as singular that those who eat of the forbidden figs are punished by the visit of a beautiful girl who whirls around with a buzzing sound till they are overcome by awe. Here be it noted first of all, that the fig, like the pear, is exactly the shape of a top, even the stem representing the peg. Now, in ancient Latin witchlore or sorcery, extraordinary magic power, or even sanctity, was attached to everything which made a humming or buzzing sound. ”

“ And as when a wainwright, one skilled in many an art, doth bend the saplings of seasoned fig-tree, having first tempered them in the fire, to make tires for the axles of his chariot, and even then the fig-tree wood is like to leap from his hands in the bending, and springs far away at a single bound, even so the dread lion leaped on me from afar, huddled in a heap, and keen to glut him with my flesh. ”

“ The Fig, as we eat it, is neither fruit nor flower, though partaking of both, being really the hollow, fleshy receptacle enclosing a multitude of flowers, which never see the light, yet come to full perfection and ripen their seed. The Fig stands alone in this peculiar arrangement of its flowers, but there are other plants of which we eat the unopened or undeveloped flowers, as the Artichoke, the Cauliflower, the Caper, the Clove, and the Pine Apple. ”

“ A fig-tree, when its fruit has reached this point of ripeness, is indeed a beautiful sight for those who have been fortunate enough to see it literally covered by the various singing birds that are tempted to rob its branches. ”

“ I want the fig of Chios, not a flavorless fig; and in you this Chian fig is flavorless. A woman of sense and a wife ought to know her place. Let the boys have what concerns them, and confine yourself to what concerns you. ”

“ Wherefore, then, saith the Lord that the budding of the Fig-Tree shall foretell the end?
Because the Fig-Tree is the symbol of the Divine Woman, as the Vine of the Divine Man.
The Fig is the similitude of the Matrix, containing [82] inward buds, bearing blossoms on its placenta, and bringing forth fruit in darkness. It is the Cup of Life, and its flesh is the seed-ground of new births.
The stems of the Fig-Tree run with milk: her leaves are as human hands, like the leaves of her brother the Vine. ”

“ But now they stitch to adorn the bursten fig, not to cover it.
They have their nakedness more than ever on their mind,
And they won’t let us forget it.
Now, the secret
Becomes an affirmation through moist, scarlet lips
That laugh at the Lord’s indignation.
What then, good Lord! cry the women.
We have kept our secret long enough.
We are a ripe fig. ”

“ The perfection of the finishing lies in the bias, which keeps it trundling in the given direction. There is good and sufficient reason for the fig being barren, but it is not therefore the less a barren fig. ”

“ Having filled my pockets and cap with as many of the ripe figs as I could carry, after I had driven the birds away with loud shouts, hoping they would not return till I had made a second visit to the fig-tree, I began to descend, though not without difficulty; for, as every one knows, it is easier to climb up than to get down a tree, and a fall from a branch would have been a serious matter. ”

“ Where a fig tree attracts a crowd of them, we are told by Eastern writers, the roughest fighting begins over coveted plunder, each one screaming, clawing, biting, and struggling to seize something and get away to a secure retreat to enjoy it. ”

“ From all these circumstances I should conjecture, that those female fig-flowers, which are closed on all sides in the fruit or receptacle without any male ones, are monsters, which have been propagated for their fruit, like barberries, and grapes without seeds in them; and that the Caprification is either an ancient process of imaginary use, and blindly followed in some countries, or that it may contribute to ripen the fig by decreasing its vigour, like cutting off a circle of the bark from the branch of a pear-tree. ”

“ Some plants, again afford certain signs which bear reference more particularly to themselves, the fig for instance; when a few leaves only are found shooting from the summit, like a cup in shape, then it is more particularly that the fig-tree should be planted. ”

“ And these green figs grow wholly on the wood which is a year old, and not on the new wood." And this kind of fig-tree produces the green fig ripe and sweet, very different from the green fig which we have; and it grows to a much greater size than the genuine fig. ”

“ A wild fig grows parasitically up the trunk of a eucalypt, sucking its sap out of the eucalypt. After a time, the fig sends roots of its own into the soil, so that, by the time the eucalypt is sucked dry and killed, the fig is a sturdy tree living by its own roots and clasping in its arms the skeleton of the original eucalypt. ”

“ Train up a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade on it. ”

“ There are heaps of stones where the lizard runs, where the coiled snake basks untroubled, where the dwarfed fig-tree sprouts when the spring has come, and where the wild cucumber pushes forward its yellow flowers that fear not the flame of summer. The fig-tree may also be seen hanging from high walls, and the vine rambles among blooming or embrowned wallflowers on the top of ruinous gateways, through which the people still enter and leave the town as they did centuries ago. ”

“ The unfruitful Almond trees were dug up and thrown over the wall,—all [Pg 15] but the two whom their sisters had ransomed with their lives; for beauty has its price in this world and there must be some one to pay it.
When another spring came round, it was the little Fig tree that stood in the bright corner where the splendor of the road lamp shone upon its leaves all night. Its leaves were now as broad as a man’s outspread hand, and its fruit was twice the size it had been the season before. ”

“ Among the wilderness of trees may be noticed the victims of the treacherous fig, the dead trunk of the original tree still visible, but enveloped in the interlacing stem of the robber, which has seized it in its cruel embrace, sucked life and marrow out of it, and reared triumphantly its crown of glossy green leaves far above in the bright sunlight. ”

“ Some plant wild fig trees near cultivated fig trees, and there are others who, to remedy the weakness of the productive fig tree of our gardens, attach to the branches unripe figs and so retain the fruit which had already begun to drop and to be lost. What lesson does nature here give us? That we must often borrow, even from those who are strangers to the faith, a certain vigour to show forth good works. ”

“ For, as the vine is the oft-repeated symbol of spiritual good, so the fig-tree is that of natural good. And this clothing the life with merely external or moral virtues, is correspondentially described in the statement that "they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."
Then "they heard the voice of the Lord going forth in the garden." The voice of the Lord is any inward dictate which emanates from Him. ”

“ Standing with its feet awash at high tide, the huge fig-tree began life as a parasite, the seed planted by a beak-cleaning bird in a crevice of the bark of its forerunner. In time the host disappeared, embraced and absorbed. Now the tree is a sturdy host. Another fig envelops some of its branches, two umbrella-trees cling stubbornly to its sides, a pandanus palm grows comfortably at the base of a limb, tons of staghorn, bird's-nest, polypodium, and other epiphytal ferns, have licence to flourish, orchids hang decoratively, and several shrubs spring aspiringly among its roots. ”

“ The huge fig trees, with which the banks of most of the northern rivers abound, have the peculiarity that the fruit is found growing on the trunk, and not at the extremity of the smaller boughs. On an enormous stem, and at a distance of only a few feet from its base, are seen bunches of figs, and these, though of smaller size than the European fruit, are very palatable, if they can be selected free from insects. Usually, the ants have been first afield, and have taken up their abode in the very heart of the fig, forming a most undesirable mouthful for the unwary stranger. ”

“ In the fig-tree, for example, the foreshortening of the leaves, and the disposition of the branches are executed with so much care, that one finds it difficult to conceive how any man could have so much patience ”

“ The peculiarly sacred character which we find attached to the fig ceases to be a mystery so soon as we remember that the organs of generation, male and female, had, in process of time, come to be objects of worship and that the fig was the emblem of the latter.
A basket of this fruit is said to have been the most acceptable offering to the god Bacchus, and therefore, by his devotees, was regarded as the most sacred symbol. The favorite material for phallic devices was the wood of the sacred fig, for it was by rubbing together pieces of it that holy fire was supposed to be drawn from heaven. ”

“ The fig is the only one of all the fruit-trees that is submitted to any process with the view of expediting the ripening of the fruit,2526 a marvellous thing, indeed, that a greater value should be set upon produce that comes out of its proper season! ”

“ The FIG is the pulpy fruit of a shrub, or low tree (Ficus carica, Fig. 83) , which is a native of the South of Europe, and some parts of Asia. Fig-trees are branched from the bottom, and the leaves are large, smooth, and irregularly divided into from three to five deep and rounded lobes. The fruit grows on short and thick stalks, of purplish colour, and contains a soft, sweet, and fragrant pulp, intermixed with numerous small seeds. ”

“ I observe some statements concerning the fig which observation here in California, where the tree is very common and grows luxuriantly, does not confirm. In the first place, the caprifico does not, so far as I am aware, grow here at all. We realize, therefore, a condition the same as though it had "become extinct"; and yet the supply of figs—"best Eleme in layers"—has not "ceased entirely." On the contrary, figs here in the city are a drug, and are literally trodden under foot of men on the sidewalks over-hung by the trees ”

“ The fig is a domestic fruit of prime importance in all the Gulf and South Atlantic States; throughout this region it is a common dooryard tree. Its broad, rich foliage is one of the first things to catch the eye of the Northern visitor and assure him that he is really in the South.
Toward its northern limit the tree is sometimes injured by unusually severe winters, but unless killed to the ground it never fails to produce heavy annual crops. Even severe winter-killing is usually but a temporary loss, as the roots send up vigorous sprouts that bear the following year. ”

“ The older fig trees are usually on the sheltered sides of houses—the fig tree here is on the south side of the house, with its trunk close by the chimney and its roots in underneath the hearth—but of late years several have been planted on the sunny sides of some of the big rocks. ”

“ Hardly anybody (except a botanist) has ever seen a fig-flower, because it grows inside the stalk, instead of outside, and so can only be observed by cutting it open lengthwise. The fig, in its early youth, in fact, consists of a hollow branch on whose inner surface a number of very small flowers cluster together; and, when they are ripe for fertilization, the eye or hole at the top opens to admit the insect visitor. This visitor is the fig-wasp, who comes, not from other cultivated fig-trees, but from a wild tree called the caprifico. ”

“ In African Sudan where the fig has failed to grow on its own roots, it has been grown budded on the more tropical sycamore fig.
The cultivated fig is ordinarily a rapidly growing small tree with palmately lobed leaves and with a soft wood. It lives sometimes to a great age and then reaches large dimensions. It may be uncommonly productive and is said to bear at times a fruit in every leaf-axil, though part of such a huge crop is apt to drop before maturity. ”

“ The green, rough branches bear the solitary, nearly sessile receptacles in the axils of the leaves. The male flowers are placed chiefly in the upper part of the cavity, and in most varieties are few in number. As it ripens, the receptacle enlarges greatly, and the numerous single-seeded pericarps or true fruits become imbedded in it. The fruit of the wild fig never acquires the succulence of the cultivated kinds. The fig seems to be indigenous to Asia Minor and Syria, but now occurs in a wild state in most of the countries around the Mediterranean. ”

“ The Figge trees that are noursed vp in our country are of three sorts, whereof two are high; the one bearing against a wall goodly sweete and delicate Figs, called Figs of Algarua, and is blewish when it is ripe: the other tall kinde is nothing so good, neither doth beare ripe Figges so kindly and well, and peraduenture may be the white ordinary kinde that commeth from Spaine. The third is a dwarfe kinde of Figge tree, not growing much higher then to a mans body or shoulders, bearing excellent good Figges and blew, but not so large as the first kinde. ”