Pomegranate

“ Its burning beauty appeals to every one who loves color, for the scarlet of the pomegranate has a depth and a quality that is all its own. The crinkled silken petals, rising from a thick, red calix and set off by bright green leaves of wondrous glossy luster and prickly thorns, delight those who love beauty. ”

“ That great purple pomegranate is, like all pomegranates, unsatisfactory and full of seeds, and though the little green limes are refreshing for the moment while we suck the juice, after a while our lips begin to smart as if they were raw, and we both keep on furtively wiping them. It is a tantalising feast, and the American smiles serenely as he smokes in his corner and refuses to have anything to do with it. The only thing we do get out of it are some really good green figs, which cannot, however, be eaten without shameless messiness, as they are so difficult to peel. ”

“ And in it peach and pomegranate were shown and pear, apricot and pomegranate were grown and fruits with and without stone hanging in clusters or alone,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. ”

“ While the pomegranate's wreath of green, The gauzy red and snow-white blossoms screen. Who loves it, now rejoices for its sake, And those are glad who sleep, and those who wake. When cool-breathed evening visiteth the world, In flower and leaf the beaded dew is pearled, Reviving all that droops at length, And to the languid giving strength. ”

“ POMEGRANATES.--The pomegranate is about as large as a full-sized apple and has a hard reddish-yellow rind. Most varieties contain many seeds and a comparatively small amount of red edible pulp. Pomegranates of various kinds are grown in the southern part of the United States and in other warm climates. They are used extensively in the localities where they are grown and are much enjoyed by persons who learn to care for their flavor. A cooling drink made from their pulp finds much favor. ”

“ Mistral, the brother-poet and friend of the author, thus announces the poems:—
"The pomegranate is of its nature wilder than other trees. It loves to grow in pebbly elevations (clapeirolo) in the full sun-rays, far from man and nearer to God. There alone, in the scorching summer-beams, it expands in secret its blood-red flowers. Love and the sun fecundate its bloom. In the crimson chalices thousands of coral-grains germ spontaneously, like a thousand fair sisters all under the same roof. ”

“ Now, it happened, curiously enough, that, just as the servant was bringing the pomegranate into the back door of the palace, our friend Quicksilver had gone up the front steps, on his errand to get Proserpina away from King Pluto.
As soon as Proserpina saw the pomegranate on the golden salver, she told the servant he had better take it away again.
"I shall not touch it, I assure you," said she. "If I were ever so hungry, I should never think of eating such a miserable, dry pomegranate as that."
"It is the only one in the world," said the servant. ”

“ Pomegranate and apricot stretch forth their weighted boughs and the grapes in Eschol clusters hang purple in the slant of westering suns. It is even yet a land of brooks and fountains of waters and men may still dig iron and brass from out of its rugged hills. ”

“ Her daughter, Queen Mary, took the Pomegranate and white and red Roses.——Parkinson tells us that from the rind of the Pomegranate is made writing-ink “which is durable to the world’s end.”——The Athenian matrons, during the Thesmophoria (festivals in honour of Ceres) , were expressly forbidden to eat Pomegranates.——To dream of Pomegranates is a fortunate augury, foretelling good fortune and success; to the lover such a dream implies a faithful and accomplished sweetheart, and to the married an increase of riches and children, and great success in trade. ”

“ Branches of the pomegranate have the effect of repelling the attacks of serpents.3084 Pomegranate rind, boiled in wine and applied, is a cure for chilblains. A pomegranate, boiled down to one-third in three heminæ of wine, is a cure for griping pains in500 the bowels and for tape-worm.3085 A pomegranate, put in a new earthen pot tightly covered and burnt in a furnace, and then pounded and taken in wine, arrests looseness of the bowels, and dispels griping pains in the stomach. ”

“ This little mythologic story informs us that the pomegranate tree was known to antiquity, and that the garden of the Elysian fields contained most excellent fruit for the use of its melancholy inhabitants.
The pomegranate, whose acidulated flavour is so pleasing to the inhabitants of hot climates, was first cultivated in the east, then in Africa, but especially in the environs of Carthage, from whence the Romans brought it into Italy, where it was commonly called the Carthaginian apple; [XIV_43] it was also named Granatum, on account of the number of its seeds. ”

“ Pomegranate (Punica Granatum) , long valued in hot countries for the refreshing pulp of its fruit. It is a tree, fifteen to twenty-five feet in height, native to West Asia and North Africa. It has opposite, simple, entire leaves, and the flower has five scarlet or white petals. The fruit has a tough, leathery gold-colored, but partly reddened, exterior and numerous seeds each surrounded by a reddish pulp. This varies in flavor in the numerous cultivated varieties. The rind is rich in tannin, and is employed in tanning Morocco leather. ”

“ She shows and presents herself an object of admiration to the beholder; such great beauty is there, such great honour abounds. In the first place, her colour is like the brilliancy [41] of that which the seeds of the pomegranate when ripe take under the smooth rind; [42] such colour as is contained in the leaves which the poppy produces in the fields, when Flora spreads her garments beneath the blushing sky. ”

“ Bullein, in his "Government of Health," 1588, calls them "Damaske Prunes."
POMEGRANATE.
There are few trees that surpass the Pomegranate in interest and beauty combined. "Whoever has seen the Pomegranate in a favourable soil and climate, whether as a single shrub or grouped many together, has seen one of the most beautiful of green trees; its spiry shape and thick-tufted foliage of vigorous green, each growing shoot shaded into tenderer verdure and bordered with crimson and adorned [220] with the loveliest flowers ”

“ Such, according to the French poet, Nicholas Rapin, was the origin of the pomegranate: the persistent calyx of the blossom of this tree not only remaining, as in the case of the apple, gooseberry, &c., as a component part of the fruit, but, increasing in size after the petals have fallen, its tube becomes the outer rind which surrounds the berries within, while the segments, surmounting the fruit with a circle of sharply-toothed points, form thus no inapt resemblance to a crown. ”

“ Shakespeare knew perfectly well what he was doing when he placed a pomegranate beneath Juliet's window, amid whose leaves and flowers the nightingale sang so beautifully. The pomegranate was exactly the flower to typify the glowing passion of the youthful lovers.
"There are two kinds of pomegranate trees," writes Parkinson, "the one tame or manured, bearing fruit; the other wild, which beareth no fruit, be [Pg 216] cause it beareth double flowers, like as the Cherry, Apple and Peach-tree with double blossoms. ”

“ Young trees are unproductive2505 so long as they are growing. The fruits which fall most readily before they come to maturity are the date, the fig, the almond, the apple, the pear, and the pomegranate, which last tree is also very apt to lose its blossom through excessive dews and hoar frosts. For this reason it is, too, that the growers bend the branches of the pomegranate, lest, from being straight, they may receive and retain the moisture that is so injurious to them. ”

“ The tallest kinds of trees grew in the gardens; not just flowers, but big palm-trees and oleanders and citron-trees, and pomegranates hung off the branches all ready to be picked,—dark greeny, purpley pomegranates all bursting open so that their bright red seeds showed like live coals (do you think I'm getting this out of the history book, Phil?) , and they were this-shaped—" he drew a pomegranate on the back of Kirk's hand—"with a sprout of leaves at the top. ”

“ The chief character on which these thoughts are founded is the fulness of seed in the poppy and pomegranate, as an image of life: then the forms of both became adopted for beads or bosses in ornamental art; the pomegranate remains more distinctly a Jewish and Christian type, from its use in the border of Aaron's robe, down to the fruit in the hand of Angelico's and Botticelli's Infant Christs; while the poppy is gradually confused by the Byzantine Greeks with grapes; and both of these with palm fruit. ”

“ Take a good large ripe pomegranate of a fine colour, seed it one after another; then squeeze it in a linen cloth, to get the juice, which boil, and reduce a half; put it to a pound of sugar, refined as for violet conserve; when it is half cold, work it well together and dress it in the moulds as usual. ”

“ By looking narrowly at the larger pomegranate in golden thread within its heart-shaped oval, with featherings bounded by trefoiled cusps, the eye will catch an undulating pattern rising slightly above the rest of the pile; such examples, as distinguished from what is called cut or raised velvet, are very rare. ”

“ Then there were pomegranate trees, golden-leaved, and tall poplars pollarded plume fashion as in southern France; and in a field a herd of brown pigs feeding, which commended itself to observance, doubtless, as color in some possible word-painting. There now abounded pomegranates, figs, young corn, and more and more olives; and as if the old olives and young olives were not enough, the earth began to be pitted with holes dug for the olives which had not yet been planted. ”

“ We have heard that this occurs, but only with the pomegranate, in Egypt [2] and Cilicia; in Egypt a tree of the acid kind both from seeds and from cuttings produces one whose fruit has a sort of sweet taste, [3] while about Soli in Cilicia near the river Pinaros (where the battle with Darius was fought) all those pomegranates raised from seed are without stones. ”

“ In art, however, the pomegranate is very seldom used as the attribute of the Virgin. Occasionally the Florentine masters ornament the Virgin’s throne with knobs which more or less resemble the fruit, and Flemish artists, Memling in particular, place behind her a brocaded panel of the well-known pomegranate design. But these pomegranate knobs were a very usual detail in carved work, and the pomegranate pattern, which still persists, was a standard design of the silk-weavers of France and Italy.
The fruit itself is not used by the older masters. ”

“ The Pomegranate is frequently represented in the ancient sculptures of the Assyrians and of the Egyptians.
The Pomegranate belongs to the family of plants called Lythraceae. This family has about three hundred and fifty species which are widely distributed, but are most abundant in tropical regions, especially in America. In describing the tree Dr. Oliver R. Willis gives the following characteristics: “Branches straight, strong, sub-angular, armed near the ends with spines; young shoots and buds red. ”

“ The Pomegranate is a beautifull tree the leaves small, with a green mixt with Olive colour, the blossome large, well shap’t, and of a pure Scarlet colour; the fruit not so large there, as those we have from Spaine. The young trees being set in rowes, and planted thick make a very good hedge, being clipt eeven a top with Garden shears. The fruit is very well known to you and therefore I shall need say nothing of that, and these are all the remarkable fruits that grow on trees, and are proper to this Iland, that I can remember, though I believe there are many more. ”

“ Whoever has picked the fruit from the tender twigs of the pomegranate tree, which are close set with small altered leaves, will never dream of attributing the derivation of the thorny leaves that appear in the pattern to pomegranate leaves at any stage of their development. ”

“ The damsel rushed forth to meet the youth, and at their joyous embrace the pomegranates rang out with a melody so sweet that the like of it is not to be found in this world, but only in Allah’s world beyond the grave. Forty days and forty nights did the wedding-feast last, and on the fortieth day the King’s son went{165} in unto his bride, and they lay down and listened to the pomegranates. Then when the day was born again they arose, and the pomegranate cluster rejoiced again in their love, and so they went on their way to the prince’s own kingdom. ”

“ The best cure in this case is pounded pomegranate seed, moistened with sweet wine; or raisins mixed with wine or mead, and the infusion of rosemary. When they are infested with vermin, the hive must be cleansed, and perfumed with a branch of pomegranate or the wild fig-tree, which will effectually destroy them. Butterflies sometimes conceal themselves in the hives, and annoy the bees; but these intruders may easily be exterminated by placing lighted candles in deep tin pots between the hives, as they will be attracted by the flame, and so perish. ”

“ Forbidden pleasures leave a bitter taste.
(Fables de Mkhithar Goch, Journal Asiatique, Ser. 9, Vol. 19.)
THE PLANTER AND THE POMEGRANATE
AN inexperienced Planter once asked a Pomegranate Tree: "Why do you produce so many blossoms, and then let so large a number of them fall to the ground without producing fruit?" The Pomegranate replied: "The eye of the Planter is greedy. My branches are slender and my fruit is heavy, and if I did not bend easily I could not sustain the weight of it. That is why I let many of the blossoms fall, so as not to be broken by more fruit than I can bear." ”