Delicate Aroma Of Hyacinth

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Calling the flower "Hyacinth", which in translation from Greek into Russian sounds like "The Flower of Rains", the Greeks themselves called it "Flower of Sorrow", not forgetting the story of the beautiful son of the King of Sparta named Hyacinth. It was his drops of blood that the god Apollo, saddened by the death of a handsome young man, turned into fragrant flowers in order to defeat death with human memory

The legend of the hyacinth

Since the Creator settled man on Earth, the latter has been trying to prove his strength and dexterity by competing with the gods. And although the gods always become the winners, man does not want to humble his pride, again and again getting involved in an unequal battle.

So a very handsome young man named Hyacinth had to take part in the discus throwing competition, having fought with Apollo. The throws of Hyacinth were not inferior in strength to those of a god, and therefore they did not like another god, Zephyr, who did not want man's victory. Although both gods sympathized with the clever youth, "the honor of the uniform" always stood for them above sympathy. Therefore, when the bronze disc thrown by Apollo almost touched the edge of the clouds, Zephyr, afraid of Apollo's defeat, blew with all the strength of his divine lungs, trying to help the disc rise even higher. But, suddenly, the disk abruptly changed its flight path and hit the young man in the face, inflicting a mortal wound on him.

So, once again, the gods demonstrated their superiority over man. But Apollo was greatly saddened by such an unexpected outcome and decided to perpetuate the brave young man in human memory in order to save Mankind from attempts to surpass the gods. He turned the young man's blood drops into beautiful flowers with the name "Hyacinth".

Outlines of flowers

If you look from the side at the inflorescence, then in each of its individual flowers you can see two Greek letters. One of them looks like the letter "epsilon", with which the Greek name of the deceased young man begins, and the other resembles an inverted letter "alpha", in which the first letters of the names of the participants in the tragedy, Apollo and Hyacinth, seem to merge together.

The ambivalent attitude of the Greeks to the plant

The ancient Greeks, turning the hyacinth plant into a symbol of grief, sadness and death, treated these concepts philosophically, believing that death is not the result, that death always follows a new birth, as nature is reborn every spring, which died in winter.

The bridesmaids who participated in the wedding ceremony adorned their hair with hyacinths. Today, flowers and bulbs of hyacinths can be seen on the village entrance doors, where they play the role of amulets that protect a person's home from adversity.

Dutch hyacinths

The amazing flower is accompanied by no less amazing stories. For example, they came to Holland, which became the second homeland of the plant, by chance.

The ship wrecked off the coast of Holland had a rare cargo on board. They were boxes of hyacinth bulbs. Raging waves smashed the ship and boxes against the coastal rocks with a crash, freeing the bulbs from their dark captivity and throwing them ashore.

The bulbs liked the shore, and they put down strong roots there, showing the Dutch their graceful and fragrant beauty. Enterprising people transplanted wild plants into their gardens and began to breed hyacinth, developing new varieties, including those with double inflorescences.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the price of one bulb was equal to the cost of a small house, and a bulb of a new variety with double flowers was sold for 40 times the price of a simple house. People at all times were greedy for sensations and loved to stand out from the crowd with their extravagance and irrepressible passions.

Hyacinths in Russia

Petersburg, which grew rapidly in the first half of the 18th century, could not ignore the Dutch boom around the hyacinth. And the plant appears in parks, gardens and greenhouses, arranged at the luxurious palaces of the Russian nobility.

Later, domestic varieties of hyacinths were bred, not inferior to the Dutch ones in beauty, grace and aroma.