The Return

Garden Lore of Ancient Athens (1963)
Excavations of the Athenian Agora Picture Books No. 8
American School of Classical Studies at Athens

I am captivated by the story of the origin of the Corinthian order of columns in the section devoted to "Poetic Weeds".

Also tall, but mauve white, is the spire of the acanthus (bear's foot) which rises from a calyx of large foliate leaves. In Greece the spinosus grows wild, in Italy the more common type is the mollis; both species were cultivated in Greece. A sculptor of fifth-century Athens, Kallimachos, once saw an acanthus growing over a basket that had been set on the grave of a Corinthian girl by her devoted nurse. Struck by the rich plasticity of the curling leaves, he created the column capital that is still called 'Corinthian'.

The tale's source is Vitruvius.

And so for day 2346
16.05.2013

Wit, Plots and Vegetative Results

Jay Macpherson in The Boatman and Other Poems presents a memorable tale of of one-upmanship and just deserts in "The Gardeners" where the poetic voice reports on a contrast. One gardener, a neighbour, "Worked herself to bone / Raising prize bokays / In a yard mostly stone". The spelling of "bouquet" as "bokays" adds a layer of what I perceive as snobbery to the prized beauties. The speaker meanwhile is rocking on the back stoop and notes that the neighbour would pass the following remark: "And she'd say my yard / Looked like a chicken-coop."

The last word in the next and final stanza of two reverses the judgement. Here it is in full. Enjoy its fancy.

Bet you she's raging
Over in her plot:
Nary a stalk but
Couchgrass she's got
Can't grow nothing better
On the likes of she,
But I lie pushing daisies
Fat and white as me.

Post-mortem fertility is an interesting cartoonish game to play and with a deft turn of rhyme easy to guarantee the appropriate comeuppance. And we all know that the easy rhyme comes from long exercising the craft — much like a devoted gardener.

And so for day 1192
19.03.2010