A hundred years after the “tulip madness”, off the coast of the same Holland, a Genoese merchant ship was wrecked during a storm. One of the boxes from a sunken ship washed ashore, where it opened, I don’t understand how. Bulbs spilled out from there, which soon took root and sprouted.
What does the word hyacinth mean?
This is how a wonderful, unprecedented flower appeared on the Dutch lands. Thus began the European history of hyacinth. Although biologists claim that this plant comes from the Balkans, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. It's there in wildlife A wonderful flower grew, which was transferred to the gardens for its beauty and fragrance and cultivated.
Word " hyacinth"appeared in our language only at the beginning of the 18th century. Until then, this was the name of this flower in Germany. Interestingly, the Germans learned this word from the Romans, where it was called hyacinthus.
But you don’t even need to look for the first name of the plant in Latin. It was the Greeks who named the flower “purple cinquefoil” for its natural (and then only, color) and the shape of the leaves, reminiscent of this military weapon.
In India, the word hyacinth means “flower of rains,” because it bloomed just at this time. Until now, local beauties decorate their black braids with such fragrant arrows on special days. According to Indian tradition, this fragrant flower, and only white, is also necessarily woven into the groom’s wreath.
In Eastern countries, the word hyacinth means “Guria curls.” The great Uzbek poet of the 15th century, Alisher Navoi, wrote:
“The tangle of black curls will only be scattered by a comb,
And the hyacinths will fall in a stream onto the roses of the cheeks.”
Although even ancient Greek girls wove these flowers into their hair, and the hair had to be carefully chosen. Three thousand years ago, ancient Hellenic women wove wild hyacinths into their hair when they married off their friends. Therefore, the word hyacinth also meant “the pleasure of love” among the Hellenes.
Legends about hyacinth
Ancient Greek the legend of hyacinth says that Apollo’s favorite was the young man Hyacinth. One day, during a competition, God habitually threw a disc and accidentally hit the guy. He fell dead to the ground, and a fragrant and delicate violet-lilac flower soon grew on the drops of his blood. The ancient Greeks called it hyacinth, in memory of the favorite of the handsome Apollo.
This is where it came from that hyacinth symbolizes the resurrection of dead nature. And on the famous throne of Apollo in the city of Amikli the ascent of Hyacinth to Olympus is depicted. Tradition says that the base of the statue of Apollo sitting on the throne is actually an altar with the remains of an innocently murdered young man.
The Mouse Myth and Dutch Achievements
Usually the plant produced 5 arrows, which, as they grew, were decorated with delicate tiny lily-like flower stalks. But today breeders have developed varieties that produce... up to 100 branches of flowers!
And the struggle for such “family” began also in Holland. After the “tulip” lull, the inhabitants of this country apparently lacked a new flower favorite. This is what hyacinth became. That's where they took me out terry variety, which also brought fabulous income to flower growers. Although, in fairness, we note that they did not give away houses and all their fortunes for his onions.
The most incredible myths about hyacinth Flora lovers are telling us today. How do you like, for example, the story about the mouse that helped the descendant of the Huguenots, the gardener Boucher, in breeding a plant? They say that no matter what this florist came up with, he could not quickly propagate hyacinth. But the little mouse got to the onion and... gnawed the bottom out of it.
And lo and behold! Children appeared on the “disabled onion”, which accidentally lay there until planting. And not just one, but a great many. Since then they began to cut out the bottom or crosswise planting material. True, it takes 3-4 years to raise the children, because they are very small. But still, “the ice has broken” - the myth claims that it is thanks to the gray rodent that today we are able to propagate hyacinth.
What does hyacinth mean?
Each nation has its own meaning of the hyacinth flower. And this name has long become a household name. Suffice it to remember that only in Greek mythology there were 3 famous Hyacinths, besides the favorite of the god Apollo:
- Hyacinth from Amycles is a handsome young man, the son of the Spartan king Amycles;
- Hyacinth from Athens - hero-migrant from the Peloponnese to Athens;
- Hyacinth Dolion is a hero mentioned by Apollonius of Rhodes.
Nowadays meaning of hyacinth flowers also diverse. Depending on the color, it means jealousy, recognition of the girl as the most beautiful, a promise to pray for someone, and even a call to oblivion.
A gift of a bouquet of these flowers promises victory and achievement. It is a symbol of rebirth and incredible joy. You will be able to purchase hyacinths wholesale in our florist salon or please someone with a small bouquet. Flower girls will select the appropriate color for the occasion and create a charming, fragrant composition.
All you have to do is present your beloved with a mono-bouquet of hyacinth or in a mix with other flowers once in the spring, and joy and tenderness will settle in the heart of the most discreet girl.
With us you can arrange hyacinths with delivery in Rostov-on-Don or buy fresh cut flowers directly from the store. And if you want to give a gift to a person whose zodiac sign is Capricorn, then feel free to complement our bouquet precious stone– hyacinth, invigorating, cheerful and giving patience and determination.
Stop your choice on the magical gift of spring - hyacinth flowers.
After all, you simply won’t find them at any other time!
Hyakinthos or Hyacinth (Hyakintos), in Greek mythology:
1. Son of the Spartan king Amycles, great-grandson of Zeus according to Apollodorus. A young man of extraordinary beauty, the favorite of Apollo and Zephyr (or Boreas). When Apollo once taught Hyakinthos how to throw a discus, Zephyr, out of jealousy, pointed the disk thrown by Apollo at Hyakinthos's head and he died. From his blood Apollo produced a flower. In honor of Apollo and Hyakinthos, three-day festivals (Hyakinthia) were celebrated in Amyclae, in Laconia, which existed during the times of the Roman Empire.
2. Spartan, father of Antheida, Egleida, Aitea and Orpheus, whom he brought to Athens and sacrificed at the grave of the Cyclops Gerest, when the pestilence began in Athens; the sacrifice had no effect, and the oracle ordered the Athenians to bear the punishment that the Cretan king Minos would impose on them.
3. According to another legend, Hyakinthos, the son of Pierre and the muse Clio, was loved by Apollo and Thamiris, the Thracian singer.
Death of Hyacinth, 1752-1753,
artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo,
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Historical reference.
Sparta (Σπάρτη), in ancient times the main city of Laconia, on the right bank of the Eurotas River, between the Aenus River and Thiaza, also a state whose capital was Sparta. According to legend, Sparta was the capital of a significant state even before the Dorians invaded the Peloponnese, when Laconia was allegedly inhabited by the Achaeans. Here reigned Agamemnon's brother, Menelaus, who played such a prominent role in the Trojan War. Several decades after the destruction of Troy, most of the Peloponnese was conquered by the descendants of Hercules (“return of the Heraclides”), who came at the head of the Dorian squads, and Laconia went to the sons of Aristodemus, the twins Eurysthenes and Proclus (great-great-grandsons of Gill, son of Hercules), who were considered the ancestors of those who reigned in Sparta was both the Agiad and Eurypontid dynasties. Some of the Achaeans went to the north of the Peloponnese to an area that was named after them Achaia, the rest were mostly converted into helots. It is impossible to restore, at least in general terms, the actual history of the ancient period of Sparta, due to the lack of accurate data. It is difficult to say to which tribe the ancient population of Laconia belonged, when and under what conditions the Dorians settled it, and what kind of relationship was established between them and the former population. What is certain is that if the Spartan state was formed thanks to conquest, then we can trace the consequences only of relatively later conquests, through which Sparta expanded at the expense of its closest neighbors. A significant part of them probably belonged to the same Dorian tribe, since by the time the large Spartan state was formed in Laconia, the tribal opposition between the original population of the country and the Dorians who came from the north-west of Greece had already been smoothed out.
Who is not familiar with the hyacinth, that wonderful flower with a wonderful scent that enchants us with its fragrance in the depths of winter and whose lovely plumes of flowers, as if made of wax, in the most delicate shades serve as the best decoration for our homes during winter holidays? This flower is a gift from Asia Minor, and its name translated from Greek means “flower of rains,” since in its homeland it begins to bloom just with the onset of warm spring rains.
Ancient Greek legends, however, derive this name from Hyacinth, the charming son of the Spartan king Amycles and the muse of history and epic Clio, with whom the very origin of this flower is associated.
This happened back in those blissful times when gods and people were close to each other. This charming young man, as the legend says, who enjoyed the boundless love of the sun god Apollo, once amused himself with this god by throwing a discus. The dexterity with which he threw it and the accuracy of the disc's flight surprised everyone. Apollo was beside himself with admiration and rejoiced at the success of his favorite. But the little god Zephyr, who had been jealous of him for a long time, blew a light breeze out of envy onto the disk and turned it so that, flying back, it crashed into the head of poor Hyacinth and struck him to death.
Apollo's grief was boundless. In vain did he hug and kiss his poor boy, in vain did he offer to sacrifice even his immortality for him. Although he healed and revived everything with his beneficial rays, he was not able to bring him back to life...
How, however, could he act, how could he at least preserve and perpetuate the memory of this being dear to him? And so, the legend goes on, the rays of the sun began to bake the blood flowing from the dissected skull, began to thicken and hold it together, and from it grew a lovely red-lilac flower, spreading its wonderful smell over a long distance, the shape of which on one side resembled the letter A - the initial of Apollo, and on the other Y - the initial of Hyacinth; and thus the names of the two friends were forever united in it.
This flower was our hyacinth. He was transferred with reverence by the priests of Apollo of Delphi to the garden surrounding the temple of this famous oracle, and since then, in memory of the untimely death of the young man, the Spartans annually held a festival called Hyacinthius.
These festivities took place in Amykla in Licinia and lasted three days.
On the first day, dedicated to mourning the death of Hyacinth, it was forbidden to decorate the head with wreaths of flowers, eat bread and sing hymns in honor of the sun.
The next two days were devoted to various ancient games, and even slaves were allowed to be completely free on these days, and the altar of Apollo was littered with sacrificial gifts.
For the same reason, probably, we often see in Ancient Greece images of both Apollo himself and the muses, decorated with this flower.
This is one Greek legend about the origin of hyacinth. But there is also something else that connects it with the name of the famous hero of the Trojan War, Ajax.
This noble son of King Telamon, ruler of the island of Salamis located near Attica, was, as is known, the bravest and most outstanding of the heroes of the Trojan War after Achilles. He wounded Hector with a stone thrown from a sling and struck him with his with a powerful hand The Trojan ships and fortifications had many enemies. And so, when, after the death of Achilles, he entered into a dispute with Odysseus about the possession of Achilles’ weapon, it was awarded to Odysseus. The unfair award caused Ajax such a grave offense that he, beside himself with grief, pierced himself with a sword. And from the blood of this hero, says another legend, a hyacinth grew, in the form of which this legend sees the first two letters of the name of Ajax - Ai, which at the same time served as an interjection among the Greeks, expressing grief and horror.
In general, this flower among the Greeks was, apparently, a flower of grief, sadness and death, and the very legend of the death of Hyacinth was only an echo of popular beliefs, popular belief. Some indication of this can be found in one saying of the Delphic oracle, which, having been asked during the once raging famine and plague in Athens: what to do and how to help, ordered the five daughters of the alien Hyacinth to be sacrificed at the tomb of the Cyclops Gerest.
On the other hand, there are indications that sometimes it was also a flower of joy: for example, young Greek women used it to wear their hair on the wedding day of their friends.
Originating from Asia Minor, hyacinth was also loved by the inhabitants of the East, especially by the Persians, where the famous poet Ferdowsi constantly compares the hair of Persian beauties with the curling limbs of a hyacinth flower and in one of his poems, for example, says:
"Her lips smelled better than a gentle breeze,
And hyacinth-like hair is more pleasant,
What is Scythian musk..."
Another famous Persian poet, Hafiz, makes exactly the same comparisons; and there is even a local saying about the women of the island of Chios that they curl their curls as well as a hyacinth curls its petals.
From Asia Minor, hyacinth was transferred to Europe, but first to Turkey. When and how - it is unknown, before, he appeared in Constantinople and soon became so loved by Turkish wives that he became a necessary accessory in the gardens of all harems.
The ancient English traveler Dallaway, who visited Constantinople at the beginning of the 17th century, says that in the seraglio of the Sultan himself a special wonderful garden was built, in which no other flower was allowed except hyacinths. The flowers were planted in oblong flower beds lined with elegant Dutch tiles and enchanted every visitor with their lovely colors and wonderful scent. Huge amounts of money were spent on maintaining these gardens, and during the era of hyacinth blossoms, the Sultan spent all his free hours in them, admiring their beauty and reveling in their strong smell, which Oriental people like so much.
In addition to the ordinary, so-called Dutch, hyacinths, their close relative was also bred in these gardens - cluster-shaped hyacinth (H. muscari) 1, which in Turkish bears the name “Mushi-ru-mi” and means in the eastern language of flowers “You will get everything, whatever I can give you."
IN Western Europe hyacinth arrived only in the second half of the 17th century, and primarily to Vienna, which at that time had the closest relations with the East. But here it was cultivated and was the property of only a few inveterate gardening enthusiasts. It became a public property only after it came to Holland, to Haarlem.
He got here, as they say, by accident on a Genoese ship broken by a storm off the Dutch coast.
The ship was carrying various goods somewhere, and with them hyacinth bulbs. The boxes in which they were located, tossed by the waves, broke on the rocks, and the bulbs that fell out of them washed ashore.
Here, having found suitable soil for themselves, the bulbs took root, sprouted and bloomed. Observant flower lovers immediately paid attention to them and, amazed by their extraordinary beauty and wonderful smell, transplanted them into their garden.
Then they began to cultivate them, cross them, and thus obtained those marvelous varieties that constituted an inexhaustible object of pleasure both as a culture and as a source of enormous income, which has enriched them since then for centuries.
This was in 1734, i.e. almost a hundred years after the tulip, just at the time when the fever for breeding this flower began to cool down a little and the need was felt for some other one that could distract from this passion and , if possible, replace the tulip. The hyacinth was just such a flower.
Graceful in shape, beautiful in color, superior to the tulip in its wonderful scent, it soon became the favorite of all the Dutch, and they began to spend no less money on its cultivation and the development of new varieties and varieties than on the tulip. This passion began to flare up especially when it was possible to accidentally breed double hyacinth.
As they say, amateurs owe the creation of this interesting variety to an attack of gout by the Haarlem gardener Peter Ferelm. This famous gardener used to mercilessly pluck from flowers any bud that had developed incorrectly, and, no doubt, an ugly bud that appeared on one of the especially precious types of hyacinth would have suffered the same fate. Fortunately, however, Ferelm at this time fell ill with gout and, forced to lie in bed for more than a week, did not visit his garden. Meanwhile, the bud blossomed and, to the great surprise of Ferelm himself and all Dutch gardeners, it turned out to be a never-before-seen double form of hyacinth.
Such an accident was enough to arouse general curiosity and awaken dormant passions. People came from all over Holland to look at this miracle, even gardeners came from neighboring countries; everyone wanted to see with their own eyes the existence of such an incredible form and, if possible, to acquire it in order to have something that no one else had.
Ferelm christened this variety with the name “Maria,” but, unfortunately, both this specimen and the next two terry specimens died, and only the fourth survived, to which he gave the name “King of Great Britain.” All the terry hyacinths now available came from it, so this variety is considered in Holland to this day the progenitor of all terry hyacinths.
Then Dutch gardeners began to pay attention to increasing the number of flowers in the flower arrow, increasing the size of the flowers themselves, and obtaining new colors...
Their efforts were especially aimed at obtaining the brightest possible yellow color, since among the blue, crimson and white tones that distinguished the colors of these flowers, this color was very rare.
The achievement of triumph in any of these endeavors, the receipt of each outstanding variety, was certainly accompanied by celebration. The lucky gardener invited all his neighbors to christen the newborn, and the christening was always accompanied by a rich feast, especially if new variety received the name of some famous person or royal person.
It’s even hard to believe how much such new items could cost at that time, especially if you take into account the relatively high value of money in those days and the cheapness of food products. It was even considered very common to pay 500 - 1,000 guilders for a new variety of bulb, but there were bulbs, such as the bright yellow “Ophir”, for which they paid 7,650 guilders, or “Admiral Lifken”, for which 20,000 guilders were paid! And this was when a cart of hay cost almost a few kopecks and you could feed yourself well on a penny a day...
More than two centuries have passed since then, and although Dutch lovers no longer pay such crazy money for new varieties, hyacinth remains their favorite flower. And to this day, outstanding gardening companies annually organize so-called parade fields, that is, entire gardens of blooming hyacinths located in rooms covered with awnings on top. And masses of people flock there to see and admire these wonderful flowers.
At these kinds of exhibitions, every gardener tries to show off the perfection of his crops, some original novelty in front of his comrades and interested amateurs, and receive special awards awarded by large horticultural companies.
Here, of course, it is no longer vanity alone that plays a role, but also another, more important goal - a commercial one: to prove the superiority of one’s product to both the Dutch public and numerous foreign clients and to gain a new buyer. And this goal is achieved in most cases. Thanks to this kind of exhibitions, many insignificant companies have moved forward and have now become first-class. Thanks to them, the number of new varieties is increasing every year. From what was once 40 varieties, their number has now increased to 2,000, and not a year goes by without several new ones being added.
From Holland, the culture of hyacinths passed first of all to Germany (Prussia), and then to France. In Prussia, it began to develop mainly soon after the resettlement from France of the Huguenots expelled by the Edict of Nantes, who generally transferred to Germany, and especially to Berlin, the taste for beautiful flowering plants, beautiful tree pruning and beautiful layout gardens
But it achieved special fame only in the second half of the 18th century, when David Boucher (a descendant of the Huguenots) organized the first exhibition of hyacinths in Berlin. The flowers he exhibited so amazed with their beauty and captivated with their wonderful smell all Berlin lovers of floriculture and the Berlin public in general that many began cultivating them with no less zeal than the Dutch did in the old days. Even such people were interested in them serious people, like the court chaplains Reinhard and Schroeder, who from that time not only cultivated these flowers in huge quantities almost until their death, but also bred many of their varieties.
A few years later, a special Berlin coffee house, founded by his relative, Peter Bush, arose in Berlin, on Komendantskaya Street, near the hyacinth crops of this Bush, where all the nobility and all the rich people of Berlin gathered to drink coffee and admire the hyacinths. This visit became such a fashion that King Frederick William III himself visited Boucher more than once and admired his flowers.
This fascination of the Berlin public with hyacinths did not hesitate to give rise to a lot of competitors for Bush among other gardeners, and in 1830, near the Schleswig Gate, entire fields were covered with hyacinth crops. Suffice it to say that up to 5,000,000 hyacinth bulbs were planted on them annually.
To see these blooming fields of hyacinths, every year in May the entire population of Berlin flocked there: both on horseback and on foot, both rich and poor. It was something like a mania, some kind of pilgrimage. Thousands of people stood around these fields for hours and reveled in the beauty of the flowers and their wonderful smell. Not visiting the hyacinth fields and not seeing them was considered unforgivable... At the same time, gardeners charged a considerable entrance fee for a close look at the flowers, and also earned a lot of money for selling bouquets of cut hyacinths, which every more or less wealthy person considered purchasing for themselves compulsory.
But everything in the world is transitory. And these hyacinth exhibitions and fields, so famous in the early forties, began to gradually become boring, attract the public less and less, and ten years later they stopped completely. Now all that remains of these huge fields are memories (their entire area is cut up by the railway), and although hyacinths are still cultivated here and there on the southern side of Berlin, there is no trace of the former millions of bulbs. Currently, the biggest thing is if several dessiatines are occupied by these crops, which provide an income of 75 thousand to 100,000 rubles.
In France, hyacinths were also very popular, but they did not create such a sensation as in Holland and Prussia. Here they turned to themselves Special attention, only when scientists began to cultivate them in vessels with water without any admixture of earth and when in 1787 the Marquis of Gonflier, at a public meeting of the French Society of Agriculture, introduced Parisians to the original experience of cultivating hyacinth in water - with the stem in the water and the roots up. The sight of such a hyacinth blooming its beautiful flowers in the water amazed everyone.
The news of this new method of culture quickly spread throughout Paris, and then throughout France, and everyone wanted to repeat this experience themselves. What especially surprised everyone was that with such development in water, the leaves completely retained their size, shape and color, and although the flowers turned out to be somewhat paler, they were still fully developed.
From then on, the culture of hyacinths in France began to become more and more fashionable. The culture of small early hyacinths, called Roman (Romaine), was especially famous.
But this lovely flower had a very sad use in France at one time: it was used to stupefy, even to the point of poisoning, those people whom for some reason they wanted to get rid of. This was especially practiced with women, and, moreover, mainly in the 18th century.
Usually, a bouquet or basket of hyacinths intended for these purposes was sprayed with something so poisonous that it could be masked by the strong smell of these flowers, or the flowers were placed in such quantities in the bedroom or boudoir that their strong smell produced terrible dizziness in nervous people and even caused death.
It is difficult to vouch for how true the latter is, but in the memoirs of Mr. Sam, who lived during the time of Napoleon I at the French court, there is a case when an aristocrat who married a rich man killed him by cleaning his bedroom every day with a mass of blooming hyacinths. A similar case is given by Freiligrath in his poem “The Revenge of Flowers.” And in general, it should be noted that there are many people who cannot stand the stupefying smell of this flower, feel faint and even faint.
Of the newest writers, we also encounter hyacinth in Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Arnheim Estate,” where he describes entire fields of blooming hyacinths.
1 Obviously, this refers to muscari, or mouse hyacinth, in particular M. racemosus.
The name of the flower “hyacinth” in Greek means “flower of rains”, but the Greeks simultaneously called it the flower of sadness and also the flower of memory of Hyacinth...
There is a Greek legend associated with the name of this plant. In Ancient Sparta, Hyacinth was for some time one of the most significant gods, but gradually his glory faded and his place in mythology was taken by the god of beauty and sun Phoebus, or Apollo. For thousands of years, the legend of Hyacinth and Apollo remains one of the most famous stories about the origin of flowers.
The favorite of the god Apollo was a young man named Hyacinth. Hyacinth and Apollo often organized sports competitions. One day, during a sports competition, Apollo was throwing a discus and accidentally threw a heavy discus directly at Hyacinth. Drops of blood splashed onto the green grass and after a while fragrant purple-red flowers grew in it. It was as if many miniature lilies were collected into one inflorescence (sultan), and Apollo’s sorrowful exclamation was inscribed on their petals. This flower is tall and slender, and the ancient Greeks called it hyacinth. Apollo immortalized the memory of his favorite with this flower, which grew from the blood of a young man.
In the same Ancient Greece, hyacinth was considered a symbol of dying and resurrecting nature. On the famous throne of Apollo in the city of Amikli, the procession of Hyacinth to Olympus was depicted; According to legend, the base of the statue of Apollo seated on the throne represents the altar in which the deceased young man was buried.
According to a later legend, during the Trojan War, Ajax and Odysseus simultaneously claimed ownership of Achilles' weapons after his death. When the council of elders unfairly awarded weapons to Odysseus, Ajax was so shocked that the hero pierced himself with a sword. From the drops of his blood a hyacinth grew, the petals of which are shaped like the first letters of the name Ajax - alpha and upsilon.
Guria curls. This is what hyacinth was called in Eastern countries. “The tangle of black curls will only be scattered by the comb - And hyacinths will fall in a stream on the roses of the cheeks,” these lines belong to the 15th century Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi. True, the claim that beauties learned to curl their hair from hyacinths appeared in Ancient Greece. About three thousand years ago, Hellenic girls decorated their hair with “wild” hyacinths on their friends’ wedding days.
The Persian poet Ferdowsi constantly compared the hair of beauties with the curling petals of hyacinth and highly praised the aroma of the flower: Her lips were fragrant better than a light breeze, and her hyacinth-like hair was more pleasant than Scythian musk.
For a long time, hyacinths were cultivated in gardens only in Eastern countries. There they were no less popular than tulips. Hyacinth lives in Greece, Turkey and the Balkans. He was popular in Ottoman Empire, from where it penetrated into Austria, Holland and spread throughout Europe. The charming hyacinth came to Western Europe in the second half of the 17th century, primarily to Vienna.
In Holland, hyacinth turned up by chance from a shipwrecked ship that had boxes of bulbs on it; broken and thrown ashore by a storm, the bulbs sprouted, bloomed and became a sensation. It was in 1734, when the fever for tulip cultivation began to cool down and the need for a new flower was felt. So it became a source of great income, especially when it was possible to accidentally breed double hyacinth.
The efforts of the Dutch were aimed first at breeding and then at developing new varieties of hyacinths. Flower growers tried different ways, to quickly propagate hyacinths, but nothing worked. Chance helped. One day a mouse ruined a valuable onion - it gnawed the bottom out. But unexpectedly for the upset owner, children appeared around the “crippled” place, and how many more! Since then, the Dutch began to specially cut the bottom or cut the onion crosswise. Tiny onions formed in places of damage. True, they were small and took 3-4 years to grow. But flower growers have a lot of patience, and good care behind the bulbs accelerates their development. In short, more and more commercial bulbs began to be grown, and soon Holland was trading them with other countries.
We are very interested in hyacinths in Germany. A descendant of the Huguenots, gardener David Boucher, who had an excellent collection of primroses, began growing hyacinths. In the second half of the 18th century, he organized the first exhibition of these flowers in Berlin. Hyacinths captured the imagination of Berliners so much that many became interested in growing them, taking up the task thoroughly and on a grand scale. This was a fashionable entertainment, especially since King Frederick William III himself visited Boucher more than once. The demand for hyacinths was so great that they were grown in huge quantities.
In France in the 18th century, hyacinth was used to stupefy and poison those people they were trying to get rid of. Usually the bouquet intended for this purpose was sprayed with something poisonous, and the flowers intended for poisoning were placed in the boudoir or bedroom of the victim.
Apollo. Cypress. Hyacinth.One god and two mortals... and two sad love stories.
Hyacinth.
One day, the solar god Apollo saw a beautiful earthly youth and was inflamed with a tender feeling for him. This beautiful young man's name was Hyacinth, and he was the son of the Spartan king Amycles.
But the loving deity had a rival - Thamyrid, who was also not indifferent to the handsome prince Hyacinth, who was rumored to be the founder of same-sex love in Greece in those years. At the same time, Apollo became the first of the gods to be seized by such a love illness.
Apollo easily eliminated his rival after learning that he had carelessly boasted of his singing talents, threatening to surpass the muses themselves.
The golden-haired lover quickly informed the muses of what he had heard, and they deprived Thamirides of the ability to sing, play and see.
The unfortunate braggart dropped out of the game, and Apollo calmly, without rivals, began to seduce the object of his love's desire.
After leaving Delphi, he often appeared in the bright valley of the Eurotas River and amused himself there with games and hunting with his young favorite.
Once on a sultry afternoon they both took off their clothes and anointed their bodies olive oil, began to throw the disc.
At that time, Zephyr, the god of the south wind, flew by and saw them.
He did not like that the young man was playing with Apollo, since he also loved Hyacinth, and he picked up Apollo's disk with such force that it hit Hyacinth and knocked him to the ground.
Apollo tried in vain to help his lover. Hyacinth faded away in the arms of his divine patron, whose love gave birth to envy among others and brought him death.
Hyacinth could no longer be helped, and soon he breathed his last in the arms of his friend.
To preserve the memory of the beautiful young man, Apollo turned drops of his blood into beautiful fragrant flowers, which began to be called hyacinths, and Zephyr, who realized too late what terrible consequences his unbridled jealousy had led to, flew, sobbing inconsolably, over the place of his friend’s death and tenderly caressed the exquisite flowers that grew from drops of his blood.
V.A. dedicated his musical work to this ancient plot. Mozart.
This "school opera" Latin written by an eleven-year-old composer. The plot is based on an ancient myth, developed in one of the episodes of the X book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
"Apollo et Hyacinthus seu Hyacinthi Metamorphosis"
Apollo and Hyacinth, or the transformation of Hyacinth
Cypress
On the island of Keos in the Carthean Valley, there was a deer dedicated to the nymphs. This deer was beautiful. His branched horns were gilded, a pearl necklace adorned his neck, and precious jewelry hung from his ears. The deer completely forgot his fear of people. He entered the houses of the villagers and willingly extended his neck to anyone who wanted to stroke it.
All the inhabitants loved this deer, but the young son of King Keos, Cypress, loved him most of all.
Apollo saw this amazing friendship between man and deer, and he wanted, at least for a while, to forget his divine destiny in order to also enjoy life carefree and cheerfully. He descended from Olympus to blooming meadow, where a wonderful deer and his young friend Cypress rested after a rapid jump. “I have seen a lot both on earth and in heaven,” Apollo said to two inseparable friends, “but I have never seen such pure and tender friendship between man and beast. Take me into your company, the three of us will have more fun.” And from that day on, Apollo, Cypress and the deer became inseparable.
The cypress led the deer to clearings with lush grass and to loudly murmuring streams; he decorated its mighty horns with wreaths of fragrant flowers; often, playing with a deer, young Cypress, laughing, jumped onto its back and rode around on it through the flowering Carthean valley.
One day, hot weather settled over the island, and all living things hid from the burning heat in the midday heat. sun rays in the dense shade of trees. On the soft grass under a huge old oak tree, Apollo and Cypress dozed off, while a deer wandered nearby in the thicket of the forest. Suddenly Cypress woke up from the crunch of dry branches behind the nearby bushes, and thought that it was a wild boar creeping up. The young man grabbed a spear to protect his friends, and with all his strength, he threw it towards the sound of crunching dead wood.
A weak, but full of excruciating pain groan was heard by Cypress. He was glad that he did not miss, and rushed after the unexpected prey. Apparently evil fate guided the young man - it was not a ferocious boar that lay in the bushes, but his dying golden-horned deer.
Having washed his friend’s terrible wound with tears, Cypress prayed to the awakened Apollo: “Oh, great, almighty god, save the life of this wonderful animal! Don’t let him die, because then I will die of grief!” Apollo would have gladly fulfilled Cypress’s passionate request, but it was already too late—the deer’s heart stopped beating.
In vain did Apollo console Cypress. Cypress's grief was inconsolable; he prayed to the silver-bowed god that God would let him be sad forever.
Apollo heeded him. The young man turned into a tree. His curls became dark green pine needles, his body was covered with bark. He stood like a slender cypress tree before Apollo; like an arrow, its top went into the sky.
Apollo sighed sadly and said:
I will always grieve for you, wonderful young man, and you will also grieve for someone else’s grief. Always be with those who mourn!
Since then, the Greeks hung a branch of cypress at the door of a house where there was a deceased person; funeral pyres were decorated with its needles,
on which the bodies of the dead were burned, and cypress trees were planted near the graves.
This is such a sad story...