ON THE HISTORY OF PLANTS

BY CHARLES DE L’ÉCLUSE.

You, O roots; you, O herbs with your flowers,
    And trees beautiful in your branches,
Come now, breathe forth the flavors of your divine juices:
    Now spread your foliage wider:
Now swell your buds with ointment, which Love for its own
    Has increased by a fifth part of nectar. The poet suggests that the beauty of these plants is enhanced by a divine, quintessence-like love.
For your virtue, previously well known to hardly anyone,
    Now approaches the stars on the chariots of Fame.
And so a part of you, buried until now in blind night,
    Shines forth in a golden garment.
Therefore, for such a gift, what pious thanks
    Will you give to your champion?
Am I mistaken? Or will you immediately, in a formed battle-line,
    Thrust every kind of disease to the lakes of Pluto? original: "Ditis lacus" - referring to the underworld or death.
And will you grant that whoever has tasted you with the tip of their lips,
    Or breathed you in but once with their nostrils:
May thus powerfully drink in the name and virtues of Clusius Clusius is the Latinized name of Charles de l'Écluse (1526–1609), a pioneer of modern botany.
    Into their deepest soul; so that they may meditate
On nothing but the praises of Clusius, and in every land
    Speak the greatest many good things of him?
Nod your assent. For if a single herb made Glaucus a god, In Greek mythology, the fisherman Glaucus became immortal after eating a magical herb.
    What will you not provide together,
You, O roots; you, O herbs with your flowers,
    And trees beautiful in your branches?

Clusius, the delight and love of the DIVINE
Maximilian the Great, the son of Ferdinand, Refers to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, Clusius's patron in Vienna.
Than whom nothing in the whole world is, or was, or will be
More fertile in Richness or in Wisdom:
How rightly you fulfill your name with an omen?
How rightly, I think, are you called Clusius?
Not because Apollo closes The poet plays on the name "Clusius" and the Latin verb "claudere" (to close/shut).
The sacred things of the Muses and the Healers from your eyes; original: "Aonumque Machaonumque" - referring to the Muses and Machaon, the son of Asclepius, god of medicine.
Not because the hidden temples of Hygeia are shut to you, Hygeia was the Greek goddess of health.
In which both Venus and Youth dwell;
Not because you are barred from the altars of Pallas Athena,
Which Prudence and a right mind preserve.
Indeed, Apollo lays bare the sacred things
Of the Muses and the Healers to your eyes.
Indeed, the temples of Hygeia are open to you,
In which both Venus and Youth dwell.
Indeed, you are gathered to the altars of Pallas,
Which Prudence and a right mind preserve.
Thus you are named rather because you are the only one
In whose heart and soul continually
Apollo, Medicine, and Athena shut themselves away. The wordplay concludes: Clusius is not "shut out" from knowledge, but rather knowledge is "shut inside" him.