12. The 'stem,' you are to say, then, when you mean the _advancing_ shoot,--which lengthens annually, while a stalk ends every year in a blossom, and a cymba in a leaf. A stem is essentially round,[37] square, or regularly polygonal; though, as a cymba may become exceptionally round, a stem may become exceptionally flat, or even mimic the shape of a leaf. Indeed I should have liked to write "a stem is essentially round, and constructively, on occasion, square,"--but it would have been too grand. The fact is, however, that a stem is really a roundly minded thing, throwing off its branches in circles as a trundled mop throws off drops, though it can always order the branches to fly off in what order it likes,--two at a time, opposite to each other; or three, or five, in a spiral coil; or one here and one there, on this side and that; {137} but it is always twisting, in its own inner mind and force; hence it is especially proper to use the word 'stem' of it--[Greek: stemma], a twined wreath; properly, twined round a staff, or sceptre: therefore, learn at once by heart these lines in the opening Iliad: "[Greek: Stemmat' echon en chersin hekebolou Apollonos,] [Greek: Chruseoi ana skeptroi;]" And recollect that a sceptre is properly a staff to lean upon; and that as a crown or diadem is first a binding thing, a 'sceptre' is first a _supporting_ thing, and it is in its nobleness, itself made of the stem of a young tree. You may just as well learn also this: "[Greek: Nai ma tode skeptron, to men oupote phulla kai ozous] [Greek: Phusei, epeide prota tomen en oressi leloipen,] [Greek: Oud' anathelesei; peri gar rha he chalkos elepse] [Greek: Phulla te kai phloion; nun aute min huies Achaion] [Greek: En palameis phoreousi dikaspoloi, hoi te themistas] [Greek: Pros Dios eiruatai;]" "Now, by this sacred sceptre hear me swear Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, Which, severed from the trunk, (as I from thee,) On the bare mountains left its parent tree; This sceptre, formed by tempered steel to prove An ensign of the delegates of Jove, From whom the power of laws and justice springs (Tremendous oath, inviolate to Kings)."