Aloes have the peculiarity that they are the emblems of the most intense bitterness and of the richest and most costly fragrance. In the Bible Aloes are mentioned five times, and always with reference to their excellence and costliness.[13:1] Juvenal speaks of it only as a bitter-- "Animo corrupta superbo Plus Aloes quam mellis habet" (vi. 180). Pliny describes it very minutely, and says, "Strong it is to smell unto, and bitter to taste" (xxvii. 4, Holland's translation). Our old English writers spoke of it under both aspects. It occurs in several recipes of the Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, as a strong and bitter purgative. Chaucer notices its bitterness only-- "The woful teres that they leten falle As bittre weren, out of teres kynde, For peyne, as is ligne Aloes or galle." _Troilus and Cryseide_, st. 159. But the author of the "Remedie of Love," formerly attributed to Chaucer, says-- "My chambre is strowed with myrrhe and incense With sote savouring Aloes and sinnamone, Breathing an aromaticke redolence." Shakespeare only mentions the bitter quality. The two qualities are derived from two very different plants. The fragrant ointment is the product of an Indian shrub, Aquilaria agallochum; and the bitter purgative is from the true Aloes, A. Socotrina, A. vulgaris, and others. These plants were well known in Shakespeare's time, and were grown in England. Turner and Gerard describe them as the Sea Houseleek; and Gerard tells us that they were grown as vegetable curiosities, for "the herbe is alwaies greene, and likewise sendeth forth branches, though it remaine out of the earth, especially if the root be covered with lome, and now and then watered; for so being hanged on the seelings and upper posts of dining-roomes, it will not onely continue a long time greene, but it also groweth and bringeth forth new leaves."[14:1] FOOTNOTES: [13:1] Numbers xxiv. 6; Psalms xlv. 8; Proverbs vii. 17; Canticles iv. 14; John xix. 39. [14:1] In the emblems of Camerarius (No. 92) is a picture of a room with an Aloe suspended. ANEMONE. By this, the boy that by her side lay kill'd Was melted like a vapour from her sight, And in his blood that on the ground lay spill'd, A purple flower sprung up chequer'd with white. Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood. _Venus and Adonis_ (1165). Shakespeare does not actually name the Anemone, and I place this passage under that name with some doubt, but I do not know any other flower to which he could be referring. The original legend of the Anemone as given by Bion was that it sprung from the tears of Venus, while the Rose sprung from Adonis' blood-- ἆιμα ροδον τίκτει. τά δέ δάκρυα τάν ἀνεμώναν. _Bion Idyll_, i, 66.