#arcangelo lamberti

[glossahortensia]

Mad Honey II: Orientalism, Lalla Rookh, and Deli Bal

Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh inspires a generation of Orientalists to 'mad honey' metaphors, and an old friend returns, 1,700 years after we thought we were done...

Ev'n as those bees of Trebizond,—  Which from the sunniest flowers that glad With their pure smile the gardens round,  Draw venom forth that drives men mad! — ‘The Fire-Worshippers’, Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh.

Sur les langage des fleurs

Here, then, we leave the ancient world behind and forge into the bright realms of the Industrial Revolution, where the yet young science of botany collides with the language of flowers - the shadow of Orientalism, the fascination Western Europe held for the lands to their east, cast long across it.

In our world of floriography, this manifests itself in its alleged origin - I understand considered fantastical by today’s academics, but I am yet to consult with the data in its strictest sense - in the harems of the Ottoman Empire. The earliest example of floriography, at least commonly cited, is in the letters of Englishwoman Mary Wortley Montagu while abroad in Ottoman Turkey, published without her consent the year after her death in 1763, and causing a sensation at the time for her criticism of Catholicism and interest in Islam. Writing to another lady in her ‘Letter XL’, Wortley Montagu explained:

I have got for you, as you desire, a Turkish love-letter, which I have put into a little box, and ordered the captain of the Smyrniote to deliver it to you with this letter. The translation of it is literally as follows: The first piece you should pull out of the purse, is a little Pearl, which is in Turkish called Ingi, and must be understood in this manner: Ingri, Sensin Uzellerin gingi Pearl, Fairest of the young. Caremfil, Caremfilsen cararen yōk      Congе̄ gulsum timarin yōk      Benseny chok than severim      Senin benden, baberin yōk Clove,  You are as slender as this clove!     You are an unblown rose!     I have long loved you, and you have not known it!

But you will note that the pearl is not a flower, and she goes on to give similar verses for a jonquil, paper, pear, soap, coal, a rose, a straw, cloth, cinnamon, a match, gold thread, hair, a grape, gold wire, and pepper, noting that there is barely a flower, fabric, or item that does not have a verse attached to it.

This appears to have been overlooked in its day, and it is only with the 1800s that we see it surface in earnest - I have located a French letter from 1806 which I believe might be an earlier example, but apart from that, the first mention of a langage des fleurs we encounter is another piece alleged to come from the harems of the Ottoman Empire, this time from Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, in his contribution to 1809’s Fundgruben des Orients, ‘Sur les langage des fleurs’, has similar, if expanded, content to Montagu:

In Hammer-Purgstall’s langage des fleurs, the emblems are indicated with a rhyme both in Turkish as in French. Like Montagu, Hammer-Purgstall’s emblems are not all flowers, despite his proclaimed ‘dictionnaire du langage des fleurs’; he also includes, among yet more examples, a thread, needle, palm of the hand, an arrow, flour, silk, a skein of white silk, a coin, a sequin, a cloud, chalk, wire, salt, a brick, ambergris, feathers, bread, paper, and honey.

None of which are flowers, and none of which survived the transfer over into the European language of flowers proper. In English, even the alleged Turkish origins of floriography ceased to be referenced with time, but in some emblems they remained, and so it was with the rhododendron - and that brings us once again to the start of the century, and Thomas Moore.

Read more on Lalla Rookh, Edgar Allan Poe, Tournefort and Lamberti on the substack. Part I is here, on the ancient writing on 'mad honey'.

Mad Honey II: Ev'n as those bees of Trebizond (Rhododendron)

Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh inspires a generation of Orientalists to 'mad honey' metaphors, and an old friend returns, 1,700 years after we t