Herbs are tasty that many of us use in our cooking recipes to flavor food. There is a world of herb-lore linked to many herbs and plants.
The herb Rosemary was associated to the Greek goddess of love and fertility, beauty. Aphrodite was also associated with the Roman goddess Venus. During her birth Venus apparently was wrapped in rosemary.
The Birth of Venus (c. 1485) by Sandro Botticelli in Public Domain Wikipedia
Mnemosyne, a female Titan known as the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses.
According to Greek legends, Mnemosyne bestowed Memory upon humans at their birth, then snatch the memory back at the human’s expiry date known as death. This enabled an easier transition entering the Underworld. The departed soul would have to sip from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness and poof! Memories erased just like that!
European and British Mourners would throw it into graves as a symbol of remembrance for the dead. Also used at War Memorials to remember the brave fallen soldiers of WW1 and WW2.
Ancient Greece, scholars would wear a Rosemary garland bound around their heads during an exam yo improve their memory.
Rosemary was used medicinally in the past as s balm rubbed on the scalp to enable hair growth and regrowth.
One can burn a bit of Rosemary or Sage to smudge and clear one’s home from negative energy.
Plant rosemary hear your door for good fortune.
To enhance ones recollection, place a cut of Rosemary in your tresses.
Rosemary was used as a topic in some plays and poems written by William Shakespeare
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. There’s fennel for you, and columbines: — there ‘s rue for you; and here’s some for me: — we may call it, herb of grace o’Sundays: — you may wear your rue with a difference. — There’s a daisy: — I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my father died: — They say, he made a good end.”
~ William Shakespeare
Source & Reference:
- Goddess of the Pillar: The Mythology of Upright Rosemary http://www.paghat.com/rosemary.html
- AZQuotes: https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/rosemary.html
- Encyclopaedia Brittanica https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Rosemary
- Clark, Nora (2015), Aphrodite and Venus in Myth and Mimesis, Cambridge, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4438-7127-3
- Featured image and illustrations in Public Domain
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