The Majestic Oak

The oak tree is featured in religion, literature and art as diverse as Greek mythology, the Judaic Old Testament, Roman literature, fairy-tales, numismatics, Sir Thomas Browne's botanical studies and Carl Jung's archetypal psychology.

Central to one of ancient Greece's most revered of oracles, the rustling leaves of the Dodona oak, and later, thin metal strips hung from its branches which tinkled in the breeze, were interpreted as the oracular voice of gods. In the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts, the Golden Fleece is found discovered on an oak tree in a grove sacred to Ares. 

The oak tree was sacred to Roman, Celtic, Teutonic and Druid religious beliefs and associated with the supreme gods of Zeus, Jupiter and Thor, each of whom held dominion over rain, thunder and lightning. It is symbolically associated with lightning and smoke with good reason. It attracts lightning because its roots  itself deep into the earth,  has a high water content and is often solitary standing or the tallest in a forest. Each of these factors contribute to the oak tree attracting lightning. Many religious beliefs also associate the oak tree with smoke, perhaps because it sometimes smoulders long after being struck by lightning.

The ancient Celtic Druids worshipped and practised their sacred rites in oak groves, indeed the very word Druid derives from a Celtic word meaning 'knower of the oak tree'. Historical descriptions of Druids can be found in  Roman writers such as Julius Caesar in his 'Commentary on the Gallic Wars'  as well as in the writings of Cicero, Tacitus and Pliny the Elder. However, after the Roman Emperors Tiberius and Claudius brutally suppressed the Druid Orders all mention of oak-tree worshippers disappears from historical record by the 2nd century CE.

Oak trees feature in the Old Testament, notably when Absalom while riding his mule under a great oak has his head wedged between its branches and is suspended between heaven and earth. The elon tree, most often translated as 'oak' is mentioned in the Bible as the first tree encountered by Abram upon entering the promised land, and as the tree under which Deborah, the nurse of Rebecca, was buried. King Jeroboam meets an unnamed prophet who sits under an oak tree, and the prophet Isaiah speaks of 'oaks of righteousness.' [1]

In the fairy tale by the German Brothers Grimm 'The Spirit in the Bottle' (1814) a destitute scholar wanders in a forest where he encounters a dangerous-looking oak, many hundreds of years old. He hears a faint voice calling out from it, "Let me out, let me out!"  Asking where it is, the voice replies, "I am down here amongst the roots of the oak-tree. Let me out! Let me out!" The scholar loosens the earth under the tree, searches among its roots and finds a glass bottle in which Mercurius, the transformative spirit of alchemy is imprisoned.

During the Roman Republic a crown of oak leaves was given to those who had saved the life of a citizen in battle; it was called the "Civic Crown". A superb Roman era agate survives, which is described thus- 

'In one talon, the eagle grasps a palm branch as a symbol of victory, while in the other it holds an oak wreath. This corona civica  or ' civic crown' was an honour awarded to Augustus, granted only to a Roman who had saved the lives of his fellow citizens. This crown of oak leaves hung above the entrance of Augustus on the Palatine, a permanent reminder that he had rescued not just one, but the entire Roman world. [2] 

From the 16th century onwards the massive trees that were once abundant throughout Europe became rarer due to the construction and expansion of  naval fleets.  Britain was said to be a nation which was protected by a wooden wall, one which was made of oak. Indeed, the composer William Boyce in 1759 composed the tune 'Hearts of Oak' with lyrics by actor David Garrick. Boyce's melody remains the official march of the British Royal Navy.

A large-scale Naval Fleet however comes with no small environmental cost and each ship represents the clearing of several acres of ancient woodland. By the end of the 1700s the British Royal Navy had swelled to a fleet of three hundred ships and the construction of this number would have taken as an estimated 1.2 million oak trees.  Its been calculated that constructing a large, wooden warship such as a Royal Navy ship required around 2,000 to 4,000 mature oak trees, or even up to 6,000. Many of these trees were over 200 years old and were sourced from the woodlands of Europe. In essence, the large-scale National fleets of Spain and later the Dutch and British naval forces, were the primary cause of European deforestation. Today however, England has more ancient oaks than any other European nation. There are an estimated 115  oaks with a circumference of trunk over 9 metres in England and only 96 in the rest of Europe.

The oak tree's biological characteristics of longevity, strength and endurance have frequently been used to represent moral virtues. Because symbols are flexible the oak has been used to represent quite different national and civic aspirations. Its leaf can be seen on German coins from both the short-lived Third Reich and the subsequent enduring Republic.  

The late Renaissance natural historian and literary figure Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) took a keen interest in oak trees. In his miscellaneous tract, 'Observations on several plants mentioned in Scripture' he demonstrates a prodigious memory and familiarity with the Bible. Over 140 plants are recollected by him. World-wide there are many different species of oak tree. Of the Biblical oak tree he stated-

 

'Mention is made of Oaks in divers parts of Scripture, which though the Latin sometimes renders a Turpentine Tree, yet surely some kind of Oak may be understood thereby; but whether our common Oak as is commonly apprehended, you may well doubt; for the common Oak, which prospereth so well with us, delighteth not in hot regions. And that diligent Botanist Bellonius, who took such particular notice of the Plants of Syria and Judæa, observed not the vulgar Oak in those parts. [3] 

Browne knew of Absalom's encounter with an oak tree and of it being sacred to pre-Christian religions- 

'And therefore when it is said of Absalom, that his Mule went under the thick Boughs of a great Oak, and his Head caught hold of the Oak, and he was taken up between the Heaven and the Earth, that Oak might be some Ilex, or rather Esculus.....And when it is said that Ezechias broke down the Images, and cut down the Groves, they might much consist of Oaks, which were sacred unto Pagan Deities'. [4] 

Browne was one of the earliest of naturalists to recognise that of all plants, the oak supports the greatest diversity of life. More than 500 butterfly and moth species have larvae which feeds on oak leaves. Today its known that more than 100 animal species rely on acorns as a crucial food source. Oak acorns sustain field mice, squirrels, chipmunks and jays. Flycatchers, tawny owls and woodpeckers all build their nests in the oak's crevices; blackbirds and warblers feed off the caterpillars on its leaves. Browne succinctly noted of the Oak's diversity- 

'while almost every plant breeds its peculiar insect, most a Butterfly, moth or fly, wherein the Oak seems to contain the largest seminality',  

Browne was also aware of the oak tree's relationship to mistletoe. Mistletoe taps into the oak's vascular system to supplement its own nutrient intake, yet still performs photosynthesis. Browne's description of Druids gathering mistletoe is sourced from his reading of the Roman author Pliny's vast work Naturalis Historia. [5] 

'for the Magical vertues in this Plant, and conceived efficacy unto veneficial intentions, it seemeth a Pagan relique derived from the ancient Druides, the great admirers of the Oak, especially the Misseltoe that grew thereon; which according unto the particular of Pliny, they gathered with great solemnity. For after sacrifice the Priest in a white garment ascended the tree, cut down the Misseltoe with a golden hook, and received it in a white coat; the vertue whereof was to resist all poisons, and make fruitful any that used it. 

Grafting of mistletoe involves great patience and time. Browne knew that soil condition and geography determined the growth of missletoe  but like many others he was unsuccessful in his attempts to graft it.

'The like concerning the growth of Misseltoe, which dependeth not only of the species, or kind of Tree, but much also of the Soil. And therefore common in some places, not readily found in others, frequent in France, not so common in Spain, and scarce at all in the Territory of Ferrara: Nor easily to be found where it is most required upon Oaks, less on Trees continually verdant..... But this Parasitical plant suffers nothing to grow upon it, by any way of art; nor could we ever make it grow where nature had not planted it; as we have in vain attempted by inocculation and incision, upon its native or foreign stock'. 

Allusion to trees occurs throughout Browne's 'The Garden of Cyrus or Network Plantations of the Ancients'.  The tree species of Hazel, Lime, Pine, Fir, Fig, Alder, Willow, Maple, Cypress and Sycamore are all mentioned. Appropriately for a Discourse whose theme is Generation, growth and longevity, the oak and its acorns are mentioned most. 

Early in The Garden of Cyrus artificial examples of the Quincunx pattern are considered. Laurels made from oak leaves are proposed as exemplary of the quincuncial pattern -

'The Triumphal Oval, and Civicall Crowns of Laurel, Oake, and Myrtle, when fully made, were pleated after this order'. 

After supplying his reader with artificial examples, the central chapter of Browne's Discourse focuses upon natural examples of the quincunx pattern, including branches of the oak tree -

'And after this manner doth lay the foundation of the circular branches of the Oak, which being five-cornered, in the tender annual sprouts, and manifesting upon incision the signature of a Starre, is after made circular, and swel’d into a round body'.

Browne's symbolism is precise and well-ordered. Trees in general are mentioned in both Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) crucially, in close relationship to the thematic concerns of each respective discourse. The Oak tree in particular is a conjoining symbol which unites his two-in-one discourses. 

In Urn-Burial it is the decaying and dead aspect of trees which is featured, in particular as fuel for the funeral pyre. The Yew tree is named as frequently found in Graveyards. Fallen and fossilized trees are mentioned thus-

'Moore-logs, and Firre-trees found under-ground in many parts of England; the undated ruines of windes, flouds or earthquakes; and which in Flanders still shew from what quarter they fell, as generally lying in a North-East position'.

The oak tree is utilized primarily as a symbol of Time in Urn-Burial. Its with sombre stoicism that Browne declares -  'Generations passe while some trees stand, and old Families last not three Oaks'.

Together, Time and Space are the metaphysical templates of Browne's literary mandala. In Urn-Burial the oak tree is a symbol of Time and decay, while in The Garden of Cyrus its the living growth and size in dimensional Space of the oak tree which is highlighted -

'That the biggest of Vegetables exceedeth the biggest of Animals, in full bulk, and all dimensions, admits exception in the Whale, which in length and above ground measure, will also contend with tall Oakes'.  

The oak tree's longevity, strength and endurance have invariably been used to symbolize moral and spiritual values in religious beliefs, as well as in art and literature. 

The Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung in his essay 'The Philosophical Tree' analyzes the rich symbolism of the tree in alchemical literature. Jung interpreted the symbolism of the tree as simultaneously representing the growth and development of the psyche, the individuation process, and the connection between the Underworld and spiritual heights. He noted of trees, and of the oak tree in particular - 

'Trees, like fishes in the water, represent the living contents of the unconscious....The mighty oak is proverbially the King of the forest... It is the prototype  of the self, a symbol of the source and goal of the individuation process. The oak stands for the still unconscious core of the personality, the plant symbolism indicating a state of deep unconsciousness  [6] 

Images:

*Top header -  'Old tree, young pigs' (56x66cm) by  British artist Peter Rodulfo (b. 1958) 

*  Photo of an oak tree at Dodona, in Epirus in northwestern Greece.

* Fairy tale illustration to 'The Spirit in the Bottle'.

*  Roman Agate of  Eagle with palm branch and oak laurel in its talons.

*  Left -1950 50 Pfenning Coin West Germany and Right- 1933 Third Reich One Mark coin

* Photo of 400 year old tree at Woodlands Park, Norwich.

 

*  Norwich School of artists John Crome's 'The Oak at Poringland' (1818-20) Tate Gallery

* Photo of oak leaves and acorns

* 400 year old at Earlham park/ UEA Porter's lodge, Norwich

Notes

[1]  Genesis 12 verse 6,  Genesis 18, Genesis 35 verse 8 , 1 Kings 13 and Isaiah 61 verse 3

[2] 'Moneta : Ancient Rome in twelve coins'  by Gareth Harney  pub. Vintage 2024

[3] Although several books by Pierre Belon (1517–1564) are listed as once in Browne's library, Belon's  'Observations on Several Singularities and Memorable Things Found in Greece, Asia, Judea, Egypt, Arabia, and Other Foreign Countries' (1553) is not. However, Browne must surely have consulted Belon's 'Observations  in order to distinguish between different species of Oak in Judea. 

[4] Thomas Browne Miscellaneous Tract 1    Observations on several plants mentioned in Scripture .

[5]  Browne's source here is Pliny's vast work Naturalis Historia book 16 : 95. 

Listed in 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue page 17 no. 13

[6] C.G. Jung Collected Works Volume 13 paragraph 194 

The phantastical Quincunx in Plato

'The shaping influence of Platonism on Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) has long been recognized by those attracted to the intangible atmosphere of his mind.'[1] 

Allusion to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (circa 427 BCE- 347 BCE) occurs throughout Browne’s writings. Plato’s proposal that the world is a living creature which possesses a soul (anima mundi), his allegories of the Cave of human illusion and the ‘wild horses’ of the passions, his political allegory of the lost civilization of Atlantis, along with ‘the fantastical Quincunx of Plato' can all be found in Browne’s literary works.

Above all else the discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) reveals the full depth of the learned doctor’s immersion in Platonic thought. In a kaleidoscopic procession of art-objects, botanical specimens, optical theories and mystical symbols, Browne showcases his very own home-grown Platonic Form of the Quincunx. With virtuoso skill he improvises upon it in geometrical, numerical and mystical variations in order to highlight a foundational hermetic belief: the interconnectedness of life across the Universe. Browne also supplies his reader throughout the  discourse with proper-name symbolism of historical philosopher-Kings and ‘wise rulers’ as advocated by Plato. A timely reminder today with the world-wide rise of authoritarian and demagogue politicians. 

It was the Oxford academic Thomas Lushington (1590-1661) who introduced Thomas Browne to Plato’s philosophy. He also recommended Norwich to his former pupil as an ideal city to establish a medical career. Browne followed his advice, and after qualifying as a physician in 1637 relocated to Norwich where he practiced medicine until his death in 1682. 

Lushington most likely took pride when his former pupil’s Religio Medici (1643) became a best-seller in England and gained recognition across Europe after translation. Plato is encountered several times in Browne’s spiritual testament and psychological self-portrait. For example, the so-called Great Platonic Year, a period of approximately 24,000 years, the length of time which the Greek philosopher believed was required for the celestial bodies to return to their original positions, is defined by Browne as-

'A revolution of certain thousand years when all things should return unto their former estate and he (Plato) be teaching again in his school as when he delivered this opinion'.[2]

Browne expresses his belief in the anima mundi or World-Soul in Religio Medici, a concept originating from Plato and later embraced by hermetic philosophers.

'Now besides these particular and divided Spirits, there may be (for ought I know) an universal and common Spirit to the whole world. It was the opinion of Plato, and it is yet of the Hermetical Philosophers; [3]

Alchemystical philosophers such as Browne related Plato’s concept of the anima mundi or World-Soul from their own spiritual intuition as much as from reading Plato. 

A central tenet of Browne’s spirituality is a belief in an angelic hierarchy, one which he held in common with many in the seventeenth century. It was a belief supported not only from Biblical Scripture, but from Plato also, as Browne informs-

‘Therefore for Spirits I am so far from denying their existence and from denying their existence, that I could easily believe, that not only whole Countries, but particular persons have their Tutelary, and Guardian Angels: It is not a new opinion of the Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato’. [4] 

Religio Medici (The Religion of a doctor) concludes in decisive favour of Plato and dismissive of his pupil Aristotle,  Browne wittily declaring-

‘Aristotle whilst he labours to refute the Idea's of Plato, falls upon one himself: for his summum bonum, is a Chimæra, and there is no such thing as his Felicity’.[5]

In Plato's theological, moral and mystical philosophy allegory, symbolism and concepts such as Eternal Ideas or Forms are used to illustrate spiritual truths. As the ‘Father of Western mysticism’ he's the source of much esoteric thought. Plato’s philosophy was fundamentally supplemented with the revival and development of Platonic thought in the early centuries of the Common Era. Neoplatonism flourished through philosophers such as Plotinus (204/5 – 271 CE) Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 233-305 CE) and Iamblichus (245-325 CE) all of whom elaborated and expanded Platonic concepts, often with little connection to the ancient Greek’s original thought. Books by Neoplatonic authors are well-represented in Browne’s library. [6] 

The authoritative scholar Reid Barbour in his meticulously researched biography advances our understanding of Browne’s interest in Plato, explaining-

‘The appeal of Plato underscores Browne’s syncretic conviction that behind all transcendentally inclined philosophies – Hermetic, Zoroastrian, Pythagorean, Platonic, Neoplatonic, Chaldaic, Cabbalistic, and Christian – one finds the same supra-rational and even counter-rational truths, which neither dry logic nor blind partisanship can appreciate. [7]

Platonic and Neoplatonic thought influenced numerous artists, poets and thinkers throughout the Renaissance until the late seventeenth century, the low-ebb tide of its influence. The enduring appeal of Platonic thought is succinctly explained thus-

'In the Renaissance, no ancient revival had more impact on the history of philosophy than the recovery of Platonism.....No other renewal of an ancient school had a textual base large enough to support the growth  of a coherent, wide-reaching and independent philosophical system ..For at least three reasons, the new Platonism of Ficino and his successors must be seen as central to any discussion of European intellectual history during the Renaissance. First, the rich doctrinal content and formal elegance of Neoplatonic Platonism made it at least a plausible competitor of Peripateticism. What the Neoplatonists lacked in systematic logic and natural philosophy, they made up for with a stronger appeal to creativity .. They gave more latitude to all kinds of speculation, from aesthetics and mythology to cosmology and theology. After Ficino, anyone who disliked Aristotle could turn to Plato... The second strength of Platonism was its extra-philosophical influence. Despite his harsh words for poetry, Plato initiated a tradition that poets admired.... The same is true of his treatment of music...Finally, certain attitudes and methods of the new science were more Platonic than Aristotelian. The habit of idealizing physics, which was fundamental to the new science of the seventeenth century, came more easily to the Platonic mentality than to the Peripatetic. Even more important was Platonic praise of mathematics. For Aristotle, physics and mathematics did not really mix, while Plato gave good grounds for a mathematical analysis of nature. Platonism never vanquished Aristotelianism in the Renaissance, but it acquired great cultural strength'. [8]

In our own times it is Aristotelean reasoning and materialism which has triumphed over Platonic idealism, as the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung succinctly noted, ‘Greek natural philosophy with its interest in matter, together with Aristotelean reasoning, has achieved a belated but overwhelming victory over Plato’. [9]

Thematically, Browne’s literary diptych Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) concern themselves with themes of great importance to Plato, namely, the destiny of the eternal soul and number as a key to unlock cosmic mysteries. Browne’s diptych discourses closely reflect these two themes, Urn-Burial speculating upon the destiny of the soul and The Garden of Cyrus advocating number as a key to unlock the mysteries of the Cosmos.

Above-  Wall fresco of an ancient Greek drinking party symposium.

Urn-Burial

Browne’s sharp intellect and fertile imagination was sparked from the initial discovery of several Anglo-Saxon funerary urns ‘in a field near Old Walsingham’. In Urn-Burial he forensically surveys the burial rites, customs and beliefs of various world religions. It’s as a pioneering scholar of comparative religion that Browne alludes to Plato’s myth or tale of Er,  informing his reader that-

‘Plato’s historian of the other world, lies twelve days incorrupted, while his soul was viewing the large stations of the dead’.

Plato’s mythic story begins when a man named Er dies in battle. When the bodies of those who died in the battle are collected, some ten days after his death, Er remains undecomposed. Two days later he miraculously revives on his funeral-pyre and tells others of his soul’s journey in the afterlife, including his account of hearing the music of the celestial spheres. With its account of the cosmos and the afterlife Plato’s myth of Er influenced religious, philosophical, and scientific thought for centuries, not least for its teaching that after death moral people are rewarded and immoral people are punished.

Another ‘soul-journey’ cited in Urn-Burial is by the Roman philosopher Macrobius (395-423CE) whose commentary on ‘Scipio’s Dream’  was well-known throughout the Middle Ages. In Scipio’s ‘soul-journey’ the Roman military General Scipio narrates how he voyaged through the zodiac signs of Cancer and Capricorn, believed to be the exit and entrance to heaven and hears the celestial harmony of the spheres. Browne alludes to Macrobius' Commentary, recognises the importance of music in the grieving process as well as ‘the harmonical nature of the soul’ in  relationship to ‘the primitive harmony of heaven’, poetically stating- 

'They made use of Musick to excite or quiet the affections of their friends, according to different harmonies. But the secret and symbolical hint was the harmonical nature of the soul; which delivered from the body, went again to enjoy the primitive harmony of heaven, from whence it first descended; which according to its progress traced by antiquity, came down by Cancer, and ascended by Capricornus'.

A vivid allusion to the ancient Greek philosopher’s allegory of the Cave of human unknowingness can also be found in Urn-Burial. Plato’s famous allegory describes people who have spent their entire lives chained by their neck and ankles in front of an inner wall in order to view the wall of a cave. They can only observe the shadows projected onto the outer wall of this cave by objects which are carried behind the inner wall by people who are invisible to the chained prisoners. Walking along the outer wall with a fire behind them, they create shadows on the inner wall in front of the prisoners who can only ever see the world indirectly, their reality is only ever one of fire-lit shadows projected onto a wall.

In Plato’s powerful allegory the senses are proven to be highly unreliable narrators, the soul remains dormant and empirical reality has a transcendent background to it. Browne shared with Plato this view of the human condition. Using highly original medical imagery he declares-

'A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Platoes denne, and are but Embryon Philosophers'.

Plato’s allegory of the Cave, idiosyncratically translated as ‘denne’ by Browne retains relevance today in our screen dominated lives, as one author states- 

'We can easily imagine Plato believing that we have returned to the world of the Cave, the situation in which our sensibility, values, tastes and desires are decisively shaped by what we absorb from the images presented to us…..Do the media that pervade our culture really contribute to human well-being and happiness, both of which, for Plato, depend on freedom from the control and manipulation that the use of the media can inflict on us ?.... The image of the Cave represented an imprisonment or enslavement by ignorance, illusion, ephemeral interests and harmful desires.... surely Plato’s verdict on our screen-dominated culture would have been severely critical'. [10]

The apotheosis of Browne’s speculations upon the body’s dissolution and the soul’s release includes an inventory of spiritual states of consciousness -

'And if any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian annihilation, extasis, exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the kisse of the Spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the divine shadow, they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them………..  ‘Tis all one to lye in St. Innocent’s Churchyard as the sands of Egypt’.

Above : SCIOLTA (Freed) Symbolic image of the soul released from the cage of the body.  Detail of dove flying from a cage. Suckling Monument (circa 1616) St. Andrew's church Norwich.

The eminent American psychologist James Hillman (1926-2011) stated in words resonate with the prominent moralist found in Urn-Burial -

'religion begins, as we have said, as a reflection upon death. Psychology does too, for it is in the face of death that we ponder and go deep and sense soul, and then build our fantasies for housing it, whether these be the ancient pyramids and sepulchres of religion or the rituals and systems of modern psychology'. [11]

Browne's solitary hint of his Discourses relationship occurs in his Dedicatory Epistle in The Garden of Cyrus where he states-

'That we conjoyn these parts of different Subjects, or that this should succeed the other; Your judgement will admit without impute of incongruity; Since the delightful World comes after death, and Paradise succeeds the Grave.'

Browne’s solitary hint is tantalizing. Together, his discourses have a complex, plexiform relationship to each other. The primary imagery they share is optical. Imagery involving Darkness and Light is replete throughout each Discourse. James Hillman notes - 'The linking of light and darkness sets the stage for a fundamental and recurring theme in both alchemy and Jungian psychology, namely, the coniunctio oppositorum, the unity of opposites, a bringing together of light and darkness into an illuminated vision'. [12]

James Hillman also notes that Light and Darkness are inextricably related to each other as symbolic of Consciousness and unconsciousness. The repeated imagery of Light and Darkness throughout the diptych suggests they function as a product of Browne’s proto-psychology, as such they may be viewed as an early portrait of the psyche in its totality of unconsciousness and consciousness. 

Ingeniously constructed with a myriad of polarities (Browne is credited with introducing the very word ‘polarity’ into English language) the literary diptych includes several uniting symbols. For example, in Urn-Burial the Pyramid is condemned as a vain-glorious monument, while in Cyrus the Pyramid is contemplated a geometric form. The two-faced Roman god Janus is also encountered in each Discourse, as are hand gestures signalling subtraction and multiplication. Above all however it’s the philosophical thought of Plato which decisively unites the Discourses.

The Garden of Cyrus

Like the letters in the proverbial stick of rock The Garden of Cyrus has the five letters of the word PLATO embedded at its core. Each of its five chapters names the ancient Greek philosopher. Its opening page references Plato no less than three times, firstly alluding to the Demiurge figure of Plato's Timaeus via the mythological figure of Vulcan, secondly acknowledging Plato’s theological import, describing him  as ‘the divine philosopher’ and thirdly in his footnote, 'Plato in Timaeo'. Browne was not alone in his interest in Plato's discourse. Ever since 1484 when Marsilio Ficino made a full Latin translation of Plato's  discourse available the Timaeus wielded a near Bible-like authority upon poet, scholar, artist and Hermetic philosopher alike throughout the Renaissance. 

The Garden of Cyrus opens with an account of the Creation, evoking the demiurge figure of Vulcan as the Master Workman. ‘Philosophers of Fire’ such as Browne took their cue from the radical Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) who named the Roman blacksmith of the gods as representative of their alchemical art. To Paracelsian physicians such as Browne Vulcan was synonymous with the demiurge figure who created the Universe as described by Plato in his Timaeus.

Plato's Timaeus is his most Pythagorean, influential and mystical discourse. In it he describes how the Demiurge is a divine craftsman who shapes the chaotic material world into an ordered cosmos by imitating eternal, unchanging Platonic Forms. Acting as a father and artificer, the Demiurge imposes mathematical order on pre-existing chaos, creating a universe that is a living god with its own soul, and creates lesser gods responsible for humanity. Plato’s discourse is assessed thus -

'The most important account of the Creation in the classical world was that given in Plato’s Timaeus (a substantial part of which survived into the Christian Middle Ages) and here we find that it is the Demiurge himself (and not the lesser gods) who puts the divine ‘guiding principle’ into humankind'. [13]

Just as Plato in his Timaeus engages in mystical mathematics in which number is a key to unlock the mysteries of the Cosmos, so too Browne indulges in mystical mathematics throughout The Garden of Cyrus. In what is his most Pythagorean and Platonic influenced work, Browne explores eternal patterns, symbolism, mystical numerology and geometry, showcasing the Quincunx pattern in art and nature as reflecting the eternal forms and archetypes discussed in Plato's Timaeus.

Plato's eternal Forms are perfect, timeless, and unchanging abstract archetypes of concepts, objects, and qualities that exist in a separate "Realm of Forms" beyond our physical world. The material world, known only through the senses, is merely an imperfect, shadowy imitation of these perfect Forms. True knowledge, for Plato, is the intellectual grasp of these eternal Forms, rather than flawed perceptions of the physical world. Browne’s demonstration of the Platonic form of the Quincunx in Art, Nature and mystically is modelled upon Plato's notion of Eternal Forms which pre-existed the Creation. The master workman or demiurge figure who consults the blueprints for the Creation, introduces the Eternal or Archetypal Forms to the World.

Number

The Garden of Cyrus sees Browne give full expression to his 'mystical mathematicks' and numerological inclinations. He first expressed his interest in numerological symbolism in Religio Medici frankly declaring -

'I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras and the secret magicke of number'. [14]

In his encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) there's a chapter titled Of the great Climatericall year, that is, Sixty three in which he speculates upon whether the number 63 is fatal in human affairs, noting it was reputedly the age which Plato died. He also informs his reader in this chapter that -‘ The Philosophy of Plato, and most of the Platonists abounds in numerall considerations’. [15]

No writings by Pythagoras survive, however Plato, in what is his most Pythagorean influenced work, the Timaeus, integrated and developed the numerological symbolism central to Pythagorean philosophy, and in some ways its equally accurate to describe Browne’s Discourse as Neo-Pythagorean as much as Platonic in concept.

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras (c. 570 – 490 BCE) who taught, ‘All is Number’ based his teachings upon numerological symbolism. Worshipped as a god for almost 1000 years, Pythagoras expressed his mystery religion through symbols such as the celestial 'harmony of the spheres', geometry and a pyramid of dots structured upon the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 known as the tetractys. Browne’s Quincunx can be detected at the very heart of the Pythagorean tetractys.

Received wisdom, often from those unacquainted with Browne’s Garden discourse, will declare that The Garden of Cyrus is ‘all about’ the number five, but in fact the number five is only one of several inter-related symbols used by Browne. The acute angle of V as the Roman numeral for 5, along with its doubling as the letter and symbol X, which in turn is a variant upon the Quincunx pattern, all feature in the Discourse. 

In what is one of the most perceptive explanations on the function of Browne's home-grown Eternal Form of the Quincunx. John Irwin states-

'The quincunx represents God's infallible intelligence while it also embodies the main 'tools' man uses to decipher the universe: mathematics, geometry and language. The implication is that if the God-given design of man's original plantation was a quincuncial network, then this design must express the basic relationship between man and the world, known and unknown, which is to say that this formal pattern imposed on physical nature schematizes the interface of mind and world in that it contains within itself the various modes of intelligible representation of the world, i.e. mathematics, language, geometry joined together in the homogeneousness of their physical inscription as numbers, letters and geometric shapes'. [16]

Incidentally, in addition to his botanical studies, naming and describing over 100 plants in the discourse, the learned doctor also displays his zoological inclinations throughout the Garden of Cyrus mentioning insects, reptiles, crustaceans, birds, water-fowl, fish and mammals in order to illustrate the interconnection of life.

Plato’s mythic excursion to Egypt in quest of wisdom is also touched on in The Garden of Cyrus-

‘whereas it is not improbable, he (Plato) learned these and other mystical expressions in his Learned Observations of Egypt, where he might obviously behold the Mercurial characters, the handed crosses, and other mysteries not thoroughly understood in the sacred Letter X, which being derivative from the Stork, one of the ten sacred animals, might be originally Egyptian…’

Hermetic philosophers such as Browne saw great significance in the fact that the letter X, which they believed to have been invented by Hermes Trismegistus, prophetically became the first letter of the name of Christ in the Greek alphabet. To hermetic sensibilities Plato, among others, the letter X seemed to anticipate and  prophesize that Christ would one day come into the world in order to redeem humanity. The symbolism of the letter X to represent Christ survives to the present day in the short-hand of Xmas for Christmas. The soul itself is declared to be X shaped as Browne, in a near verbatim repetition from Plato’s Timaeus informs-

'Of this Figure Plato made choice to illustrate the motion of the soul, both of the world and man; while he delivereth that God divided the whole conjunction length-wise, according to the figure of a Greek X, and then turning it about reflected it into a circle'.

The Garden of Cyrus was written in great haste, as scrutiny of manuscript evidence by J.S. Finch proved. Browne’s haste is exemplified in shoe-horning into his essay the after-thought - 

‘To omit the phantastical Quincunx in Plato of the first Hermaphrodite or double man, united at the Loynes, which Jupiter after divided’.

In Plato’s Symposium, Eros is an erotic lover who is capable of inspiring bravery and courage along with great deeds as well as vanquishing man's fear of death. Sexuality in the form of Androgyny and homosexuality also feature in the discourse in a myth which narrates how humanity was originally three sexes: male-male people that descended from the sun, female-female people who descended from Earth, and male-female people who came from the Moon. The androgynous humans were spherical and had four legs, four hands and two heads. These androgynous humans dared to challenge the gods of Olympus, who, angered at their divided the primordial humans in two and scattered them across the Earth. The divided searched for their other halves. The women who sought another woman and the men who sought another men were homosexuals.

Above - Ancient Greek vase depicting Plato's hermaphrodite double man.

Archetype

C.G. Jung notes – ‘The term “archetype” occurs as early as Philo Judaeus (circa 20 BCE - 50 CE) and in the Corpus Hermeticum, where God is called an archetypal light'. The term also occurs several times in the writings of the early Christian Neoplatonist author Dionysus the Aeropagite, all of whom are represented in Browne’s library. [17]

Although the Elizabethan natural philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is credited as the first to use the word ‘archetype’ in early modern English, its Browne in his The Garden of Cyrus who endeavours through highly original proper-name symbolism to depict archetypal exemplars of Plato’s ‘philosopher-King’. Historical figures such as Abraham, Solomon and Moses, Alexander the Great, Augustus and Marcus Aurelius as well as the titular King Cyrus effectively underscore the Platonic ideal that just governance requires ‘wise rulers’. Women aren't overlooked in Browne’s comparative religion symbolism. The ‘Great Mother’ figures of Sarah, Isis, Cleopatra and Juno are also encountered in the Discourse. 

For Plato, as for Browne, the figure of the philosopher-King represents a universal pattern or blueprint of human potential, in which wisdom and justice are perfectly balanced. Browne's discourses were published during the Interregnum era of Cromwell's Puritan Rule. His repeated citing of the philosopher-King archetype can be seen as subtle criticism of Crowell’s Protectorate. The Garden of Cyrus retains relevance today, not only for its hermetic message of the interconnectivity of life, but also as a timely reminder of wise governance with the world-wide rise of authoritarian and demagogue political leaders today.

Late in his life Browne acquired a copy of the Athanasius Kircher’s (1602-1680) Mundus Subterraneous (1664) in which the Jesuit priest and scholar printed a map of  where he speculated the location of Atlantis. [18]. It was Plato who fabricated the existence of the lost civilization Atlantis in his political allegory the Timaeus. Browne notes in his Christian Morals (pub. post. 1716) of Plato’s account of the lost civilization that-

'Others more Ingeniously doubt whether there hath not been a vast tract of Land in the Atalantick  Ocean, which Earthquakes and violent causes have long ago devoured'. [19] 

In Kircher's 1665 map (below) North and South are reversed with Africa to the East and America to the West of the vast, fictitious continent of Atlantis.

Plato’s political allegory of Atlantis projected a philosophical ideal of  ancient Athens. To teach his point, his fictional Atlantean Empire waged war against the known world, resulting in his idealized Athens leading resistance against it, and eventually winning. Atlantis is thus revealed to be an enemy for a Platonic version of Athens to defeat. Plato's usage of political allegory, narrating the decline and fall of the great imaginary civilization of Atlantis, reminds one that - ‘For all his impatience with myth Plato allowed it an important role in the exploration of ideas that lie beyond  the scope of philosophical language’. [20]

Above all else, it was Plato’s moral teachings which appealed to Browne in his pious old age. He shared with the early Church Father St. Augustine (354 - 430 CE) the conviction that Plato was the greatest of all pagan thinkers, primarily for his exhortation of living the morally good and just life.  In Christian Morals Browne alludes to Plato's ‘wild horses’ of the irrational passions, as described in Plato's discourse Phaedrus.

In Phaedrus each individual is likened to the driver of a two-horse chariot, whose reason tries to control the force of two horses, one white named spirit which is cooperative and one black named desire which tries to rebel and drag the chariot in the wrong direction. Although spirit and desire are depicted as battling forces, they communicate in language as talking horses to each other.  Plato’s equestrian allegory is mentioned in Christian Morals in what is one of Browne's profoundest psychological observations on the human condition -

'To well manage our Affections, and wild Horses of Plato, are the highest Circenses; and the noblest Digladiation is in the Theater of our selves'. [21]

In conclusion, Plato’s influence upon Thomas Browne is multi-faceted. Integral to his hermetic philosophy, the learned doctor found inspiration in Plato’s mystical numerology, Eternal Forms and archetypes. As a moralist he valued the ancient Greek philosopher’s exhortations on how to live the good and just life. The abundance of allusion to Plato throughout Browne’s literary oeuvre confirms the observation that – ‘There is probably no English writer of the seventeenth century who more habitually avows and exhibits attachment to the Platonic tradition than Browne'. [22]

Notes 

[1] The Strategy for Truth by Leonard Nathanson pub. Chicago University Press 1967
[2] Religio Medici Part 1: 6
[3]  R.M. 1:32
[4] R.M. 1:33
[5]  R.M. 2:15
[6] Iamblicus  de Mysterriis Aegyptirorum , Chaldaorum Catalogue 16A no.25
Porpyrius Commentary on Epicteus Sales Catalogue p. 15 no. 61
[7]  Sir Thomas Browne -A Life by Reid Barbour pub. OUP 2013
[8]  Renaissance Philosophy - Brian P. Copenhaver & Charles B. Schmitt
[9]  Carl Jung Collected Works Vol. 9 i:149
[10] Plato : All that Matters  Ieuan Williams pub.  Hodder and Stoughton 2013
[11] James Hillman
[12]The Soul's Code - James Hillman pub. Bantam 1997 
[13] Meister Eckhart -Mystical theologian Oliver Davies pub. SPCK 1991 
[14] Religio Medici Part 1:12
[15]  Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 4 chapter 12
[16] The Mystery to a Solution by John T. Irwin pub. John Hopkins University Press 1993
[17] Philo Judaeus Opera  1711 Sales Catalogue p. 1 no. 12
Dionysus the Areopagite Sales Catalogue  p. 1 no. 16
[18]  Mundus Subterraneus pub. Amsterdam 1665 1711 Sales Catalogue page 8 
[19] Christian Morals Part 1:17 citing Timaeus 24e
[20] A Short History of myth Karen Armstrong pub. Cannongate 2005
[21] Christian Morals  Part 1:24 
[22]The Strategy for Truth Leonard Nathanson pub. Chicago University Press 1967

Bibliography

*Sir Thomas Browne -A Life by Reid Barbour pub. OUP 2013

* The Strategy for Truth Leonard Nathanson pub. Chicago University Press 1967

 * Sir Thomas Browne - The Major Works ed. with an introduction by C.A. Patrides pub. Penguin 1977

* Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans - A brief History  by Charles H. Khan  pub. Hackett 2001

*Plato - A Very Short Introduction Julia Annas pub. OUP 2003

* Plato -Timaeus translated with an introduction by H.D.P. Lee pub. Penguin 1965

*The Soul's Code - James Hillman pub. Bantam 1997

*Renaissance Philosophy - Brian P. Copenhaver & Charles B. Schmitt 

*The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious - C.G. Jung C.W. vol 9 Part 1 pub. RKP 1959

*Plato : Ideas that Matters  Ieuan Williams pub. Hodder and Stoughton 2013 

*Atlantis- Lost Lands, Ancient Wisdom Geoffrey Ashe  pub. 1992

*Meister Eckhart -Mystical theologian Oliver Davies pub. SPCK 1991

*The Mystery to a Solution by John T. Irwin pub. John Hopkins University Press 1993 

*A Short History of myth Karen Armstrong pub. Cannongate 2005 

See Also

On the symbolism of X

Magic square of Numbers

Dr. Browne's alchemical mandala

Books in Browne's Library cited

* Chalcides Timaeus de Plato Trans. Notes J. Meurius 1617  Sales Catalogue p.11 no. 106

* Kircher - Mundus Subterraneus, cum. fig. 2 vol. Amsterdam 1665 S. C. p. 8 no. 92

* Philo Judaeus -De Opfico Mundi  1711 Sales Catalogue p. 1 no. 12

* Dionysus the Areopagite Opera Sales Catalogue  p. 1 no. 16

* Iamblicus - de Mysterriis Aegyptirorum , Chaldaorum Catalogue 16A no.25

* Porphyry - Commentary on Epictetus Sales Catalogue p. 15 no. 61

Browne on Aristotle

Not so long ago Jean de Launoy, a theologian of Paris, published a book on the changing popularity of Aristotle; whence he establishes that that most famous philosopher has been sometimes publicy burned, sometimes restored, now condemned by solemn decrees, then restored again, and in fact undergone eight changes in the same university.

Certainly the early Christians, Justin, Clement, Tertullian, Augustine and many others held opinions contrary to the great man's writings. And today he is bitterly cut to the quick by the moderns and almost at the point of death; so that it seems to me that the peripatetic philosophy is now brought to a standstill and can hardly be rescued, or not even hardly.

But while much is lacking in Aristotle, much wrong, much self-contradictory, yet not a little is valuable. Do not then bid farewell to his entire work; but while you hardly touch the Physics and read the Metaphysics superficially, make much of all the rest and study them unwearingly.

Petrus of Abano and Alexander of Aphrodisias have annotated the Problems of Aristotle industriously; better still Petrus Septalius, a physician of great fame.But while, in a less liberal spirit and not tainted with the new philosophy, he expounds almost everything to the philosopher's mind, often and often he hardly gets to the point and does not satisfy a spirit eager for truth.

So it will be worth the effort to weigh them again, so that the truth and reason of the questions may be better determined and where the old rules fail we may pass to new propositions....

British Museum Sloane Mss 1827

 

Why the goddesses sit commonly cross-legged in ancient draughts ?

In the concluding chapter of Thomas Browne's hermetic discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) the physician-philosopher fires a rapid volley of tricky questions, including -'Why the goddesses sit commonly cross-legged in ancient draughts, Since Juno is described in the same as a veneficial posture to hinder the birth of Hercules ?'

Its rewarding to explore Browne's obscure question in depth. It originates from his reading of the ancient Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Ovid's long poem the myths of ancient Greece are linked by a common theme of transformation. A chaotic universe is subdued into harmonious order, animals turn into stone, men and women are rewarded and punished by gods and goddesses for their deeds to become trees, birds and stars. One of the most influential works in Western culture, Ovid’s Metamorphoses was a valuable source of information and inspiration to poet, painter and scholar throughout the Renaissance. [1]

The Roman goddess Juno's symbolic body language occurs during the birth of the hero Hercules in which she attempts to prevent the birth of her unfaithful husband Jupiter's child.

'When the time for Hercules difficult birth came, and Capricorn, the tenth sign, was hidden by the sun, the weight of the child stretched my womb: what I carried was so great, you could tell that Jove was the father of my hidden burden. I could not bear my labour pains much longer....Tortured for seven nights and as many days, worn out with agony, stretching my arms to heaven, with a great cry, I called out to Lucina, and her companion gods of birth, the Nixi. Indeed, she came, but committed in advance, determined to surrender my life to unjust Juno. She sat on the altar, in front of the door, and listened to my groans. With her right knee crossed over her left, and clasped with interlocking fingers, she held back the birth, She murmured spells, too, in a low voice, and the spells halted the birth once it began.[2]

The Roman goddess Juno ruled over the primary domains of feminine life in the ancient world, namely, childbirth, marriage and motherhood. She is associated with the peacock and its feathers. As the wife of Jupiter she was one of the most important Roman gods and she is immortalized with the month of June named after her.

In ancient depictions, goddesses sitting cross-legged often symbolized their spiritual power. Juno's crossed legs (one imagines the goddesses of antiquity to be long-legged beauties in order to form an elegant, elongated X) is a literal expression of body language, child-birth being impossible with crossed-legs.

Mystical body language also features in the Old Testament book of Genesis in which the patriarch Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh.

'But Jacob crossed his arms as he reached out to lay his hands on the boys’ heads. He put his right hand on the head of Ephraim, though he was the younger boy, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, though he was the firstborn'. [3]

This Biblical episode is alluded to by Browne in The Garden of Cyrus thus-

'the Statuae Isiacae, Teraphims, and little Idols, found about Mummies, do make a decussation or Jacobs Crosse, with their armes, like that on the head of Ephraim and Manasses' [4]

Browne's pioneering comparative religion studies detected that mystical body language is shared by various world religions. His ability to supply Egyptian, Judaic and Roman examples of mystical body language in The Garden of Cyrus demonstrates his finding connections between seemingly disparate concepts and highlights his fascination with hidden patterns underlying human culture and symbolism.

The literary critic Peter Green noted that Browne, 'packs his prose with as much concentrated symbolic meaning as it will stand' and that, 'Every symbol is interrelated with the over-all pattern'.[5] 

Browne's interest in the mystical body language of Juno's crossed-legs is first mentioned in the opening chapter of  The Garden of Cyrus

'That they sat also crossed legg’d many noble draughts declare; and in this figure the sitting gods and goddesses are drawn in medalls and medallions'.

Browne's inclusion of the Roman goddess Juno in The Garden of Cyrus is exemplary of his methodical usage of proper-name symbolism. Taking his cue from Plato, Browne utilizes proper-name symbolism in order to tentatively sketch primordial patterns of the psyche known as archetypes. Indeed, the very title of the discourse features the archetype of the 'wise ruler' at a time when Britain wasn't ruled by the divine right of a King but during the short-lived proto-Republic of Cromwell. The 'wise ruler' figures of Moses, Solomon, Solon, Alexander the Great and Augustus along with Cyrus are all alluded to in The Garden of Cyrus. 

The archetype of the nurturing figure of the 'Great Mother' is also represented in the Discourse through allusion to Juno, the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Hebrew matriarch Sarah.

And in fact, Browne first noted of crossed-legs in Pseudodoxia Epidemica in relation to the goddess, along with a Roman coin which he  viewed in his edition of Pierus. 

'To set cross leg'd, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together is accounted bad, and friends will perswade us from it. The same conceit religiously possessed the Ancients, as is observable from Pliny. Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim; and also from Athenæus, that it was an old veneficious practice, and Juno is made in this posture to hinder the delivery of Alcmæna. And therefore, as Pierius observeth, in the Medal of Julia Pia, the right hand of Venus was made extended with the inscription of Venus, Genetrix; for the complication or pectination of the fingers was an Hieroglyphick of impediment, as in that place he declareth. [6]

X

Received wisdom will claim that The Garden of Cyrus is 'all about' the Quincunx, but in fact the quincunx pattern, the vehicle whereby Browne drives home his message of universal interconnectivity, is quite literally only half of his Hermetic vision. The symbol X (formed by joining the five dots of the Quincunx) features an equal number of times in the Discourse to the quincunx pattern.

The psychologist C.G. Jung noted that symbols can endure paradox and that's just as well because the symbol X is one of the most hard-working and flexible of all symbols and has accumulated many meanings over centuries.

The Roman numeral for ten, the Mosaic code of ten commandments as well as the Pythagorean tetractys (a pyramid of ten dots which Pythagoreans swore by) were all well-known by Browne. The Pythagorean and mathematical aspect of Browne's hermetic vision cannot be overlooked, as his candid confession in Religio Medici reveals-

'I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magicke of numbers'. [7]

The art historian J. B. Onians noted - 'The power of the Pythagorean mystery was based largely upon his understanding of the mathematical order of the universe, which could be summed up in visual representation of such numbers as tetractys and Quincunx.' [8]

It was also during Browne's lifetime that the mathematician William Oughtred designated the symbol X to denote the multiplication of number. Browne himself owned an edition of Oughtred's Clavis Mathematica (1648) [9]

Today, the hard-working symbol X can denote invisible X-rays, affection in the form of a kiss, as well as a wrong answer, restrictive viewing or X rated material or an unknown factor. It retains its abbreviated form for Christ in the word Xmas, and in the pattern known as the Criss-cross. Finally, conclusive evidence that all the money in the world cannot buy imagination, the social media platform once known as Twitter was rebranded X by its new owner.

Crucially, (a word which itself derives from the Latin of Crux meaning a cross) Browne as a Christian knew that the Greek word for Christ begins with x (Chi) and this interpretation of X as a pre-Christian anticipation of the Coming of Christ is foremost in his hermetic vision.

The crossed-legs of Juno and the Biblical crossed-arms of Jacob are also exemplary of how Browne and other hermetically inclined antiquarians interpreted the ancient pagan world. Hermetic philosophers believed that the mythic Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus (in reality a fusion of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes) was the inventor of number and letter, including the letter X.

It was the Italian Renaissance scholars Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and his prodigy Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) who first advanced and promoted the profile of Hermes Trismegistus as the founder of a priscia theologia. Ficino and Mirandola made Hermes Trismegistus the author of a pagan tradition of divine knowledge, an ancient theology (priscia theologia) which paralleled and confirmed the revealed truth of the Bible and whose Egyptian providence reinforced tales of Plato’s travels in Egypt.

Browne subscribed to Ficino and Mirandola's belief that the Greek philosopher Plato studied in ancient Egypt, the land of Hermes Trismegistus, stating in The Garden of Cyrus -

'.. whereas it is not improbable, he (Plato) learned these and other mystical expressions in his Learned Observations of Egypt, where he might obviously behold the Mercurial characters, the handed crosses, and other mysteries not thoroughly understood in the sacred Letter X, which being derivative from the Stork, one of the ten sacred animals, might be originally Egyptian, and brought into Greece by Cadmus of that Country. [10]

The symbolism of how X was introduced through Hermes Trismegistus's observation of bird's legs is alluded to in The Garden of Cyrus thus-

'And if Egyptian Philosophy may obtain, the scale of influences was thus disposed, and the genial spirits of both worlds, do trace their way in ascending and descending Pyramids, mystically apprehended in the Letter X, and the open Bill and straddling Legs of a Stork, which was imitated by that Character'. [11]

The worthy Norwich philosopher-physician reinforces the symbolic importance of X and its close relationship to Platonic thought, notably Plato's discourse Timaeus stating-

'Of this Figure Plato made choice to illustrate the motion of the soul, both of the world and man; while he delivereth that God divided the whole conjunction length-wise, according to the figure of a Greek X, and then turning it about reflected it into a circle'; [12]

Plato along with Ovid is mentioned in the opening page of The Garden of Cyrus. The ancient Greek philosopher's influence looms large throughout the Discourse, especially his Timaeus which is named by foot-note in the Discourse's opening. Plato's Timaeus is his most Pythagorean writing. It elaborates upon the relationship between geometry, number and mysticism, all of which are primary thematic concerns of Browne's Garden of Cyrus.

Quincunx

In the discourse's dedicatory epistle Browne wittily declares of the Quincunx pattern that, 'we have not affrighted the common Reader with any other Diagrams, then of it self; and have industriously declined illustrations from rare and unknown plants'.

Such is the potency of the Quincunx pattern as seen in the discourse's frontispiece which Browne 'borrowed' from a book by the Italian polymath Della Porta, that the crossing point or X figure of the pattern is occulted and hidden by circles as if  X-rated material too potent to view.

The phantasmagorical procession of art-objects, botany, star constellations, optical theories and mystical religious considerations in The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial (,)Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically considered has been little understood throughout the centuries, so much so that a stray comma erroneously reproduced in the Discourse's full running title has become embedded in almost all subsequent editions since 1658. However, this stray comma in the Discourses title is incompatible with either the syntax, symmetry or artistic message of the Discourse. The five red dots added to the frontispiece illustration (below) highlights how Browne's Lozenges are Quincuncial. [13]

In recent times the American poet and literary critic John Irwin focussed his critical attention on Browne's quincunx in his labyrinthine book The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story (1994). Irwin's book is primarily concerned with the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and the early magical realist author Jorge Borges (1899-1986) both of whom were admirers of Browne's writings. Irwin recognised that -

'the idea that there is a necessary (because original) correspondence among numbers, letters and geometric shapes, is a belief found in esoteric alchemy and the cabala'.

Irwin continues with one of the most perceptive remarks ever stated about the quincunx pattern -

‘The quincunx represents God's infallible intelligence while it also embodies the main 'tools' man uses to decipher the universe: mathematics, geometry and language. The implication is that if the God-given design of man's original plantation was a quincuncial network, then this design must express the basic relationship between man and the world, known and unknown, which is to say that this formal pattern imposed on physical nature schematizes the interface of mind and world in that it contains within itself the various modes of intelligible representation of the world, i.e. mathematics, language, geometry joined together in the homogeneousness of their physical inscription as numbers, letters and geometric shapes’. [14]

The Argyle pattern (below) is a neat variant of the frontispiece of The Garden of Cyrus. The central point of decussation, X is visible within each lozenge. Its overlaid diamond or Lozenge pattern creates a 3D perspective, an optical trick which without doubt would have intrigued Thomas Browne

Notes

[1] No less than 8 editions of Ovid's Metamorphoses are listed as once in Thomas Browne and his son Edward's combined libraries in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue.

[2] Ovid Metamorphoses Book 9 lines 290-300

[3] Genesis 48: verse 14

[4] chapter 3 of Cyrus

[5] Sir Thomas Browne by Peter Green pub. Longmans, Green and Co. 1959

[6] Pseudodoxia Book 5 chapter 22 no. 8

[7] Religio Medici Part 1:12

[8] J. Onians Art and thought in the Hellenistic Age Thames and Hudson 1979

[9] 1711 Sales Catalogue page 30 no. 13

[10] Cyrus Chapter 4

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid

[13] A 1658 edition of Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica with the two 1658 Discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus appended does not reproduce the stray comma which is featured in most subsequent editions.

[14] The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story. John T. Irwin pub. The Johns Hopkins University Press 1996