http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080403.html
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. Mary Shelley : _The Last Man_ CHAPTER V.
.
On every leaf, on every small division of the universe,
(as on the hyacinth A I is engraved)
was imprinted the talisman of my existence--
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The hyacinth bewrays the doleful `A I,
And culls the tribute of Apollo's sigh.
Still on its bloom the mournful flower retains
The lovely blue that dyed the stripling's veins.'
. --- Camoens: Lusiad, ix.
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http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/hyawil43.html
.
<<This is the 'fair-hair'd hyacinth' of Ben Jonson, a name alluding to
the old myth, for tradition associates the flower with the Hyacinth of
the Ancients, the flower of grief and mourning, so Linnaeus first
called it Hyacinthus. Hyacinthus was a charming and handsome Spartan
youth, loved by both Apollo and Zephyrus. Hyacinthus preferred the Sun-
God to the God of the West, who sought to be revenged. One day, when
Apollo was playing quoits with the youth, a quoit that he threw was
blown by Zephyrus out of its proper course and it struck and killed
Hyacinthus. Apollo, stricken with grief, raised from his blood a
purple flower on which the letters 'AI, AI,' were traced, so that the
cry of woe might for evermore have existence on the earth. As our
English variety of Hyacinth had no trace of these mystic letters, our
older botanists called it Hyacinthus nonscriptus, or 'not written on.'
A later generic name, Agraphis, is of similar meaning, being a
compound of two Greek words, meaning 'not to mark.'>>
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http://www.uab.edu/english/hone/etexts/ ... une01.html
<<The reader not acquanted with professor Maryn's notes upon Virgil,
should here be informed, that the species of red lily, called the
martagon or Turk's-cap, has been proved by that writer, at least to
our satisfaction, to be the real ancient hyacinth, into which the
youth of that name was turned by Apollo. The hyacinth, commonly so
called, has nothing to show for its being the ancient one, which
should be of a blood colour, and was said to be inscribed with the
Greek exclamation of sorrow AI, AI. Now, we were struck with the sort
of literal black marks with which the Turk's-cap is speckled, and on
reading the professor's notes, and turning to the flower again, we
could plainly see, that with some allowance, quite pardonable in a
superstition, the marks might now and then fall together, so as to
indicate those characters.
. 'Now tell your story, Hyacinth; and show
. AI, AI the more amidst your sanguine woe.'
. - [Greek lines from Moschus]
