Homer's garden

• Autores: Massimo Venturi Ferriolo
• Localización: Studies in the history of gardens and designed landscape, ISSN 1460-1176, Vol. 9, Nº 2, 1989, págs. 86-94
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • From the depth of the seas, Thetis hears her son's cries of sorrow for the death of Patroclus. The goddess opens her heart to the Nereids and begins her lament: "Achilles, exceptional and perfect hero, will meet with an unhappy end, as he is soon to die under the walls of Troy. As his mother, she has good reasons to vent her helplessness towards her son's fate: he has grown like a sapling, she has nursed him as one tends a plant in a garden bed". Homer uses the same metaphor when, later on, Thetis begs Hephaestus to make new weapons for her son. It is a touching, human and poetic passage: it indicates how much care was lavished on bringing up her son, the same care which makes a plant grow in a garden. The word aloe, in epic language, means a combination of garden-orchard-vineyard: a fertile place, rich in trees and flowers, which has to be cultivated with care and order.