How do you chase away those blues? It is not called the pursuit of sadness, cause at times it seems that sadness is the pursuer. And it is in those times of sadness that happiness is most in need to be chased, and yet the energy that it takes to catch it, is often sapped away by some melancholy that has come ones way. What to do? How do you chase away those blues? One might try and start with a song. Bye Bye Blackbird Pack up all my cares and woes, here I go Bye Bye Blackbird Or think upon the Laurel Tree Laurel Tree Popular names and their suggestiveness of error cannot be better illustrated than by the consideration of the trees known as Laurels. The name is said to be connected with the Latin word laus, praise; but the origin of the associations of the name is Greek. Apollo having slain the Python, the ancient serpent, formed from the slime left after Deucalions flood, fled for purification to the laurel-groves of the vale of Tempe. Here he became enamored of the nymph Daphne, the daughter of the river Peneus, and on his pursuing her she took refuge in her paternal stream, and was metamorphosed into a laurel. Apollo, returning to Delphi, instituted the Pythian games to commemorate his victory, and the prizes there awarded were chiefly crowns of the leaves and berries of the shrub, which henceforth was looked upon as sacred to the god--the Laurea Delphica, or Apollinaris. Apollo being the god of poetry, his emblem, that of victory and clemency, became the favourite of the poets, and hence of scholars generally, so that successful graduates of universities or other learned men became known as laureates, or baccalaurei, from the berried crown. Such graduates, like the fellows of colleges down to our own time, were not allowed to marry, lest the duties of husband and father should take them from their literary pursuits, and hence the term bachelor became extended to unmarried men in general. The Laurel was also believed to be a protection against lightning; and accordingly, the Emperor Tiberius, when it thundered, wore a laurel-wreath made from the tree, at the imperial villa on the Flaminian Way, which sprang from a shoot said to have been miraculously sent from heaven to Livia Drusilla. Used as an emblem of truce, like the olive, both trees were equally forbidden to be put to any profane uses; but the crackling of burning laurel-leaves was also employed as a means of divination.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 02:28:18 +0000
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