National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0113 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 113 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000248
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

THE POMEGRANATE   287

of his marriage to the daughter of Li Tsu-gou   1 u. The latter

explained that the pomegranate encloses many seeds, and implies the wish for many sons and grandsons. Thus the fruit is still a favorite marriage gift or plays a rôle in the marriage feast.' The same is the case in modern Greece. Among the Arabs, the bride, when dismounting before the tent of the bridegroom, receives a pomegranate, which she smashes on the threshold, and then flings the seeds into the interior of the tent.' The Arabs would have a man like the pomegranate,--bittersweet, mild and affectionate with his friends in security, but tempered with a just anger if the time call him to be a defender in his own or in his neighbor's cause.'

1 See, for instance, H. DORE, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, pt. z Vol. II, P. 479.

2 A. Mum., Arabia Petraea, Vol. III, p. 191.

3 C. M. DOUGHTY, Travels in Arabia Deserta, Vol. I, p. 564.