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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
NARCISSUS
46. The Yu yan tsa tsui contains the following notice: "The
habitat of the nai-k`i Agis in the country Fu-lin (Syria). Its sprouts
grow to a height of three or four feet. Its root is the size of a duck's egg. Its leaves resemble those of the garlic (Allium sativum). From the centre of the leaves rises a very long stem surmounted by a six-petaled flower of reddish-white color.2 The heart of this flower is yellow-red, and does not form fruit. This plant grows in the winter and withers during
the summer. It is somewhat similar to shepherd's-purse (tsi ,
Capsella bursa-pastoris) and wheat.' An oil is pressed from the flowers, with which they anoint the body as a preventive of colds, and is employed by the king of Fu-lin and the nobles in his country."
Li Si-e'en, in his Pen ts'ao kcal mu,4 has placed this extract in his notice of §wi sien *611 (Narcissus tazetta),b and after quoting it, adds this comment : " Judging from this description of the plant, it is similar to Narcissus; it cannot be expected, of course, that the foreign name should be identical with our own."' He is perfectly correct, for the description answers this flower very well, save the comparison with Capsella. Dioscorides also compares the leaves of Narcissus to those of Allium, and says that the root is rounded like a bulb.'
The philological evidence agrees with this explanation; for nai-k`i, *nai-gi, apparently answers to Middle Persian *nargi, New Persian nargis (Arabic narjis),8 Aramaic narkim, Armenian nargés (Persian
' Ch. 18, p. 12 b.
2 Cf. the description of Theophrastus (Hist. plant., VII, 13) : " In the case of narcissus it is only the flower-stem which comes up, and it immediately pushes up the flower." Also Dioscorides (iv, 158) and Pliny (xxl, 25) have given descriptions of the flower.
3 This sentence is omitted (and justly so) in the text, as reprinted in the Pen ts`ao kan mu; for these comparisons are lame.
4 Ch. 13, p. 16.
5 Also this species is said to have been introduced from abroad (Hwa mu ciao Ci * /f . , p. 19 b, in &un ts`ao t`an tsi, Ch. 25).
6 In another passage of his work (Ch. 14, p. to) he has the same text under
l'an nai 1I (Kcempferia galanga), but here he merely adds that the description
of the Yu yah tsa tsu is "a little like San nai."
LECLERC, Traité des simples, Vol. III, p. 368.
8 According to HÜBSCHMANN (Armen. Gram., p. 201), the New-Persian form would presuppose a Pahlavi *narkis. In my opinion, Greek vfcp,ccvQos is derived from an Iranian language through the medium of an idiom of Asia Minor, not vice versa, as believed by NOELDEKE (Persische Studien, II, p. 43).
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