Basil: An Herb Society of America Guide
Literature & Art
References to basil can be found in poetry, prose and art from the Middle Ages to the present. Although basil is not mentioned in any of Shakespeare's works, it was included in
Polyolbion by Michael Drayton, an Elizabethan poet and one of Shakespeare's contemporaries: "With Basil then I will
begin/Whose scent is wondrous pleasing" (35, 36).
Basil appears in a wide variety of poetry, including Percy Bysshe Shelley's
To Emilia Viviani (68), and the work of John Keats (50). It is the subject of twentieth-century American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay's
Steepletop: 1 (59), and Sweet Basil by little-known, contemporary American poet, Sally Allen McNall (58). Searching
Poem
Finder*, an online database available through many public and university libraries, will turn up numerous references to the herb.
Basil's most famous literary role is probably in The Decameron, by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), which tells the tragic tale of
Lisabetta (Isabella), whose lover Lorenzo is murdered by her brothers (13). When
Lisabetta learns from a dream that Lorenzo has been killed, she finds his body, removes the head and places it in a pot where she grows a basil plant. The story was retold by John Keats in his poem,
Isabella, or The Pot of Basil:
From verse 52:
"...She'd wrapp'd it up; and for its tomb did choose
A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,
And cover'd it with mould, and o'er it set
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet."
The basil grows vigorously, nourished by Isabella's tears and the gruesome organic fertilizer. Not realizing that it contains the head of Lorenzo, her brothers steal the pot in an effort to remedy her despair. By the end of the poem, the basil comes to represent Lorenzo to Isabella. When it is taken from her, she dies of grief.
Verse 63:
"And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,
Imploring for her Basil to the last.
No heart was there in Florence but did mourn
In pity of her love, so overcast.
And a sad ditty of this story born
From mouth to mouth through all the country pass'd:
Still is the burthen sung- 'O cruelty,
To steal my Basil-pot away from me! (50)"
Boccaccio's tale has been depicted by the artists, William Holman Hunt and John White Alexander (36, 74). In addition to images of
The Decameron, basil played a similarly tragic role in Greek paintings where basil at the side of a woman in rags was a symbol for poverty (17, 35, 36).
On a lighter note, basil can also be found in popular fiction and is included in the mystery novels of Ellis Peters as part of Brother Cadfael's medieval, monastic herb garden (76).
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