The Decadent Gardener - Medlar Lucan, Durian Gray
« The great artist is concerned with destruction as much as with creation. Perhaps more so. Certainly one of the attractions of the garden for the Decadent is that it is ephemeral. It does not last. It should not last. In the garden, the Decadent seeks to create a moment of beauty, which should then be allowed to fall into decay and ruin. »
A Guide to the Sacred Garden at Mountcullen House
If you take a look at that extraordinary painting by Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, among the many bizarre and outlandish images, will find both a giant strawberry (a symbol of earthly pleasure in Medieval iconography; the fruit looks very tempting, but tastes of nothing), and a naked couple copulating within a glass vessel.
What interests us about Bosch is not only his strange and beautiful painting, but also his supposed involvement with a heretical sect called the Adamites. This sect, according to de Perrodil’s Dictionnaire des hérésies, des erreurs et des schismes, saw it as their sacred duty to violate the laws which the Creator had given to man. This neatly encapsulates the Decadent impulse. They also wished to rehabilitate Adam and Eve by seeking inspiration from their conduct in the garden of Eden. Nudity and sexual games formed part of their ritual. The Adamites were of course condemned and brutally persecuted by vindictive ecclesiastical authorities.
We want this to be a ‘night garden’ but we are still awaiting the completion of our planting scheme. This includes night-flowering cacti (Selenicereus grandiflorus), eveningflower gladiolus (Gladiolus tristis) as well as Nicotiana, night-scented stocks (Matthiola longi-petala) and Mycelia fungus which glows in the dark. Planted in combination and in sufficient profusion the effect should be overpowering, or indeed, deliriously mystical.
The Garden of Venus
Aniseed
Arum maculatum
Asparagus
Aubergine
Capillus veneris
Spanish chestnut
Corynanthe yohimbine
Courgette
Fennel
Gladiolus tristis
Matthiola longi-petala
Nettles
Orchid
Pear
Selenicereus grandiflorus
Aniseed
Arum maculatum
Asparagus
Aubergine
Capillus veneris
Spanish chestnut
Corynanthe yohimbine
Courgette
Fennel
Gladiolus tristis
Matthiola longi-petala
Nettles
Orchid
Pear
Selenicereus grandiflorus
The motto set above the door of the abbey was taken from Rabelais via St Augustine: ‘Fay ce que voudras’ [Do whatever you wish]. The favourite doctrine of the Abbey was summed up by another motto to be found in the middle of the orchard. There stood a very grotesque figure, and in his hand a reed stood flaming, tipt with fire. Below the figure were carved the words;
PENI TENTO
non
PENITENTI
This may be crudely translated as: Better a Stiff Prick than Penitence. At the entrance to a cave in the grounds there was a statue of Venus, bending over to pull a thorn out of her foot. The statue had her back to the viewer and just above the ‘two nether hills of snow’ were these lines of Virgil.
Hic locus est, partes ubi se via findit in ambas
Hac iter Elysium nobis; at laeva malorum
Exercet poenas, et ad impia Tartara mittit.
(Here is the place where the way divided into two: this on the right is our route to Heaven; but the left-hand path exacts punishment from the wicked, and sends them to pitiless Hell.)
Within the cave, above a mossy couch, was the following exhortation:
Ite, agite, ô juvenes; pariter fundate medullis
Omnibus inter vos; non murmurara vestra columbae,
Brachia non hederae, non vincant oscula conchae.
(Get on with it, you young things; put everything you’ve got into it together, both of you; may you be like doves in your cooings, ivy in your embraces, and oysters in your kissing.)
Carved into the stone is a Japanese Geisha song. At the entrance to the Garden of Aphrodisia, the lovers will find the following:
Tonight would be quite a good night
to taste the living flower,
my lord, if you so wish.
One of the most important elements of the Aphrodisiac garden will be the bed of nettles. This may seem perverse. So much the better! Among the Romans it was common knowledge that a brisk bout of flagellation with a bunch of nettles did wonders for their ardour. According to Juvenal, only dancing girls from Cadiz were capable of providing a comparable level of stimulation. The elder Pliny strongly recommended the male using nettles and the female, basil.
In among the nettles we will plant the damask rose. It requires more preparation to extract the aphrodisiac qualities from this flower, but it’s worth it. Firstly one has to run a very hot bath. Into the water one scatters a mixture of damask rose and vervain. One then has to wallow in it and carefully collect the resultant body sweat.
The garden of Aphrodisia could well double as a herb and spice garden, if so required. For instance, an Indian love potion recommends chewing caraway seeds and ‘with the mouth thus sweetened, breathe on the beloved who will henceforth love you.’ Not to be outdone, the Arabs mixed cardamom with saliva and spread it on the glans of the penis to excite the organ and increase its size.
It is vital to ensure that the garden produces a good crop of aniseed, known in India as shopa. The Ananga Ranga informs us that the aniseed should be ‘reduced to an impalpable powder; strain and make into an electuary with honey. This being so applied to the lingam (male member) before congress that it may reach as far inside as possible, will induce venereal paroxysm in the woman and subject her to the power of man.’
If possible, we must plant a Yohimbe tree (Corynanthe yohimbine). This is a most effective aphrodisiac. The dose is one ounce of yohimbe bark simmered in a pint of water for twenty minutes. It should then be strained and sipped. The initial effects are nausea followed by relaxed intoxication, and if you’re lucky, hallucinations. It then increases the blood supply to the pelvic area and engorges the sexual parts.
But it will not contain only fruit trees. Planted among them will be Spanish chestnut. This is on the recommendation of one Professor Gamber, who, in his fascinating book, Ideal Marriage, writes:
‘The semen of healthy youths of western European races has a fresh exhilarating smell, in the mature man it is more penetrating in type and degree. The very characteristic seminal odour is remarkably like that of the flowers of the Spanish chestnut.’
At the heart of the orchard, we will plant a pear tree - the most decadent fruit of all. Our pear tree will be planted in the hope that the lovely Conchita might one day make as fruitful a use of it as Lydia in Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Having begun to experience a frisson of excitement in the orchard, the lovers must move on again. Further down the path they stop to read a third geisha song:
Will he be a fine chrysanthemum?
I will put him in a vase
and look at him.
He will be a plum blossom
having both scent and colour.
‘Flower beds’ ,‘bedding plants’, everywhere in the garden you find nothing but rampant sexuality! Consider these as you make your way along the venereal path! Here is a clump of Lords and Ladies (Arum maculatum) also known as ‘sweethearts’ and ‘silly lovers’. We must have lots of these. Its most common name is ‘cuckoo’s pintle’. [In French, vit de chien, vit de prestre]. Just the shape of the arum is enough to have it included in the erotic garden. But there is more! The phallic structure gives off a smell of decay which attracts flies. The insect crawls down inside the enveloping sheath of the plant and is trapped by hairs which line it and point downwards. Desperately looking for a way out, the fly then crawls around picking up pollen and pollinating the flowers until it dies, incarcerated in its floral prison. As if that were not enough, the berries of Arum maculatum can be fatal when eaten by small children, and the roots are used as a ‘stiffening’ agent. There is a whole novel here! Lords and Ladies is the Decadent plant.
The word ‘Orchid’ comes from the Greek for ‘testicle’, so any variety could be included in the beds. Many have charming country names, such as ‘triple bullocks’ ,‘sweet ballocks’ ,‘sweet cods’ and ‘goat-stones’. And let’s not forget those plants which resemble a bush of hair - a species of Adiantum known as capillus veneris (Maiden’s hair, or Our Lady’s hair). Also the Asplenium trichomanes. In his Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, Richard Payne Knight (or ‘Dick Pain Night’ as he came to be affectionately known) tells us ‘There is reason for believing that the hair implied in these names was that of the pubes’.
An asparagus bed is of course a must. In his Herbal, John Gerard highly recommends this vegetable. ‘… the young buds being steeped in wine and eaten, they stir up the lust of the body.’ As does Culpeper; ‘a decoction of the roots being taken fasting several mornings together stirreth up bodily lust in man and woman.’ And Pierre Louÿs in his Manuel de civilité pour les jeunes filles states that well-bred young ladies should refrain from sliding the tip of an asparagus in and out of their mouths while gazing longingly at a young man to whom they may be attracted.
Fennel must be included not only because a concoction of fennel and vervain increases a lover’s ardour, but also because finocchio in Italian refers to a perversely elegant gay. It’s our sort of plant! What about a bed of fennel and wild pansies?
The Perfumed Garden informs us that:
The member of Abou el Heloukh has remained erect,
For thirty days without a break because he did eat onions.
And:
Abu el Heidja had deflowered in one night eighty virgins and he did not eat or drink because he had surfeited himself first with chickpeas and had drunk camel’s milk with honey mixed.
The members of the squash family such as the courgette, often need to be fertilised manually, as do date trees.
Aubergines are possibly the most erotic of all vegetables - Robert Mapplethorpe obviously thought so - and Marie Rouanet in her Cuisine amoureuse courtoise et occitane agrees. An aubergine, smooth, purple and engorged, hanging amid its leaves, she compares to the exposed member of a donkey. Need we say more!
