Diana! Have I (to make thee crowns) been gathering still, Fair-cheek’d Eteria’s yellow camomile?
Flowers of the field and windflowers springing glad --In airs Sicilian, and the golden bough Of sacred Plato, shining in its worth. . . . With phlox of Phœdimas and chamomile, The crinkled ox-eye of Antagoras.
The healthful balm and mint from their full laps do fly, The scentful camomile.
_Falstaff._ Though the Camomile the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth the more it is wasted the sooner it wears.--_I. Henry IV._ ii. 4.
The camomile is dedicated to St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, and Mr Friend thinks that the Latin name of wild camomile, _Matricaria_, comes from a “fanciful derivation” of this word, from _mater_ and _cara_, or “Beloved Mother.” The name camomile itself is derived from a Greek word meaning “earth-apples,” and its pleasant, refreshing smell is rather like that of ripe apples. The Spaniards call it _Manzanilla_, “a little apple.” It was grown “both for pleasure and profit, both inward and outward diseases, both for the sicke and the sound,” and was “planted of the rootes in alleys, in walks, and on banks to sit on, for that the more it is trodden upon and pressed down in dry weather, the closer it groweth and the better it will thrive.” This was a common belief in earlier days, as Falstaff’s remark shows.
Culpepper is as trenchant as usual on the subject. “Nichersor, saith the Egyptians, dedicated it to the sun, because it cured agues, and they were like enough to do it, for they were the arrantest apes in their religion I have ever read of.” Why his indignation is so much excited is not clear, but probably it is because Agues (being watery diseases) were under the moon, and therefore they should have dedicated a herb that cured agues to the Moon. However, he holds to the view that camomile is good for all agues, although it is an herb of the sun--who has nothing to do with such diseases, as a rule. Turner criticises Amatus Lusitanus with some shrewdness. This writer, who had apparently taken upon him to teach “Spanyardes, Italians, Frenchmen and Germans the name of Herbes in their tongues, writeth that Camomile is commonlye knowne,” and with this bald statement contented himself. “Wherefore it is lykely he knoweth nether of both [kinds of Camomile]. Wherefore he had done better to have sayde, ‘I do knowe nether of both, then thus shortly to passe by them.’ Camomile is still officinal, and is used for fomentations. ‘If taken internally it should be infused with cold water, as heat dissipates the oil.’”