Strawberry Love. Fragaria vesca subsp. vesca, Wild Strawberry, Criação de truta, Chão da Ribeira, Seixal, Madeira, Portugal
The town of Seixal on northern Madeira was founded by royal decree of King John III of Portugal (1502-1557) on June 30, 1553. The young settlement is mentioned by that fine humanist-priest and explorer and geographer Gaspar Frutuoso (c.1522-1591) - native of the Azores - in his great six-volume work Saudadas da Terra (1586-1590). That work was not published until well into modern times because the owners of the manuscript kept it under lock and key. The Saudadas is well-worth a read given its early description of Macaronesia (Happy Islands - from the Greek, of course - Madeira Archipelago, the Azores, Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands). But also because Book V is a rather striking pastoral love-poem. Here's a verse:
Há garçones, hau pastores,
que andays por estes collados,
venid a ver los cuidados
del que muere por amores.
(Something like: Oh! lads, Oh! shepherds / who walk these hills,/ come to see the distress / of him who dies for love!)
I doubt whether Frutuoso ever climbed the valley and hills above Seixal to Criação de truta (=Trout Farm) and Chão da Ribeira, where we had lunch yesterday. But pottering about a bit afterwards I came upon a patch of these lovely Wild Strawberries, Fragaria vesca subsp. vesca. Strawberries appropriately are the signal fruit of Venusian Love in Ancient Rome, the font of European Humanism.
PS I might add that these Wild Strawberries - also those of northern Europe - taste rather bland unless you've first washed out your mouth with good mineral water. Then they're quite sublime.
Strawberry Love. Fragaria vesca subsp. vesca, Wild Strawberry, Criação de truta, Chão da Ribeira, Seixal, Madeira, Portugal
The town of Seixal on northern Madeira was founded by royal decree of King John III of Portugal (1502-1557) on June 30, 1553. The young settlement is mentioned by that fine humanist-priest and explorer and geographer Gaspar Frutuoso (c.1522-1591) - native of the Azores - in his great six-volume work Saudadas da Terra (1586-1590). That work was not published until well into modern times because the owners of the manuscript kept it under lock and key. The Saudadas is well-worth a read given its early description of Macaronesia (Happy Islands - from the Greek, of course - Madeira Archipelago, the Azores, Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands). But also because Book V is a rather striking pastoral love-poem. Here's a verse:
Há garçones, hau pastores,
que andays por estes collados,
venid a ver los cuidados
del que muere por amores.
(Something like: Oh! lads, Oh! shepherds / who walk these hills,/ come to see the distress / of him who dies for love!)
I doubt whether Frutuoso ever climbed the valley and hills above Seixal to Criação de truta (=Trout Farm) and Chão da Ribeira, where we had lunch yesterday. But pottering about a bit afterwards I came upon a patch of these lovely Wild Strawberries, Fragaria vesca subsp. vesca. Strawberries appropriately are the signal fruit of Venusian Love in Ancient Rome, the font of European Humanism.
PS I might add that these Wild Strawberries - also those of northern Europe - taste rather bland unless you've first washed out your mouth with good mineral water. Then they're quite sublime.