The Elm


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The Elm
Family: Ulmaceae

In medio ramos annosaque bracchia pandit
ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem Somnia vulgo
vana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus haerent.

In the centre a vast shadowy elm spreads its aged trunks
and branches: the seat, they say, that false Dreams hold,
thronging, clinging beneath every leaf.

                                                                                                  Aeneid VI, 282-249

In this passage of the Aeneid Virgil describes a huge elm placed to guard hell, since that tree was considered by greeks as Oneiros’s tree, son of the night and god of dreams: thus, the tree of sleep, dreams and, finally, death. The result is that the elm acquires a prophetic power; to sum up, the discretion to predict important occasions. We can also find this plant in some passages of Georgics:
                                                            
Quid faciat laetas segetes,quo sidere terram
vertere, Maecenas, ulmisque adiungere vitis
conveniat

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
or marry elm with vine

                                                                                                                                 Georgics I, 1-3

L'olmo

Deepening:

The elm yesterday and today