Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/416

 it is a word, “sesame,” which makes the rocks part, and gives admission to the treasures within; and it is oblivion of the magic word which brings destruction upon the luckless wretch within. But sesame is the name of a well-known eastern plant, sesamum orientale; so that probably in the original form of the Persian tale absorbed into the Arabian Nights, a flower was employed to give admission to the mountain. But classic antiquity has also its rock-breaking plant, the saxifraga, whose tender rootlets penetrate and dissolve the hardest stones with a force for which the Ancient were unable to account.

Isaiah, describing the desolation of the vineyard of Zion, says that “There shall come up briars and thorns” (v. 6), (vii. 23: cf. also ix. 17; x. 17). And, “Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars” (xxxii. 13), where is combined with. The word never stands alone, but is always joined with, which the LXX render ; the word in the fifth chapter they render ; that in the seventh,  and ; so that  is put for , and  for. The word in the ninth chapter is, that in the tenth,