Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Fig (Ficus)
Close by a rock, of less enormous height,
Breaks the wild waves, and forms a dangerous strait;
Full on its crown, a fig’s green branches rise,
And shoot a leafy forest to the skies.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XII. L. 125. Pope’s trans.
So counsel’d he, and both together went
Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose
The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such as at this day to Indians known
In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms,
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree, a pillar’d shade
High overarch’d, and echoing walks between.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IX. L. 1,099.