Read: Perfume in Literature
More to come!
This ever-expanding list of selections and quotations deals with perfume, scent, and the concept of fragrance in forms of literature other than the poems quoted elsewhere on this site. Sources are noted wherever they can be identified. If you can improve this page with additional references, please email me or submit your correction via the comments interface below.
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Various Authors
Les Ateliers du Parfum - Parfums de Littrature (in French)
http://lesateliersduparfum.typepad.fr/les_ateliers_du_parfum/parfums_de_littrature/index.htmlPerfume Shrine - Perfume in Literature and Film
http://perfumeshrine.fortunecity.com/inliteratureandfilm.htmlScented Pages - Excerpts [from Literature]
http://scentedpages.com/excerpts/excerpts.html
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Ackerman, Diane
Unlike the other senses, smell needs no interpreter. The effect is immediate and undiluted by language, thought, or translation. A smell can be overwhelmingly nostalgic because it triggers powerful images and emotions before we have time to edit them.... When we give perfume to someone, we give them liquid memory.
From A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, 1990. Vintage Books: New York, p. 11
Bacon, Francis
And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.
From Of Gardens. See http://www.bartleby.com/100/139.33.html
Baudelaire, Charles
One finds an ancient flask, and from its spout
A spirit, now restored and much alive, pours out.
A thousand slumbering thoughts, dismal chrysalids
Within the shadows trembling like new butterflies,
Which set themselves to fly, as crumpled wings unfold
In tints of azure, frosts of rose, and flakes of gold."The Flask" by Charles Baudelaire, quoted in Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume by Mandy Aftel, 2001. New York: North Point Press, p. 3
[My] soul soars upon perfume as the souls of other men soar upon music.
Quoted in A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, 1990. Vintage Books: New York, p. 11
Borges, Jorge Luis
Wherever I am in the world, all I need is the smell of eucalyptus to recover that lost world of Androgue, which today no doubt exists only in my memory.
Quoted in The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz, 2007. New York: HarperCollins, p. 61
Camus, Albert
These women behind the store windows? Dreams, sir, dreams at bargain prices, a trip to the Indies! These people perfume themselves with spices. You enter, they close the curtains, and the trip begins. The gods descend on the nude bodies and the islands drift, demented, with the tousled hair of palm trees in the breeze.
From The Fall by Albert Camus, 1956. See http://www.bartleby.com/66/26/10326.html
Chanel, Gabrielle "Coco"
It [perfume] is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion…. that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure.
New York Herald Tribune, 18 October 1964. See http://www.bartleby.com/63/51/5951.html
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Omne ignotum pro magnifico. A dunghill at a distance sometimes smells like musk and a dead dog like elder flowers.
From The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1888, p. 22
Colum, Padraic
Persephone had been playing with the nymphs who are the Daughters of Ocean in the lovely fields of Enna. They went to gather the flowers that grow there in the spring-time irises and crocuses, lilies, hyacinths, and rose-blooms. As they went gathering flowers in their baskets they had sight of the pool that the white swans come to sing in.
Beside a deep chasm that had been made in the earth a wonder-flower was growing--in colour it was like the crocus, but it sent forth a perfume that was like the perfume of a hundred flowers. And Persephone, as she went towards it, thought that having gathered that flower she would have something more wonderful than her companions had.
She did not know that Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, had caused the flower to grow there so that she might be drawn by it to the chasm that he had made.
As Persephone stooped to pluck the wonder-flower, dark Hades, in his chariot of iron, dashed up through the chasm, and, grasping the maiden by the waist, set her beside him.
From Orpheus: Myths of the World, "Greek / Demeter," 1930. Full text available at http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/omw/index.htm
Cowper, William
I cannot talk with civet in the room,
A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume.
Crowley, Aleister (Argentium Astrum) et al.
5. Beautiful wast thou, O Lilith, thou serpent-woman!
6. Thou wast lithe and delicious to the taste, and thy perfume was of musk mingled with ambergris. [...]
19. Thou art delicious beyond all taste and touch, Thou art not-to-be-beheld for glory, Thy voice is beyond the Speech and the Silence and the Speech therein, and Thy perfume is of pure ambergris, that is not weighed against the finest gold of the fine gold.From Thelemic text Liber Cordis Cincte Serpente vel LXV, Part III, which is "an account of the relations of the aspirant and his Holy Guardian Angel. Full text at http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/lib65.htm
27. Then the priest answered & said unto the Queen of Space, kissing her lovely brows, and the dew of her light bathing his whole body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: O Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous! [...]
63. Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!From The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis), Chapter I. [Chapter II gets much weirder regarding perfumes. Read at your own discretion.] Full text at http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/engccxx.htm
Dhammapada (The) ca. 300 BCE
51. Like a beautiful flower, full of colour, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.
52. But, like a beautiful flower, full of colour and full of scent, are the fine and fruitful words of him who acts accordingly.
53. As many kinds of wreaths can be made from a heap of flowers, so many good things may be achieved by a mortal when once he is born.
54. The scent of flowers does not travel against the wind, nor (that of) sandal-wood, or of Tagara and Mallikâ flowers; but the odour of good people travels even against the wind; a good man pervades every place.
55. Sandal-wood or Tagara, a lotus-flower, or a Vassikî, among these sorts of perfumes, the perfume of virtue is unsurpassed.
56. Mean is the scent that comes from Tagara and sandal-wood;--the perfume of those who possess virtue rises up to the gods as the highest.
Page 18. See http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe10/sbe1006.htm
Ellis, Havelock
Our olfactory experiences thus institute a more or less continuous series of by-sensations accompanying us through life, of no great practical significance, but of considerable emotional significance from their variety, their intimacy, their associational facility, their remote ancestral vibrations, through our brains...It is the existence of these characteristics--at once so vague and so specific, so useless and so intimate--which led various writers to describe the sense of smell as, above all others, the sense of imagination. No sense has so strong a power of suggestion, the power of calling up ancient memories with a wider and deeper emotional reverberation, while at the same time no sense furnishes impressions which so easily change emotional color and tone, in harmony with the recipient's general attitude. Odors are thus specially apt both to control the emotional life and to become its slaves."
Quoted in Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume by Mandy Aftel, 2001. New York: North Point Press, p. 17
Falkner (Faulkner), William
You like orchids?... Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.
Attributed. See http://www.bartleby.com/66/85/21885.html
Flaubert, Gustav
In order to get hold of some tangible memento of her, he went to the cupboard at the head of his bed and brought out an old biscuit box that had come from Rheims, in which he used to keep the letters he received from women. It emitted a smell of mustiness and withered roses. The first thing he noticed was a handkerchief covered with little faded stains. It belonged to her. Her nose had started bleeding when they were out walking once; he had forgotten all about it. Close to it was a miniature of herself that she had given him. It was all broken at the corners. He thought her dress looked showy and her seductive glance in the most deplorable taste. Then, as he gazed at this picture and tried to recall the original, Emma's features began to grow vague and blurred in his mind, as if the living face and the painted face, rubbing one against the other, had become mutually obliterated. And then he went on to the letters. They were full of arrangements for going away, short, practical and to the point, like business communications. He looked for the long ones, the letters she used to write him.
[...]
Homais wanted to know how it had all happened. Charles said it had come on her all of a sudden, while she was eating some apricots.
'Extraordinary!' remarked the chemist. 'But it's quite possible the apricots may have induced syncope. Some people are so terribly sensitive to certain odours. The subject would well repay study, in its pathological no less than its physiological aspect. It's a fact well known to the priests, who have always introduced aromatic scents into the ceremonies of the Church. The obvious intention is to numb the intellectual faculties while creating a condition of ecstasy, no difficult matter in the case of women, who are more sensitive in this respect than men. Cases have been cited where they have fainted at the smell of burnt hartshorn, of newly baked bread....'
From Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert, Chapter 22, 1857
Fuentes, Carlos
If the Soviet Union can give up the Brezhnev Doctrine for the Sinatra Doctrine, the United States can give up the James Monroe Doctrine for the Marilyn Monroe Doctrine: Let’s all go to bed wearing the perfume we like best.
Quoted in the London Times, 20 February 1990. See http://www.bartleby.com/66/54/24154.html
Hippocrates
The way to health is to have an aromatic bath and scented massage every day.
Quoted in The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz, 2007. New York: HarperCollins, p. 90
Holy Bible
This will be the way of the king ... and he will take your daughters to be perfumers.
I Samuel 8:11-13
And the LORD said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; these sweet spices with pure frankincense; of each shall there be a like weight: / And thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy. / And thou salt beat some of it very small, and put of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with thee: it shall be unto you most holy. / And as for the perfume which thou shalt make, ye shall not make to yourselves according to the composition thereof: it shall be unto thee holy for the LORD. / Whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people.
Exodus 30: 34-38
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.
From "Orthodoxy," 1929. See http://www.bartleby.com/73/1132.html
Keller, Helen
I never smell daisies without living over again the ecstatic mornings that my teacher and I spent wandering in the fields while I learned new words and the names of things. Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across a thousand miles and all the years we have lived. [...]
I know by smell the kind of house we enter. I have recognized an old-fashioned country house because it has several layers of odors, left by a succession of families, of plants, perfumes, and draperies. [...]
From exhalations I learn much about people. I often know the work they are engaged in. The odors of wood, iron, paint, and drugs cling to the garments of those that work in them. Thus I can distinguish the carpenter from the ironworker, the artist from the mason or the chemist. When a person passes quickly from one place to another I get a scent impression of where he has been � the kitchen, the garden, or the sick-room. I gain pleasurable ideas of freshness and good taste from the odors of soap, toilet water, clean garments, woolen and silk stuffs, and gloves. [...]
Once, long ago, in a crowded railway station, a lady kissed me as she hurried by. I had not touched even her dress. But she left a scent with her kiss which gave me a glimpse of her.
The years are many since she kissed me. Yet her odor is fresh in my memory.
It is difficult to put into words the thing itself, the elusive person-odor. There seems to be no adequate vocabulary of smells, and I must fall back on approximate phrase and metaphor.
From "Smell, the Fallen Angel" excerpted from The World I live In by Helen Keller, 1903.
Kipling, Rudyard
SMELLS are surer than sounds or sights
To make your heart strings crack --
They start those awful voices o' nights
That whisper, 'Old man come back'
That must be why the big things pass
And the little things remain,
Like the smell of the wattle by Lichtenberg
Riding in, in the rainFrom "Lichtenburg" by Rudyard Kipling, in The Five Nations, 1903. The word "wattle" in the seventh line refers to acacia, also known as mimosa.
Leavitt, David
Childhood smells of perfume and brownies.
Quoted in http://www.bartleby.com/63/22/3822.html
Lotus Sutra (Saddharma Pundarika, or, The Lotus of the True Law)
...The Bodhisattva Mahâsattva who keeps, proclaims, studies, writes this Dharmaparyâya becomes possessed of a perfect organ of smell with eight hundred good qualities. By means of that organ he smells the different smells that are found in the triple world, within and without, such as fetid smells, pleasant and unpleasant smells, the fragrance of diverse flowers, as the greatflowered jasmine, Arabian jasmine, Michelia Chainpaka, trumpet-flower; likewise the different scents of aquatic flowers, as the blue lotus, red lotus, white esculent water-lily and white lotus. He smells the odour of fruits and blossoms of various trees bearing fruits and blossoms, such as sandal, Xanthochymus, Tabernæmontana, agallochum. The manifold hundred-thousand mixtures of perfumes he smells and discerns, without moving from his standing-place. He smells the diverse smells of creatures, as elephants, horses, cows, goats, beasts, as well as the smell issuing from the body of various living beings in the condition of brutes. He perceives the smells exhaled by the body of women and men, of boys and girls. He smells, even from a distance, the odour of grass, bushes, herbs, trees. He perceives those smells such as they really are, and is not surprised nor stunned by them. Staying on this very earth he smells the odour of gods and the fragrance of celestial flowers, such as Erythrina, Bauhinia, Mandârava and great Mandârava, Mañgûsha and great Mañgûsha. He smells the perfume of the divine powders of sandal and agallochum, as well as that of the hundred-thousands of mixtures of different divine flowers. He smells the odour exhaled by the body of the gods, such as Indra, the chief of the gods, and thereby knows whether (the god) is sporting, playing, and enjoying himself in his palace Vaigayanta or is speaking the law to the gods of paradise in the assembly-hall of the gods, Sudharmâ, or is resorting to the pleasure-park for sport. He smells the odour proceeding from the body of the sundry other gods, as well as that proceeding from the girls and wives of the gods, from the youths and maidens amongst the gods, without being surprised or stunned by those smells. He likewise smells the odour exhaled by the bodies of all Devanikâyas, Brahmakâyikas, and Mahâbrahmas. In the same manner he perceives the smells coming from disciples, Pratyekabuddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Tathâgatas. He smells the odour arising from the seats of the Tathâgatas and so discovers where those Tathâgatas, Arhats, &c. abide. And by none of all those different smells is his organ of smell hindered, impaired, or vexed; and, if required, he may give an account of those smells to others without his memory being impaired by it.
From The Lotus Sutra, Chapter 18, Translated by H. Kern, 1884. Full text at http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/lotus/index.htm
Mathers, S. Liddell MacGregor (translator)
Concerning Incense, Suffumigations, Perfumes, Odours, and Similar Things which are Used in Magical Arts
THERE are many kinds of Incense, Suffumigations, and Perfumes, which are made for and offered unto the Spirits; those which are of sweet odour are for the good, those which are of evil savour are for the evil.
For perfumes of good odour, take thou incense, aloes, nutmeg, gum benjamin, musk, and other fragrant spices, over the which thou shalt say:--
The Exorcism of the Incense
O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, deign to bless these odoriferous spices so that they may receive strength, virtue, and power to attract the Good Spirits, and to banish and cause to retire all hostile Phantoms. Through Thee, O Most Holy ADONAI, Who livest and reignest unto the Ages of the Ages. Amen.
I exorcise thee, O Spirit impure and unclean, thou who art a hostile Phantom, in the Name of God, that thou quit this Perfume, thou and all thy deceits, that it may be consecrated and sanctified in the name of God Almighty. May the Holy Spirit of God grant protection and virtue unto those who use these Perfumes; and may the hostile and evil Spirit and Phantom never be able to enter therein, through the Ineffable Name of God Almighty. Amen.
O Lord, deign to bless and to sanctify this Creature of Perfume so that it may be a remedy unto mankind for the health of body and of soul, through the Invocation of Thy Holy Name. May all Creatures who receive the odour of this incense and of these spices receive health of body and of soul, through Him Who hath formed the Ages. Amen.
After this thou shalt sprinkle the various Spices with the Water of the Art, and thou shalt place them aside in a piece of silk as in other cases, or in a box destined for the purpose, so that thou mayest have them ready prepared for use when necessary.
From the Qabalistic treatise The Key of Solomon (Clavicula Solomonis), Book II, Chapter X "Concerning Incense..." Translated 1888. Full text at http://www.sacred-texts.com/grim/kos/index.htm
Maugham, W. Somerset
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
From Ashenden, in Cakes and Ale, 1930. See http://www.bartleby.com/66/67/38267.html
Milton, John
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe,
From the Earth's great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
And joined their vocal worship to the quire
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
Then commune, how that day they best may ply
Their growing work: for much their work out-grew
The hands' dispatch of two gardening so wide,
And Eve first to her husband thus began.From Paradise Lost, Chapter 9, by John Milton,1667
Nabokov, Vladimir
Smells are surer than signs or sounds to make your heartstrings crack.
Quoted in The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz, 2007. New York: HarperCollins, p. 1
Memory can restore to life everything except smells.
Quoted in The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz, 2007. New York: HarperCollins, p. 85
Napoleon
I return in three days; don't bathe.
Letter to Empress Josephine, quoted in Perfume: The Art and Science of Scent by Cathy Newman, 1998. National Geographic Society, p. 30
Orwell, George
The lower classes smell.
Quoted in The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz, 2007. New York: HarperCollins, p. 149
Pike, Albert
Pluck the flowers. Inhale the delicious perfumes; each perfect, and all delicious. Whence have they come? By what combination of acids and alkalies could the chemist's laboratory produce them?
And now on two comes the fruit--the ruddy apple and the golden orange. Pluck them--open them! The texture and fabric how totally different! The taste how entirely dissimilar--the perfume of each distinct from its flower and from the other. Whence the taste and this new perfume? The same earth and air and water have been made to furnish a different taste to each fruit, a different perfume not only to each fruit, but to each fruit and its own flower.
Is it any more a problem whence come thought and will and perception and all the phenomena of the mind, than this, whence come the colors, the perfumes, the taste, of the fruit and flower?
From Morals and Dogma, 1871, regarding Freemasonry and esoteric knowledge. See http://www.sacred-texts.com/mas/md/index.htm
Polano, H.
There was a certain family, the family of Abtinoss, the members of which were learned in the art of preparing the incense used in the service. Their knowledge they refused to impart to others, and the directors of the Temple, fearing that the art might die with them, discharged them from the service, and brought other parties from Alexandria, in Egypt, to prepare the sweet perfume. These latter were unable to afford satisfaction, however, and the directors were obliged to give the service back into the hands of the family of Abtinoss, who on their part refused to accept it again, unless the remuneration for their services was doubled. When asked why they so persistently refused to impart their skill to others, they replied that they feared they might teach some unworthy persons, who would afterwards use their knowledge in an idolatrous worship. The members of this family were very particular not to use perfume of any kind themselves, lest the people should imagine that they put the sweet spices used in the manufacture of the incense to a baser use.
From The Talumud: Selections, Part Fourth "Abintoss and Garmah," 1876. Full text at: http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/pol/index.htm
Proust, Marcel
No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached with no suggestion of its origin.... Whence could it have come to me, this all powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of the tea and cake but that it infinitely transcended those savors.
From Swann's way by Marcel Proust, 1928. New York: The Modern Library, p. 62
When from a long-distant past nothing subsists after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.
From Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, quoted in Quoted in Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume by Mandy Aftel, 2001. New York: North Point Press, p. 11
Rousseau, Jean Jacques
Smell is the sense of memory and desire.
(Citation needed.)
The sense of smell is the sense of imagination; giving a stronger tone to the nerves, it greatly disturbs the brain; which explains why it can arouse the amorous temperament momentarily, but eventually exhausts it. Its effects in love-making are well known; the sweet perfume of a dressing-room is not so flimsy a trap as we might think; and I do not know whether to congratulate or to pity the prudent and unfeeling man who has never thrilled to the scent of flowers on his mistress's bosom.
Cited in http://www.pubmedcentral.nih
.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid =1317054
Shakespeare, William
Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
And made their bends adornings; at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her, and Antony,
Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too
And made a gap in nature.Antony and Cleopatra: II, 2
Here's the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
Macbeth: V, 1
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.King John: IV, 2
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute.Hamlet: I, 3
Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow’st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Here’s three on’s are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more than such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.
King Lear: III, 4
But earthlier happy is the rose distilled
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.A Midsummer Night's Dream: I, 1
Socrates
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
[citation needed]
Steinbeck, John
Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.
From Sweet Thursday, 1954. See http://www.bartleby.com/63/64/5364.html
Symons, Arthur
As perfume doth remain
In the folds where it hath lain,
So the thought of you, remaining
Deeply folded in my brain,
Will not leave me; all things leave me:
You remain[citation needed]
Whitman, Walt
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,
The scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.From Song of Myself Section 24, by Walt Whitman, 1900.
Unknown Author: English law in the era of King George III:
All women that shall seduce and betray into matrimony any of his Majesty's subjects by scents, paints, cosmetic washes ... shall incur the penalty of the law in force against witchcraft ... and that the marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void.
Quoted in Perfume: The Art and Science of Scent by Cathy Newman, 1998. National Geographic Society, p. 29
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