Olive (Maplet)

This is the entry for olive from Maplet's A Greene Forest.

Of the Olive tree.

The Olive is a kinde of tree had in much price amongest the Auncients for his peasible and concordant nature. Insomuch that the olde Romaines (as in their Histories and Chronicles doth appeare) were never woont to send their Legates or Embassadours eyther to aske and require peace: or else to offer and proclaime peace with their outward enimies, without smal braunches hereof borne in their hands. Remigius saith, it is for a token of signe or attonement and Covenant made betweene God and man. As then especially when as the Dove fleeing forth of Noe and his Arke, fetcheth first and formost to him a small twig hereof. Plinie sayth, in his .xv. booke, that the valiant and noblest vanquishers in the Citie of Athens in olde time were honoured and crowned with the Olive. The same Authour also ercordeth, that there be divers kindes hereof. There is also a certaine juice of this Olive, as Isidore saith, which the more new and fresh that it is, the better it is. There is also the wilde Olive like to the other, but that it hath a more broade Leafe.