ABSTRACT
There is a charming poem by the eighteenth-century English poet, William Cowper, involving ‘a bee of most discerning taste’ and a pineapple, which recounts the unsuccessful attempt of the insect to prize the elixir from the impenetrable skin. Cowper likens the bee’s futile attempts to extract the sweet nectar from the fruit to man’s pursuit of trinkets and baubles – ‘pineapples in frames’ – which inflames our senses. He concludes with the admonition: the wise gather honey from the weed.
