[254] ἐξαίρησθαι. Theophrast. _Hist. Plant. l. 8_.
Besides, _Lolium_ or Darnel shews it self in the Winter, growing up with the Wheat; and _Theophrastus_ observed that it was no Vernal Plant, but came up in the Winter; which will not well answer the expression of the Text, _And when the Blade came up, and brought forth Fruit_, or gave evidence of its Fruit, _the Zizania_ appeared. And if the Husbandry of the Ancients were agreeable unto ours, they would not have been so earnest to weed away the Darnel; for our Husbandmen do not commonly weed it in the Field, but separate the Seeds after Thrashing. And therefore _Galen_ delivereth, that in an unseasonable year, and great scarcity of Corn, when they neglected to separate the Darnel, the Bread proved generally unwholsome, and had evil effects on the Head.
Our old and later Translation render _Zizania_, _Tares_, which name our English Botanists give unto _Aracus_, _Cracca_, _Vicia sylvestris_, calling them Tares, and strangling Tares. And our Husbandmen by Tares understand some sorts of wild Fitches, which grow amongst Corn, and clasp upon it, according to the Latin Etymology, _Vicia à Vinciendo_. Now in this uncertainty of the Original, Tares as well as some others, may make out the sense, and be also more agreeable unto the circumstances of the Parable. For they come up and appear what they are, when the Blade of the Corn is come up, and also the Stalk and Fruit discoverable. They have likewise little spreading Roots, which may intangle or rob the good Roots, and they have also tendrils and claspers, which lay hold of what grows near them, and so can hardly be weeded without endangering the neighbour Corn.
However, if by _Zizania_ we understand _Herbas segeti noxias_, or _vitia segetum_, as some Expositours have done, and take the word in a more general sense, comprehending several Weeds and Vegetables offensive unto Corn, according as the Greek word in the plural Number may imply, and as the learned _Laurenbergius_[255] hath expressed, _Runcare quod apud nostrates Weden dicitur, Zizanias inutiles est evellere_. If, I say, it be thus taken, we shall not need to be definitive, or confine unto one particular Plant, from a word which may comprehend divers: And this may also prove a safer sense, in such obscurity of the Original.