Oranges

Oranges — specifically, the sweet orange — is a citrus tree and its fruit. The tree is a small flowering tree growing to about 3 meters tall. The orange fruit is a hesperidium, a type of berry.

Oranges originated in Southeast Asia and were cultivated in China by 2500 BC. The fruit of Citrus sinensis is called sweet orange to distinguish it from Citrus aurantium, the bitter orange. The name is thought to ultimately derive from the Sanskrit for the orange tree, with its final form developing after passing through numerous intermediate languages.

Quotes

The orange is ripe
the sun-filled orange is ripe

And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China.
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover.
- Leonard Cohen, "Suzanne", Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967).

The orange is ripe
the sun-filled orange is ripe
- Bei Dao, "The Orange Is Ripe", in The August Sleepwalker, trans. Bonnie S. McDougall (New York: New Directions, 1990), p. 56

Oh we ate all of the oranges off the navels of our lovers
Grabbed a book and read the cover.
- Modest Mouse, "Fire It Up", We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank (2007).

It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet It's twelve poems, I call
it oranges.
- Frank O'Hara, Why I Am Not a Painter (l. 24-28) (1976).

If the world could remain within a frame
Like a painting on a wall,
Then I think we would see the beauty, then
We would stand staring in awe
At our still lives posed
Like a bowl of oranges,
Like a story told
By the fault lines and the soil.
- Conor Oberst, "Bowl of Oranges", Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002).

If you are the basket of oranges
I am the knife of the sun.
- Octavio Paz, 'Motion Translated by Eliot Weinberger, from COLLECTED POEMS 1957-1987.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 572.

The happy bells shall ring Marguerite;
The summer birds shall sing Marguerite;
You smile but you shall wear
Orange blossoms in your hair, Marguerite.
- Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Wedded.

Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen blühen,
Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glūhn,
Ein sanfter Wind om blauen Himmel webt
Die Myrtle still und hoch der Lorbeer steht?
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin,
Möcht' ich mit dir, O mein Geliebter, ziehn.
- Knowest thou the land where the lemon-trees flourish, where amid the shadowed leaves the golden oranges glisten, — a gentle zephyr breathes from the blue heavens, the myrtle is motionless, and the laurel rises high? Dost thou know it well? Thither, thither, fain would I fly with thee, O my beloved!
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister, Mignon's Lied.

Yes, sing the song of the orange-tree,
With its leaves of velvet green:
With its luscious fruit of sunset hue,
The fairest that ever were seen;
The grape may have its bacchanal verse,
To praise the fig we are free;
But homage I pay to the queen of all,
The glorious orange-tree.
- J. K. Hoyt, The Orange-Tree.

If I were yonder orange-tree
And thou the blossom blooming there,
I would not yield a breath of thee
To scent the most imploring air!
- Thomas Moore, If I Were Yonder Wave, My Dear.

'Twas noon; and every orange bud
Hung languid o'er the crystal flood,
Faint as the lids of maiden eyes
Beneath a lover's burning sighs!
- Thomas Moore, I Stole Along the Flowery Bank.

Beneath some orange-trees,
Whose fruit and blossoms in the breeze
Were wantoning together free,
Like age at play with infancy.
- Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), Paradise and the Peri.

External links

Encyclopedic article on Orange (fruit) on Wikipedia
The dictionary definition of orange on Wiktionary
Media related to Citrus sinensis on Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Citrus sinensis on Wikispecies