Mandragora, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Like a moth to a flame
Burned by the fire.
My love is blind
Can't you see my desire?”
That's the Way Love Goes
janet. (1993)
“Moth: I gave you my life.
Flame: I allowed you to kiss me.”
“Being kissed on the back
of the knee is a moth
at the windowscreen….”
Source: Love Poems
“That such a moth exists in Madagascar may be safely predicted”
"Creation by law". Quarterly Journal of Science 4: 470–488 (1867); The hawkmoth of Madagascar was later found and described in 1903, under the taxon name praedicta in reference to Wallace's quote.
Context: I have carefully measured the proboscis of a specimen of [Neococytius] cluentius from South America in the collection of the British Museum, and find it to be nine inches and a quarter long! One from tropical Africa ([Xanthopan] morganii) is seven inches and a half. A species having a proboscis two or three inches longer could reach the nectar in the largest flowers of Angræcum sesquipedale, whose nectaries vary in length from ten to fourteen inches. That such a moth exists in Madagascar may be safely predicted; and naturalists who visit that island should search for it with as much confidence as astronomers searched for the planet Neptune - and they will be equally successful!
“A sensitive person gets burned, like a delicate moth.”
Der Sensible muß verbrennen, dieser zarte Nachtfalter.
P 71
The Piano Teacher (1988)
