Chapter VIII: Part TWO: The Flowers of Shakespeare (2)

"The English columbine is a more developed type than the American scarlet, is never yellow in the wild state, but often purple, and, sometimes, blue. Larkspur, ranking still higher in the floral scale, in virtue of its singular bilateral blossoms, is usually blue, though it sometimes reverts to reddish-purple, or white; while monkshood, the very top of the tree on this line of development, is usually deep ultramarine, only a few species being prettily variegated with pale blue and white. As a rule, blue flowers are the very highest; and the reason seems to lie in the strange fact, first discovered by Sir John Lubbock, that bees are fonder of blue than of any other color. Still, they are fond enough even of red; and one may be sure that the change from yellow to scarlet in the petals of the American columbine is due in one way or another to the selective tastes and preferences of the higher insects."

The colors of the American columbine are dark opaque blues, smoky purples, dull pinks, pale blues, lavenders, reds and yellows--an infinite variety!

"The flowering of the 'Columbine Commendable,' as Skelton called it four hundred years ago," says Harriet L. Keeler, "marks the beginning of summer. The reign of the bulbs is over;

The windflower and the violet
They perished long ago;

the petals of the early roses are falling; the elder-blossoms show white along the fence rows; and the season waxes to its prime.

"A wild flower of English fields, the columbine was early transferred into English gardens and has held its place securely there for at least five hundred years. Its seeds were among the treasures borne over the sea to the New World and it early bloomed in Pilgrim gardens. This primitive stock still persists in cultivation.

"The flower of the columbine is a unique and interesting form. The sepals look like petals and the petals are veritable horns of plenty filled with nectar at the closed ends for the swarms of bees which gather about. The sweets are produced by the blossoms on a generous scale, and to a columbine bed in full bloom the bees come, big and little, noisy and silent--all giddy with the feast. There is no use trying to drive them away for they will not go. Clumsy bumble bees with tongues long enough to reach the honey by the open door, wise honey bees who have learned to take the short road to the nectar by biting through the spur, quiet brown bees, little green carpenters--all are there, 'vehement, voluble, velvety,' in a glorious riot of happiness and honey.

"The doubling occurs chiefly with the petals; the sepals, as a rule, hold true to the five, but the petals sometimes double in number, becoming ten spurs in place of five, and each spur becomes a nest of spurs like a set of Chinese cups, though the innermost are frequently imperfect."

The columbine frequently appears in the paintings of the Great Masters. Luini has immortalized it in his picture of this title now in the gallery of the Hermitage at Petrograd. A fascinating woman with a smile as enchanting--if not so famous--as Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" holds an exquisitely painted columbine in her left hand and gazes at it with tender, loving emotion.

The early Italian and Flemish painters include the columbine with the rose, lily, pink, violet, strawberry, and clover in the gardens where the Madonna sits with the Holy Child. The reason that the columbine was chosen as a flower of religious symbolism was because of the little doves formed by the five petals. The columbine signified the "Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit," and the Flemish painters in their zeal for accuracy corrected the number of petals to seven to make the flower agree with the teaching of the Church.

Yet although the columbine has these religious associations, we always think of it as an airy, piquant flower, the gay and irresponsible dancer of the rocks and dells, clad, as it were, in fantastic and parti-colored dress. Graceful in form and charming in color, put together with extreme delicacy on slender, flexible, fragile stems and adorned with a leaf approaching that of the fern in delicacy and lace-like beauty, the columbine is one of the most delightful of flowers. Always associated with folly, we love it none the less for that, for there are times when we enjoy _Harlequin_ and _Columbine_ among our flowers,--and these fantastic and frivolous columbines dancing so gaily in the breeze always fill us with delight.

BROOM (_Cytisus scoparius_). Although the broom was a popular plant in Elizabethan days it is only mentioned once by Shakespeare. In "The Tempest,"[48] where _Iris_ in the mask in her apostrophe to "Ceres, most bounteous lady," speaks of

thy broom-groves
Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
Being lass-lorn ...
... the queen o' the sky ...
Bids thee leave these.

[48] Act IV, Scene I.

When in blossom the broom is lovely to look upon. The large yellow flowers are gracefully arranged on the branches, and its perfume is delightful.

"Sweet is the Broome-flower!" exclaims Spenser. The broom is the _Planta genesta_, from which the Plantagenets took their name. The flower, having become heraldic during that dynasty, was embroidered on the clothes of the Plantagenet family and imitated in their jewels. When they died it was carved on their monuments. The story goes that Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, father of Henry II of England, once on his way to a field of battle, had to climb a rocky path, and he noticed as he went along the bushes of yellow broom clinging to the rocks. Breaking off a branch he, placed it in his helmet with the words: "This golden plant shall be my emblem henceforth. Rooted firmly among rocks and upholding that which is ready to fall." His son, Henry, was called "the royal sprig of Genesta." The golden plume of broom-flowers was worn by the Plantagenets until the last one of the line, Richard III, lost the Crown of England to Henry VII, the first of the Tudors.

In 1264 the _Planta genesta_ was honored by St. Louis, who instituted the Order of Genest on his marriage with Marguerite. The Knights of the Genest wore chains made of the broom-flower alternating with the fleur-de-lis. Shakespeare speaks of a "broom-staff" and sends _Puck_

with broom before
To sweep the dust behind the door.

Whether _Puck's_ broom was made from the _Genesta_ or not we do not know; but we do know that the broom, in common with other briars, was used to make besoms for sweeping and also for staffs to walk with and to lean upon.

Summer

"SWEET SUMMER BUDS"

I

"_Morning Roses Newly Washed with Dew_"

THE ROSE (_Rosa_). Shakespeare speaks of the rose more frequently than any other flower. Sixty references to the rose are scattered through his works. Sometimes he talks of the rose itself and sometimes he uses the word to make a striking comparison, or analogy. With magical touch he gives us the bold picture of a

Red rose on triumphant briar,

then he brings before us a delicious whiff of the

Perfumèd tincture of the roses,

or the luscious fragrance of

Morning roses newly washed with dew.

With equal delicacy of perception he tells us

So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
To those fresh morning drops upon the rose.[49]

Shakespeare's special roses are the Red, the White, the Musk, the Eglantine (sweetbrier), the Provençal, or Provins, the Damask, the Canker, and the Variegated.

[49] "Love's Labour's Lost"; Act IV, Scene III.

THE RED ROSE (_Rose Anglica rubra_), the English red, is thus described by Parkinson:

"The Red Rose, which I call English because this rose is more frequent and used in England than in other places, never groweth so high as the Damask Rose-bush, but more usually abideth low and shooteth forth many branches from the Rose-bush (and is but seldom suffered to grow up as the Damask Rose into standards) with a green bark thinner set with prickles and longer and greener leaves on the upper side than in the white, yet with an eye of white upon them, five likewise most usually set upon a stalk and grayish, or whitish, underneath. The Roses, or flowers, do very much vary according to their site and abiding, for some are of an orient red, or deep crimson, color and very double (although never so double as the White), which, when it is full blown, hath the largest leaves of any other Rose; some of them again are paler, tending somewhat to a Damask; and some are of so pale a red as that it is rather of the color of a Canker Rose, yet all for the most part with larger leaves than the Damask, and with many more yellow threads in the middle. The scent hereof is much better than in the White, but not comparable to the excellency of the Damask Rose, yet this Rose, being well dried and well kept, will hold both color and scent longer than the Damask."

THE WHITE ROSE (_Rosa Anglica alba_).

"The White Rose is of two kinds," says Parkinson, "the one more thick and double than the other. The one riseth up in some shadowy places unto eight or ten foot high, with a stock of great bigness for a rose. The other growing seldom higher than a Damask Rose. Both these Roses have somewhat smaller and whiter green leaves than in many other Roses, five most usually set on a stock and more white underneath, as also a whiter green bark, armed with sharp thorns, or prickles. The flowers in the one are whitish with an eye, or shew, of a blush, especially towards the ground, or bottom, of the flower, very thick, double and close set together; and, for the most part, not opening itself so largely and fully as either the Red, or Damask Rose. The other more white, less thick and double and opening itself more, and some so little double (as but of two or three rows) that they might be held to be single, yet all of little or no smell at all."

From this _Rosa alba_, Pliny says, the isle of Albion derived its name--a happy thought when we remember that the rose is still the national emblem of England.

MUSK-ROSE (_Rosa moschata_). Musk-roses and eglantine mingled with honeysuckle formed the canopy beneath which _Titania_ slumbered on a bank made soft and lovely with wild thyme, oxlips and nodding violets. And in the "coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers" that the dainty little fairy queen placed upon the hairy temples of _Bottom_ the Weaver, musk-roses were conspicuous; and the sweetness of these was intensified by "the round and Orient pearls of dew" that swelled upon the petals, as the "pretty flowerets bewailed their own disgrace."

It is this delicious rose which Keats, when listening to the nightingale, sensed rather than visualized in the twilight dimness:

The coming musk-rose full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

The musk-rose was adored by the Elizabethans. Lord Bacon considered its scent to come next to that of the violet, and before all other flowers.

"You remember the great bush at the corner of the south wall just by the Blue Drawing-room window?" writes Mrs. Gaskell in "My Lady Ludlow." "That is the old musk-rose, Shakespeare's musk-rose, which is dying out through the kingdom now. The scent is unlike the scent of any other rose, or of any other flower."

The musk-rose is a native of North Africa, Spain, and India (Nepal). Hakluyt in 1582 gave the date of its introduction into England. "The turkey-cocks and hens," he says, "were brought in about fifty years past; the Artichoke in the time of Henry the Eighth; and of later times was procured out of Italy the Musk Rose plant and the Plum called Perdigwena."

Turning now to Parkinson and opening his big volume at the page "_Rosa Moschata_, simple and multiplex," we read:

"The Musk Rose, both single and double, rises up oftentimes to a very great height that it overgroweth any arbor in a Garden, or being set by a house side to be ten or twelve foot high, or more, but especially the single kind with many green far spread branches armed with a few sharp great thorns, as the wilder sorts of Roses are, whereof these are accounted to be kinds, having small dark green leaves on them, not much bigger than the leaves of Eglantines. The Flowers come forth at the tops of the branches, many together as it were in an umbel, or tuft, which, for the most part, do flower all at a time, or not long one after another, every one standing on a pretty long stalk and are of a pale whitish, or cream color, both the single and the double, the single being small flowers consisting of five leaves with many yellow threads in the middle; and the double bearing more double flowers, as if they were once or twice more double than the single, with yellow thrums also in the middle, both of them of a very sweet and pleasing smell, resembling musk. Some there be that have avouched that the chief scent of these Roses consisteth not in the leaves but in the threads of the Flowers."

The color of the musk-rose is white, slightly tinged with pink.

EGLANTINE; ALSO SWEETBRIER (_Rosa eglanteria_). This is a conspicuous adornment of _Titania's_ bower, and is as remarkable for its beauty as for its scent. The pink flowers with their golden threads in the center are familiar to every one.

"The Sweet Briar, or Eglantine," Parkinson writes, "is not only planted in Gardens for the sweetness of its leaves, but growing wild in many woods and hedges, hath exceeding long green shoots armed with the cruellest sharp and strong thorns and thicker set than is in any Rose, either Wild or tame. The leaves are smaller than in most of those that are nourished up in Gardens, seven or nine, most usually set together on a rib, or stalk, very green and sweeter in smell about the leaves of any other kind of Rose. The flowers are small, single, blush Roses."

PROVENÇAL, OR PROVINS (_Centifolia_). This old-fashioned cabbage-rose of globular flowers, massive foliage, hard knob of leaves in the center, and sweet perfume is affectionately known as the "Hundred Leaf," or _rose à cent feuilles_. Parkinson gives two varieties: the incarnate, or flesh-color; and the red.

In our country the light pink, or incarnate, is the more familiar. What associations does it not conjure up? To many of us Dean Hole's words make a touching appeal:

"The blushing, fresh, fragrant Provence! It was to many of us _the_ Rose of our childhood and its delicious perfume passes through the outer sense into our hearts gladdening them with bright and happy dreams, saddening them with love and child awakenings. It brings more to us than the fairness and sweet smell of a Rose. We passed in our play to gaze on it with the touch of a vanished hand in ours, with a father's blessing on our heads and a mother's prayer that we might never lose our love of the beautiful. Happy they who return, or regain, that love."

THE DAMASK ROSE (_Rosa damascena_) is a native of Syria, whence it was brought to Europe about 1270 by Thibault IV, Comte de Brie, returning from the Holy Land. We know exactly when it was introduced into England because Hakluyt, writing in 1582, says: "In time of memory many things have been brought in that were not here before, as the Damask Rose by Doctor Liniker, King Henry the Seventh and King Henry the Eighth's physician."

"Gloves as sweet as Damask Roses" _Autolycus_ carries in his peddler's pack for "lads to give their dears," along with masks for their faces, perfume, necklace-amber, pins, quoifs, and "lawn as white as driven snow."[50]

[50] "The Winter's Tale"; Act IV, Scene III.

Parkinson informs us:

"The Damask Rose-bush is more usually nourished up to a competent height to stand alone (which we call Standards), than any other Rose. The bark, both of the stock and branches, is not fully so green as the Red or White Rose. The leaves are green with an eye of white upon them. The flowers are of a fine deep blush color, as all know, with some pale yellow threads in the middle, and are not so thick and double as the White, not being blown with so large and great leaves as the Red, but of the most excellent sweet pleasant scent, far surpassing all other Roses or Flowers, being neither heady, nor too strong, nor stuffing or unpleasant sweet, as many other flowers.

"The Rose is of exceeding great use with us, for the Damask Rose (besides the superexcellent sweet water it yieldeth, being distilled, or the perfume of its leaves, being dried, serving to fill sweet bags) serveth to cause solubleness of the body, made into a syrup, or preserved with sugar, moist or candied." The name is obviously from Damascus.

CANKER (_Rosa canina_). This is the wild dog-rose common to many countries. The name dog-rose was given to it by the Romans, because the root was said to cure the bite of a mad dog. Pliny says the remedy was discovered in a dream by the mother of a soldier who had been bitten by a mad dog. _Don Juan's_ remark in "Much Ado About Nothing."[51]

I had rather be a canker in the hedge
Than a rose in his garden,

refers, of course, to the canker-rose. According to legend, the Crown of Thorns was made from the briers of this variety of rose.

[51] Act I, Scene III.

VARIEGATED ROSE (_Rosa versicolor_) of Shakespeare's plays is the curious bush which produces at the same time red roses, white roses, and roses of red mottled with white and of white mottled with red. The growth of the tree is stiff and erect and the flowers have a sweet scent. The rose is often called the "York and Lancaster." Parkinson says:

"This Rose in the form and order of the growing is nearest unto the ordinary Damask Rose both for stem, branch, leaf and flower, the difference consisting in this--that the flower (being of the same largeness and doubleness as the Damask Rose) hath the one half of it sometimes of a pale whitish color and the other half of a paler damask color than the ordinary. This happeneth so many times, and sometimes also the flower hath divers stripes and marks on it, one leaf white, or striped with white, and the other half blush, or striped with blush, sometimes all striped, or spotted over, and at other times little or no stripes, or marks, at all, as Nature listeth to play with varieties in this as in other flowers. Yet this I have observed, that the longer it abideth blown open to the sun, the paler and the fewer stripes, marks, or spots will be seen in it. The smell is of a weak Damask Rose scent."

This rose recalls the old song of a "Lover to His Lancastrian Mistress," on handing her a white rose:

If this fair rose offend thy sight,
Placed in thy bosom bare,
'T will blush to find itself less white,
And turn Lancastrian there,

But if thy ruby lip it spy,
As kiss it thou mayst deign,
With envy pale 'twill lose its dye,
And Yorkish turn again.

In his play of "King Henry VI," which passes during the Wars of the Roses, Shakespeare introduces the noted scene in the Temple Garden, London, where the emblem of the Yorkists (a white rose) and that of the Lancastrians (a red rose) is chosen. Richard Plantagenet plucks a white rose and the Earl of Somerset a red rose from rose-bushes that are still growing and blooming in the same spot, as they did when Shakespeare imagined the scene in "King Henry VI."[52]

[52] Part I, Act II, Scene IV.

In Shakespeare's day the rose was enormously cultivated. In the gardens of Ely Place, the home of Queen Elizabeth's dashing lord chancellor, twenty bushels of roses were gathered annually--a good deal for the time.

"About thirty species of roses," writes Edmund Gosse, "were known to the Elizabethan gardeners, and most of them did particularly well in London until in the reign of James I, when the increasing smoke of coal-fires exterminated the most lovely and the most delicate species, the double yellow rose. Things grew rapidly worse in this respect, until Parkinson in despair, cried out: 'Neither herb, nor tree, will prosper since the use of sea-coal.' Up to that time in London, and afterwards in country-places, the rose preserved its vogue. It was not usually grown for pleasure, since the petals had a great commercial value; there was a brisk trade in dried roses and a precious sweet water was distilled from the damask rose. The red varieties of the rose were considered the best medicinally, and they produced that rose syrup which was so widely used both as a cordial and as an aperient. The fashion for keeping _potpourri_ in dwelling-rooms became so prevalent that the native gardens could not supply enough, and dried yellow roses became a recognized import from Constantinople. We must think of the parlors of the ladies who saw Shakespeare's plays performed for the first time as all redolent with the perfume of dried, spiced and powdered rose-leaves." In "Sonnet LIV" Shakespeare says:

The rose looks fair, but fairer it we deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumèd tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their maskèd buds discloses.
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made.

For twenty-seven centuries--and more--the rose has been considered queen of flowers. Her perfume, her color, her elegance, and her mystic fascination have won all hearts. Shakespeare says: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." In one sense that is true; but we would not be willing to try another title, for the very word rose is a beautiful one and conjures up a particular and very special vision of sweetness and beauty.

Thousands and thousands of poems have been written in praise of this flower, ever since Sappho sang to her lyre the words "Ho! the rose! Ho! the rose!"

Sir Henry Wotton wrote:

You Violets that first appear,
By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,
As if the Spring were all your own,
What are you when the Rose is blown?

And Hood sang:

The Cowslip is a country wench;
The Violet is a nun;
But I will woo the dainty Rose
The queen of every one.

And Shelley:

And the rose, like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveiled the depths of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air,
The soul of her beauty and love laid bare.

Shelley's "fold after fold" reminds us that Ruskin points out that one of the rose's beauties is that her petals make shadows over and over again of their own loveliness.

Dr. Forbes Watson has, perhaps, been the most successful of all writers in putting into words the reasons why the rose has such power over mankind:

"The flower has something almost human about it--warm, breathing, soft as the fairest cheek; of white, no longer snowy like the narcissus, but flushed with hues of animating pink; either flower, white or red, being alike symbolical of glowing, youthful passion."

In the East the rose gardens have been famed for centuries. The flower is said to burst into bloom at the voice of the nightingale. The poet Jami says: "You may place a handful of fragrant herbs of flowers before the nightingale, yet he wishes not in his constant heart for more than the sweet breath of his beloved rose." It is said that an Arabian doctor discovered the recipe for rose-water in the Tenth Century; but the perfume may be older than that. The _Rosa centifolia_ is the blossom used. The Indians and Persians have known how to make their attar of rose for centuries.

A large volume would be required to chronicle the romance of the rose, for it is the flower of love, beauty, and poetry. It is dedicated to Venus, and Venus is frequently represented as wearing a crown of roses. Her son, Eros or Cupid, is also wreathed and garlanded with roses. Cupid gave a rose to Harpocrates, god of silence--hence the rose is also the symbol of silence. "Under the rose," a saying that expresses silence and secrecy, is derived from this legend. A siren holding a rose stands among the sculptured ruins of Pæstum. Roses and myrtle adorned the brides of Greece and Rome. The profusion of roses used for decorations at feasts astounds us even to-day. No epicure was satisfied with the cup of Falernian wine unless it were perfumed with roses; and the Spartan soldiers at the Battle of Cirrha actually refused wine because it was not perfumed with roses. This makes us wonder if those Spartan mothers, of whom we hear so much, were really as severe as they are reputed to have been. Red roses were dedicated to Jupiter; damask roses to Venus; and white roses to Diana or the moon. The rose was given to the Virgin Mary as her particular flower; and many Italian painters as well as Flemish, Spanish, and German, have painted the Madonna of the Rose, the Madonna of the Rose-hedge, the Madonna of the Rose-bush, and the Madonna of the Rose-garden. The rosary, introduced by St. Dominick in commemoration of his having been shown a Chaplet of roses by the Virgin, originally consisted of rose-leaves pressed into balls.

II

"_Lilies of All Kinds_"

THE LILY (_Lilium candidum_). The fact that _Perdita_ calls for "lilies of all kinds" shows that Shakespeare loved one of the most beautiful families of flowers that grace the earth, and knew the many varieties that grew in the English gardens of his day, which include the Lily-of-the-Valley (in his time called Lily Conally); the splendid yellow lilies; the red martagon and spotted martagon (tiger-lilies); as well as the pure white lily. Parkinson, who writes so beautifully of plants and blossoms, did not neglect the lily. He says: "The lily is the most stately flower among many," and he directs attention "to the wonderful variety of lilies known to us in these days, much more so than in former times."

First on the list comes the white lily, which has always been regarded from time immemorial as the most beautiful member of this most beautiful family, a picture of purity with its white silken petals exquisitely set off by the yellow anthers and breathing such delicious fragrance. This is the lily of which Shelley sings:

And the wand-like lily, which lifteth up
As a Mænad, its moonlight colored cup,
Till the fiery star which is its eye
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky.

"The ordinary White Lily, _Lilium candidum_," writes Parkinson, "scarce needeth any description, it is so well known and so frequent in every garden. The stalk is of a blackish green color, having many fair broad and long green leaves. The flower stands upon long green footstalks, of a fair white color, with a long pointell in the middle and white chives tipt with yellow pendants about it. The smell is something heady and strong. It is called _Lilium album_, the White Lily, by most writers; but by poets, _Rosa Junonis_, Juno's Rose."

How perfect is this flower! Texture, form, hue, sheen, perfume--all express exquisite loveliness. The lily refreshes us with its cool beauty and its purity and lifts our thoughts upward to heaven.

Gerard describes eight lilies in his "Herbal" (1597), all of which were known to Shakespeare. Certainly among _Perdita's_ flowers was the martagon, which takes its name from the Italian _martagone_, meaning a Turk's turban. This lily is also called "Chalcedonian" and "Scarlet martagon" and "Turk's Cap," by Parkinson, who tells us that the "_Lilium rubrum Byzantinum Martagon Constantinopolitanum_, or the red martagon of Constantinople, is become so common everywhere and so well known to all lovers of these delights that I shall seem unto them to lose time to bestow many lines upon it; yet because it is so fair a flower and was at the first so highly esteemed, it deserveth its place and commendations. It riseth out of the ground bearing a round, brownish stalk, beset with many fair green leaves confusedly thereon, but not so broad as the common White Lily, upon the top whereof stand one, two, or three, or more, flowers upon long footstalks, which hang down their heads and turn up their leaves again, of an excellent red crimson color and sometimes paler, having a long pointell in the middle compassed with whitish chives, tipt with loose yellow pendants, of a reasonable good scent, but somewhat faint. We have another of this kind, the Red Spotted Martagon of Constantinople, that groweth somewhat greater and higher with a larger flower, and of a deeper color, spotted with divers black spots, or streaks, and lines, as is to be seen in Mountain Lilies."

The martagon belongs to the tiger-lily class, whose characteristics have been so imaginatively brought out by Thomas Bailey Aldrich:

I like the chaliced lilies,
The heavy Eastern lilies,
The gorgeous tiger-lilies,
That in our garden grow.

For they are tall and slender;
Their mouths are dashed with carmine,
And when the wind sweeps by them,
On their emerald stalks
They bend so proud and graceful,--
They are Circassian women,
The favorites of the Sultan,
Adown our garden walks.

And when the rain is falling,
I sit beside the window
And watch them glow and glisten,--
How they burn and glow!
O for the burning lilies,
The tender Eastern lilies
The gorgeous tiger-lilies,
That in our garden grow.

Shakespeare has many beautiful passages concerning the lily. He often refers to its whiteness. He considers it as impossible a task "to paint the lily" as it is "to gild refined gold," or "to throw a perfume on the violet."

How the lily was loved by the ancients! The Egyptians adored it; the Persians named cities for it; the Hebrews worshiped it. The Greeks and Romans called the lily Juno's flower, and fancied that the flower owed its very existence to drops of milk spilled on earth from Juno's white breast when she was nursing the infant Hercules.

The church consecrated the lily to the Virgin Mary. It was her flower as Queen of Heaven. In many old religious paintings of the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel, appearing before the Virgin, usually holds the "Annunciation Lily," or "Madonna Lily" in his hand. Joseph's staff was said to have blossomed into lilies, and it is the white lily that is usually represented in this connection.

Wonderful family this lily tribe, flowers of the grand style and haughty demeanor! Ruskin enlightens us as to why it is every one loves them and why they are entwined with many of our thoughts of art and life:

"Under the name of _Drosidæ_ come plants delighting in interrupted moisture--moisture which comes either partially, or at certain seasons--into dry ground. They are not water-plants, but the signs of water resting among dry places. In the _Drosidæ_ the floral spirit passes into the calix also, and the entire flower becomes a six-rayed star, bursting out of the stem laterally, as if it were the first of flowers and had made its way to the light by force through the unwilling green. They are often required to retain moisture, or nourishment, for the future blossom through long times of drought; and this they do in bulbs underground, of which some become a rude and simple, but most wholesome food for man.

"Then the _Drosidæ_ are divided into five great orders--lilies, asphodels, amaryllis, irids and rushes. No tribes of flowers have had so great, so varied, or so healthy an influence on man as this great group of _Drosidæ_, depending not so much on the whiteness of some of their blossoms, or the radiance of others, as on the strength and delicacy of the substance of their petals; enabling them to take forms of faultless, elastic curvature, either in cups, as the Crocus, or expanding bells, as the true Lily, or heath-like bells, as the Hyacinth, or bright and perfect stars, like the Star of Bethlehem, or, when they are affected by the strange reflex of the serpent nature which forms the labiate group of all flowers, closing into forms of exquisitely fantastic symmetry as the Gladiolus. Put by their side their Nereid sisters, the Water-lilies, and you have in them the origin of the loveliest forms of ornamental design and the most powerful floral myths yet recognized among human spirits, born by the streams of the Ganges, Nile, Arno and Avon.

"For consider a little what each of those five tribes has been to the spirit of man. First, in their nobleness; the Lilies gave the Lily of the Annunciation; the Asphodels, the flower of the Elysian Fields; the Irids, the fleur-de-lys of chivalry; and the Amaryllis, Christ's lily of the fields; while the Rush, trodden always under foot, became the emblem of humility. Then take each of the tribes and consider the extent of their lower influence. _Perdita's_ 'the Crown Imperial, lilies of all kinds,' are the first tribe, which, giving the type of perfect purity in the Madonna's Lily, have, by their lovely form, influenced the entire decorative design of Italian sacred art; while ornament of war was continually enriched by the curves of the triple petals of the Florentine '_giglio_' and the French fleur-de-lys; so that it is impossible to count their influence for good in the Middle Ages, partly as a symbol of womanly character and partly of the utmost brightness and refinement in the city which was the 'flower of cities.'"

Astrologers placed the lily under the moon; and the flower is certainly dreamy enough and celestial enough to be under the rule of Diana, or Astarte.

III

_Crown-Imperial and Flower-de-luce_

THE CROWN-IMPERIAL (_Fritillaria imperalis_) is mentioned by _Perdita_. A native of Persia, Afghanistan, and Kashmir, it was taken to Constantinople, and thence to Vienna in 1576. Finally it came to England with other luxuries of the Renaissance. Gerard had it in his garden, and describes it as follows:

"Out of a tuft of narrow leaves the stem rises and terminates in a second tuft immediately below which is a ring of large tulip-like flowers, pendulous and golden yellow. Looking into the bells at the base of every petal is a white and concave nectary from which hangs a drop of honey that shines like a pearl. In the bottom of each of the bells there is placed six drops of most clear shining water, in taste like sugar resembling in shew fair Orient pearls, the which drops if you take away there do immediately appear the like. Notwithstanding if they may be suffered to stand still in the flower according to his own nature, they will never fall away, no, not if you strike the plant until it be broken."

The Crown-Imperial was, perhaps, of all choice "outlandish flowers" the choicest. Parkinson gives it the first place in the Garden of Delight, opening his great book, "Paradisus Terrestris," with an account of it:

"The Crown Imperial," he writes, "for his stately beautifulness deserveth the first place in this our Garden of Delight. The stalk riseth up three, or four, foot high, being great, round and of a purplish color at the bottom, but green above, beset from thence to the middle thereof with many long and broad green leaves of our ordinary white lily, but somewhat shorter and narrower, confusedly without order, and from the middle is bare, or naked, without leaves for a certain space upwards, and then beareth four, six, or ten flowers, more or less, according to the age of the plant and the fertility of the soil where it groweth. The buds at the first appearing are whitish, standing upright among a bush, or tuft, of green leaves, smaller than those below and standing above the flowers. After a while they turn themselves and hang downward every one upon his own footstalk, round about the great stem, or stalk, sometimes of an even depth and other while one lower, or higher, than another, which flowers are near the form of an ordinary Lily, yet somewhat lesser and closer, consisting of six leaves of an orange-color striped with purplish lines and veins, which add a great grace to the flowers. At the bottom of the flower, next unto the stalk, every leaf thereof hath on the outside a certain bunch, or eminence, of a dark purplish color, and on the inside there lieth in those hollow bunched places certain clear drops of water like unto pearls, of a very sweet taste, almost like sugar. In the midst of each flower is a long white stile, or pointell, forked, or divided, at the end and six white chives, tipt with yellowish pendants, standing close above it. After the flowers are past, appear six square seed vessels, standing upright, winged as it were, or weltered on the edges, yet seeming but three-square, because each couple of those welted edges are joined closer together, wherein are contained broad, flat and thin seeds of a pale brownish color, like unto other lilies, but much greater and thicker also.

"This plant was first brought from Constantinople into these Christian countries, and, by relation of some that sent it, groweth naturally in Persia. It flowereth most commonly in the end of March, if the weather be mild, and springeth not out of the ground until the end of February, or beginning of March, so quick it is in the springing. The head with seeds are ripe in the end of May. It is of some called _Lilium Perticum_, or Persian Lily; but because we have another, which is more usually called by that name, I had rather, with Alphonsus Pancius, the Duke of Florence, his physician (who first sent the figure thereof unto Mr. John de Brancion) call it _Corona Imperialis_, the Crown Imperial."

There is a legend that the Crown-Imperial grew in the garden of Gethsemane, where it was often admired by Jesus Christ. At that time, according to the story, the flowers were _white_ and erect on the stalk. During the night of the agony when Our Lord passed through the garden, this flower was the only one that did not bow its head. Later the proud flower bent its head and tears of sorrow filled its cup. Ever since that time the plant has continued to bow in sorrow and its tears flow forever.

Dr. Forbes Watson loves the flower with its "bold, decided outlines." His description is all too short. "The tall stem," he says, "rises like a mast through the lower leaves, is thence for a short space bare till it is topped by the crowning sheaf of leaf-swords, out of which droop so gracefully the large yellow wax-like bells. Here every line seems to pierce like an arrow, the composition is so clear and masterly."

The Crown-Imperial appears in the celebrated book called "Guirlande de Julie," which the Duc de Montausier gave on New Year's Day, 1634, to his bride, Julie de Rambouillet. This was a magnificent album: every leaf bore a beautifully painted flower and a verse descriptive of it or in praise of it contributed by different artists and poets. Chapelain chose the Crown-Imperial for his theme, pretending that it sprang from the blood of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who, not being able to offer his hand to Julie, came to her in the guise of this flower.

FLOWER-DE-LUCE (_Iris pseudacorus_). _Perdita's_ mention of "lilies of all kinds, the flower-de-luce being one," shows that Shakespeare classed this flower among the lilies. So did the botanists of his time. Symbol of eloquence and power, the Egyptians placed the purple iris upon the brow of the Sphinx. The scepter of their monarchs was adorned with this flower, its three petals representing faith, wisdom, and valor. The kings of Babylon and Assyria also bore it on their scepters. The Greeks laid the iris on the tombs of women because they believed that Iris guided dead women to the Elysian Fields. Although the iris was also dedicated to Juno, it is more particularly the flower of Iris, lovely Iris, one of the beautiful Oceanides, daughters of Ocean, and messenger of the gods, who whenever she wished to descend upon the earth threw her rainbow scarf across the sky and with all its prismatic colors glistening in her perfumed wings descended from heaven to earth upon the graceful bow that joins the seen and the unseen worlds. The purple, yellow, orange, and blue tints of the rainbow live again in the petals and drooping lips called "falls." What a flower of charm, mystery, and majesty! Sphinx of the flower world! The iris was extremely popular in Shakespeare's day. Parkinson gives a great many "Flower-de-luces, or Iris" in his monumental work. We find "the Purple, the Blue, the Purple-striped, the Peach-colored, the White, the White-striped, the Parti-colored, the Milk-White, the Silver color, the White with Yellow Falls, the Straw color, the Spanish Yellow, the Purple and Yellow, the Purple or Murrey, the Great Turkie, the Common Purple, the Great Dalmatian, the Yellow of Tripoli, the Double Blew, the Double Purple, the Purple Dwarf," and many others which prove how popular this flower was in Tudor and Stuart gardens, and what splendid specimens were known to the people of Shakespearian times. Parkinson also adds: "The dried root called Orris is of much use to make sweet powders, or other things, to perfume apparel or linen."

The fleur-de-lis early became the symbol of France. At the proclamation of a new king the Franks always placed a living flower, or flag, as it was called, in his hand as the symbol of power. Because his wife, St. Clotilde, had a vision of the iris, Clovis erased the three frogs on his shield and substituted the iris. In consequence also of a dream, Louis VII took the iris for his device in 1137, from which it became known as the fleur de Louis, later contracted into fleur-de-lys and fleur-de-lis. When Edward III claimed the crown of France in 1340, he quartered the Old French shield bearing the fleur-de-lis with his English lion. The iris, or flower-de-luce (as the English wrote it), did not disappear from the English coat of arms until 1801.

Shakespeare speaks of the fleur-de-lis in the _Messenger's_ speech in "King Henry VI":[53]

Awake, awake, English nobility!
Let not sloth dim your honors new begot:
Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms;
Of England's coat one half is cut away.

And again in the same play:[54]

LA PUCELLE. I am prepared: here is my keen-edged sword,
Deck'd with fine flower-de-luces on each side.

In "The Merry Wives of Windsor"[55] there is a humorous play upon words regarding the heraldic use of "the flower-de-luce."

[53] Part I, Act I, Scene I.

[54] Part I, Act I, Scene II.

[55] Act I, Scene I.

IV

_Fern and Honeysuckle_

THE FERN (_Pteris aquilina_), with its graceful and beautifully indented leaves and its peculiar acrid scent, delicious to many persons, would be admitted into the Shakespeare garden because of its fantastic qualities, even if its beauty did not sue for recognition. The fern is a fairy plant. According to folk-lore it always blossomed at twelve o'clock on St. John's eve (June 21), Midsummer night. The flower is described as a wonderful globe of sapphire blue (according to other stories a ruby/red); and in a few moments after its blossoming the seed appeared. _Oberon_, the fairy king, was supposed to watch for the precious seed so that he might prevent mortals from obtaining it; but any one fortunate enough to gather fern-seed would be under the protection of spirits, and would be enabled to realize all his fondest desires. Furthermore, any one who wore the fern-seed about him would be invisible. Shakespeare was familiar with this superstition, for he makes _Gadshill_ exclaim in "King Henry IV":[56] "We steal as in a castle, cock-sure: we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible."

[56] Part I, Act II, Scene I.

An old account tells us:

The fern flowers on Midsummer night at twelve o'clock, and drives away all unclean spirits. First of all it puts forth buds, which afterwards expand, then open, and finally change into flowers of a dark red hue. At midnight the flower opens to its fullest extent and illuminates everything around. But at that precise moment a demon plucks it from its stalk. Whoever wishes to procure this flower must be in the forest before midnight, locate himself near the fern and trace a circle around it. When the Devil approaches and calls, feigning the voice of a parent, sweetheart, etc., no attention must be paid, nor must the head be turned; for if it is, it will remain so. Whoever becomes the happy possessor of the flower has nothing to fear; by its means he can recover lost treasure, become invisible, rule on earth and under water and defy the Devil.

Because the fern was so powerful against evil and because it was sacred to St. John the Baptist, witches detested it.

Pliny stated that the fern had neither flower nor seed; and some of the old English writers believed this. William Turner, however, went to work to investigate matters. In his famous "Herbal," published in 1562,[57] he says:

[57] See p. 34.

"Not only the common people say that the fern hath seed, but that was also the opinion of a Christian physician named Hieronymus Tragus, who doth not only say that the fern hath seed, but writeth that he found upon Midsummer Even seed upon brakes.[58] Although all they that have written of herbs have affirmed and holden that the brake doth neither seed nor fruit, yet have I divers times proved the contrary, which thing I will testify here in this place for their sakes that be students of herbs. I have, four years together, one after another, upon the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, which we call in English Midsummer Even, sought for this seed of brakes upon the night; and, indeed, I found it early in the morning before day-break. The seed was small, black, and like unto poppy. I went about this business all figures, conjurings, saunters, charms, witchcraft, sorceries, taking with me two or three honest men. When I sought this seed all the village about did shine with bonfires that the people made there; and sometime when I sought the seed I found it, and sometimes I found it not. Sometime I found much and sometime I found little; but what should be the cause of this diversitie, or what Nature meaneth in this thing, surely I cannot tell."

[58] Brake, or bracken, fern.

HONEYSUCKLE (_Lonicera perfolium_). Delicious name--honeysuckle! And truly this is one of "the sweetest flowers for scent that blows." It takes its name because of the honey dew found on it, so old writers say. Romantic is its other name, "woodbine," suggesting sylvan spots and mossy beds, where cool-rooted flowers grow, such as the "nodding violet." Shakespeare knew what he was about when he enwreathed and entwined _Titania's_ canopy with "luscious woodbine" in loving union with the equally delicious eglantine. The honeysuckle is a flower that belongs particularly to moonlight and to fairy-time.

In "Much Ado About Nothing" _Hero_ gives the command:[59]

Good Margaret, run into the parlor and whisper to Beatrice
And bid her steal into the pleachèd bower,
Where honeysuckles ripened by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter.

[59] Act III, Scene I.

A bower covered with the intense, yet subtle, perfume of the honeysuckle, doubly sweet in the hot sun that had ripened the blossoms and drawn out their inmost sweetness, was just the place to send "saucy Beatrice" for the purpose of lighting the flame of love for _Benedick_, and just the place to send, a little later, the cynical _Benedick_ for the purpose of awakening his interest in the "Lady Disdain." Shakespeare evidently knew that the honeysuckle is the flower of ardent lovers, and so he framed his pleachèd bower with these sweet-scented blossoms. The French have a tender name for the flower, _cher feu_ (dear flame), because it is given by lovers to one another. The other French name, _chèvre feuille_, is derived from the Latin _caprifolium_ (goat-leaf), which may have been given to it because the plant leaps over high rocks and precipices, where only goats and others of the cloven-footed tribe dare venture. The honeysuckle in Shakespeare's day was a favorite remedy for wounds in the head. Witches also valued it for their sorcery. According to sorcerers and astrologers this plant was under the rule of Mercury.

It is hard to decide when the honeysuckle is at its best. Whether at hot noontide when the clusters of pale buff and white horns of plenty tipped with their long, feathery threads pour their incense into the golden sunlight, or when the less pungent, but equally intoxicating, perfume floats upon the silvery blue air of a moonlit night.

"How sweetly smells the Honeysuckle, in the hush'd night as if the world were one of utter peace and love and gentleness."

Landor has thus expressed what the delicious honeysuckle makes us feel.

"The monthly honeysuckle," writes Celia Thaxter, "is most divine. Such vigor of growth I have never seen in any other plant. It climbs the trellis on my piazza and spreads its superb clusters of flowers from time to time all summer. Each cluster is a triumph of beauty, flat in the center and curving out to the blossoming edge in joyous lines of loveliness, most like a wreath of heavenly trumpets breathing melodies of perfume to the air. Each trumpet of lustrous white deepens to a yellower tint in the center where the small ends meet; each blossom where it opens at the lips is tipped with fresh pink; each sends out a group of long stamens from its slender throat like rays of light; and the whole circle of radiant flowers has an effect of gladness and glory indescribable: the very sight of it lifts and refreshes the human heart. And for its odor, it is like the spirit of romance, sweet as youth's tender dreams. It is summer's very soul."

Enchanting season of fern and honeysuckle, perfumed stars that shine through green leaves and bells that send forth peals of incense instead of sound!

She show'd me her ferns and woodbine sprays
Fox-glove and jasmine stars,
A mist of blue in the beds, a blaze
Of red in the celadon jars,
And velvety bees in convolvulus beds
And roses of bountiful June--
Oh, who would think that the summer spells
Could die so soon?[60]

[60] Locker-Lampson.

V

_Carnations and Gilliflowers_

CARNATIONS (_Dianthus caryophyllus_). _Perdita_ calls carnations and streak'd gilliflowers "the fairest flowers o' the season." Carnation was originally spelled coronation, because the flower was used to make crowns, garlands, and wreaths. In the days of Pliny it was called _dianthus_, or flower of Jove, and was also worn in wreaths and crowns. From Chaucer we know that it was cultivated as the "Clove Gilliflower" in English gardens; and because it was used to add a spicy flavor to wine and ale, it acquired the popular name of "sops in wine." Hence Spenser in his "Shepherd's Calendar" sings:

Bring hither the pink and purple Columbine
With Gillyflowers;
Bring Coronations and Sops-in-wine
Worn of paramours.

And again:

Youth's folk now flocken everywhere
To gather May baskets and smelling Brere,[61]
And home they hasten the posts to dight
And all the kirk pillars in daylight
With Hawthorn budes and sweet Eglantine
And garlands of Roses and Sops-in-wine.

[61] Brier.

"Its second specific name," writes Ellacombe, "_Caryophyllus_, i.e., nut-leaved, seems at first very inappropriate for a grassy-leaved plant; but the name was first given to the Indian Clove tree and from it transferred to the Carnation on account of its fine clove scent. Its popularity as an English plant is shown by its many names--Pink, Carnation, Gilliflower (an easily-traced and well-ascertained corruption, from _Caryophyllus_), Clove Picotee[62] and Sops-in-wine from the flowers being used to flavor wine and beer.

[62] From the French _picot_, a pinked edge. We still use the word "pinked" for a cut edge, and "pinking-iron" is the word for that with which the edge is cut.