brick--an old-fashioned kitchen-garden, with mingled fruit and
vegetables and flowers. There are pear and plum-trees against the wall
and strawberry beds next the feathery asparagus and gooseberry bushes
hidden by hedges of sweet peas. Another turn will bring you into a
labyrinth of yew hedges and so back to the bowling-green, across which
the long shadows lie, and the sun-dial which marks the approach of
evening. The light is golden on the house and on the tangled borders;
the air is fragrant with many scents."
PART TWO
THE FLOWERS OF SHAKESPEARE
Spring
"THE SWEET O' THE YEAR"
I
_Primroses, Cowslips, and Oxlips_
PRIMROSE (_Primula vulgaris_). English poets have always regarded the
primrose as the first flower of spring--the true _Flor di prima vera_.
This name calls to mind Botticelli's enchanting _Primevera_ that hangs
in the Uffizi, in which the sward is dotted with spring flowers that
seem to have burst into blossom beneath the footsteps of Venus and her
three Graces--those lovely ladies of the Italian Renaissance, clad in
light, fluttering draperies. This decorative picture expresses not
only the joy and beauty of newly-awakened spring, but something much
deeper, something that the painter did not realize himself; and this
was what the Italian Renaissance was destined to mean to all the world:
a New Birth of beauty in the arts and a new era of human sympathy for
mankind.
Sandro Botticelli, whom we may appropriately call _Flor di prima vera_
among painters, was as unaware of his mission in art as the primroses
that come into being at the call of a new day of spring sunshine from
a long dark winter's sleep in a soil of frozen stiffness. Something of
the tender and wistful beauty of early spring--her faint dreams and
soft twilights, her languid afternoons and her veiled nights, when pale
stars tremble through gray mists and when warm rains softly kiss the
drowsy earth--Botticelli has put into his enchanting spring idyl; and
this same wistful, half-drowsy, and evanescent beauty is characteristic
of the primrose.
Primrose, first born child of Ver,
Merry Springtime's harbinger,
With her bells dim
is a perfect and sympathetic description of the flower in "The Two
Noble Kinsmen."[20]
[20] Act I, Scene I.
Observe that the bells of the primrose are "dim"--pale in hue--because
the earth is not sufficiently awake for bright colors or for joyful
chimes--so the color is faint and the sound is delicate. Trees are
now timidly putting forth tender leaves, buds peer cautiously from
the soil, and few birds sing; for leaves, buds, and birds know full
well that winter is lurking in the distance and that rough winds
occasionally issue from the bag of Boreas. The time has not yet come
for "lisp of leaves and ripple of rain" and for choirs of feathered
songsters. Yet all the more, because of its bold daring and its modest
demeanor, the primrose deserves the enthusiastic welcome it has always
received from poets and flower lovers.
"The primrose," writes Dr. Forbes Watson, "seems the very flower of
delicacy and refinement; not that it shrinks from our notice, for few
plants are more easily seen, coming as it does when there is a dearth
of flowers, when the first birds are singing and the first bees humming
and the earliest green putting forth in the March and April woods. And
it is one of those plants which dislikes to be looking cheerless, but
keeps up a smouldering fire of blossom from the very opening of the
year, if the weather will permit.
"The flower is of a most unusual color, a pale, delicate yellow,
slightly tinged with green. And the better flowers impress us by a
peculiar paleness, not dependent upon any feebleness of hue, which we
always find unpleasing, but rather upon the _exquisite_ _softness
of their tone_. And we must not overlook the little round stigma,
that green and translucent gem, which forms the pupil of the eye, and
is surrounded by a deeper circle of orange which helps it to shine
forth more clearly. Many flowers have a somewhat pensive look; but
in the pensiveness of the primrose there is a shade of melancholy--a
melancholy which awakens no thought of sadness and does but give
interest to the pale, sweet, inquiring faces which the plant upturns
towards us.
"In the primrose, as a whole, we cannot help being struck by an
exceeding softness and delicacy; there is nothing sharp, strong, or
incisive; the smell is 'the faintest and most ethereal perfume,' as
Mrs. Stowe has called it in her 'Sunny Memories,' though she was
mistaken in saying that it disappears when we pluck the flower. It
is meant to impress us as altogether soft and yielding. One of the
most beautiful points in the primrose is the manner in which _the
paleness of the flowers is taken up by the herbage_. This paleness
seems to hang about the plant like a mystery, for though the leaves
of the primrose may at times show a trace of the steady paleness of
the cowslip, it is more usually confined to their undersurfaces and
the white flower-stalks with their clothing of down. And when we are
looking at the primrose one or other of these downy, changeful
portions is continually coming into view, so that we get a feeling as
if there hung about the whole plant a clothing of soft, evanescent
mist, thickening about the center of the plant and the undersurfaces of
the leaves which are less exposed to the sun. And then we reach one of
the main expressions of the primrose. When we look at the pale, sweet
flowers, and the soft-toned green of the herbage, softened further here
and there by that uncertain mist of down, the dryness of the leaf and
fur enters forcibly into our impression of the plant, giving a sense
of extreme delicacy and need of shelter, as if it were some gentle
creature which shrinks from exposure to the weather."
[Illustration: CARNATIONS AND GILLIFLOWERS; PRIMROSES AND COWSLIPS; AND
DAFFODILS: FROM PARKINSON]
The Greeks associated the idea of melancholy with this flower. They had
a story of a handsome youth, son of Flora and Priapus, whose betrothed
bride died. His grief was so excessive that he died, too, and the gods
than changed his body into a primrose.
In Shakespeare's time, the primrose was also associated with early
death; and it is one of the flowers thrown upon the corse of _Fidele_,
whose lovely, wistful face is compared to the "pale primrose." Thus
_Arviragus_ exclaims as he gazes on the beautiful youth, _Fidele_, the
assumed name of _Imogen_ in disguise:
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose.[21]
_Perdita_, in "The Winter's Tale,"[22] mentions
Pale primroses that die unmarried
Ere they can behold bright Phœbus in his strength.
Shakespeare appreciated the delicate hue and perfume of this flower.
He seems to be alluding to both qualities when he makes _Hermia_ touch
_Helena's_ memory by the following words:
And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie.[23]
Other English poets speak of the flower as "the pale," or "the dim."
Milton writes:
Now the bright star, day's harbinger
Comes dancing from the East and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who, from her green lap, throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
And again, Thomas Carew:
Ask me why I send you here
The firstling of the infant year?
Ask me why I send to you
This Primrose, all bepearled with dew?
I straight whisper in your ears:
The sweets of Love are wash'd with tears
Ask me why this flower doth show
So yellow, green and sickly, too?
Ask me why the stalk is weak
And, bending, yet it doth not break?
I will answer: these discover
What doubts and fears are in a lover.
[21] "Cymbeline"; Act IV, Scene II.
[22] Act IV, Scene III.
[23] "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; Act I, Scene I.
The English primrose is one of a large family of more than fifty
species, represented by the primrose, the cowslip, and the oxlip. All
members of this family are noted for their simple beauty and their
peculiar charm.
Parkinson writes:
"We have so great variety of Primroses and Cowslips in our country
breeding that strangers, being much delighted with them, have often
furnished into divers countries to their good content.
"All Primroses bear their long and large, broad yellowish-green leaves
without stalks most usually, and all the Cowslips have small stalks
under the leaves, which are smaller and of a darker green. The name
of _Primula veris_, or Primrose, is indifferently conferred on those
that I distinguish for _Paralyses_, or Cowslips. All these plants are
called most usually in Latin _Primulæ veris_, _Primulæ pretenses_ and
_Primulæ silvarum_, because they shew by their flowering the new Spring
to be coming on, they being, as it were, the first Embassadors thereof.
They have also divers other names, as _Herba Paralysis_, _Arthritica_,
_Herba Sancti Petri_, _Claues Sancti Petri_, _Verbasculum odoratum_,
_Lunaria arthritica_, _Phlomis_, _Alisma silvarum_ and _Alismatis
alterum genus_. Some have distinguished them by calling the Cowslips
_Primula Veris Elatior_, that is the Taller Primrose, and the other
_Humilis_, Low, or Dwarf, Primrose.
"Primroses and Cowslips are in a manner wholly used in Cephalicall
diseases to ease pains in the head. They are profitable both for the
Palsy and pains of the joints, even as the Bears' Ears[24] are, which
hath caused the names of _Arthritica Paralysis_ and _Paralytica_ to be
given them."
[24] Auriculas.
Tusser in his "Husbandry" includes the primrose among the seeds and
herbs of the kitchen; and Lyte says that "the cowslips, primroses and
oxlips are now used daily amongst other pot-herbs, but in physic there
is no great account made of them." "The old name was Primerolles,"
Dr. Prior notes in his quaint book on flowers. "Primerole as an
outlandish, unintelligible word was soon familiarized into Primerolles
and this into Primrose." The name was also written primrolles and
finally settled down into primrose. Chaucer wrote primerole, a name
derived from the French _Primeverole_, meaning, like the Italian _Flor
di prima vera_, the first spring flower.
COWSLIP (_Paralysis vulgaris pratensis_). The cowslip is an
ingratiating little flower, not so aloof as its cousin the primrose,
and not at all melancholy. In the popular lore of Shakespeare's time
the cowslip was associated with fairies. In many places it was known
as "fairy cups." For this reason Shakespeare makes _Ariel_ lie in a
cowslip's bell when the fay is frightened by the hooting of owls, or
tired of swinging merrily in "the blossom that hangs on the bough."
One of the duties of _Titania's_ little maid of honor was "to hang a
pearl in every cowslip's ear"; and this gay little fairy informs _Puck_
of the important place cowslips hold in the court of the tiny _Queen
Titania_:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be,
In their gold coats spots you see:
These be rubies, fairy favors,
In these freckles live their savors.[25]
[25] "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; Act II, Scene I.
To appreciate the meaning of this comparison, it must be remembered
that the "pensioners" of Queen Elizabeth's court were a guard of the
tallest and handsomest men to be found in the whole kingdom, men,
moreover, who were in the pride of youth, and scions of the most
distinguished families. Their dress was of extraordinary elegance
and enriched heavily with gold embroidery. Hence, "gold coats" for
the cowslips. Here and there jewels sparkled and glistened on the
pensioners' coats. Hence rubies--fairy favors--favors from the Queen!
The pensioners also wore pearls in their ears, like Raleigh and
Leicester and other noblemen. Hence the fairy had to "hang a pearl in
every cowslip's ear." An idea, too, of the size of _Titania_ and her
elves is given when the cowslips are considered "tall," and tall enough
to be the body-guard of _Queen Titania_. This was a pretty little
allusion to Queen Elizabeth and her court, which the audience that
gathered to see the first representation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
did not fail to catch.
We get a sidelight on the importance of the pensioners in "The Merry
Wives of Windsor"[26] when _Dame Quickly_ tells _Falstaff_ a great
cock-and-bull story about the visitors who have called on _Mistress_
_Ford_. "There have been knights and lords and gentlemen with their
coaches, letter after letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly (all
musk) and so rushling, I warrant you in silk and gold; and yet there
has been earls, and, what is more, _pensioners_!" Shakespeare also
speaks of "the freckled cowslip" in "Henry V,"[27] when the _Duke of
Burgundy_ refers to
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip.
All poets love the flower.
In the language wherewith spring
Letters cowslips on the hill,
writes Tennyson--a charming fancy!
Sydney Dobell has a quaint flower song containing this verse:
Then came the cowslip
Like a dancer in the fair,
She spread her little mat of green
And on it dancèd she,
With a fillet bound about her brow,
A fillet round her happy brow,
A golden fillet round her brow,
And rubies in her hair.
[26] Act II, Scene II.
[27] Act V, Scene II.
Never mind if country dancers rarely wear rubies; the idea is pretty
and on Shakespeare's authority we know that rubies do gleam in the cup
of the cowslip, as he has told us through the lips of the fairy.
With great appreciation of the beauty of the flower he has _Jachimo's_
description:
Cinque-spotted like the crimson drops
In the bottom of a cowslip.[28]
[28] "Cymbeline"; Act II, Scene II.
Most sympathetically did Dr. Forbes Watson, when lying on a bed of
fatal illness, put into words what many persons have felt regarding
this flower:
"Few of our wild flowers give intenser pleasure than the cowslip, yet
perhaps there is scarcely any whose peculiar beauty depends so much
upon locality and surroundings. There is a homely simplicity about the
cowslip, much like that of the daisy, though more pensive,--the quiet,
sober look of an unpretending country girl, not strikingly beautiful
in feature or attire, but clean and fresh as if new bathed in milk and
carrying us away to thoughts of daisies, flocks and pasturage and the
manners of a simple, primitive time, some golden age of shepherd-life
long since gone by. And more; in looking at the cowslip we are always
most forcibly struck by its apparent wholesomeness and health. This
wholesomeness is quite unmistakable. It belongs even to the smell so
widely different from the often oppressive perfume of other plants,
as lilies, narcissuses, or violets. Now just such a healthy milk-fed
look, just such a sweet, healthy odor is what we find in cows--an odor
which breathes around them as they sit at rest in the pasture. The
'lips,' of course, is but a general resemblance to the shape of the
petals and suggests the source of the fragrance. The cowslip, as we
have said, is a singularly healthy-looking plant, indeed, nothing about
it is more remarkable. It has none of the delicacy and timidity of the
primrose. All its characters are well and healthily pronounced. The
paleness is uniform, steady, and rather impresses us as whiteness; and
the yellow of the cup is as rich as gold. The odor is not faint, but
saccharine and luscious. It does not shrink into the sheltered covert,
but courts the free air and sunshine of the open fields; and instead
of its flowers peeping timidly from behind surrounding leaves, it
raises them boldly on a stout, sufficient stalk, the most conspicuous
object in the meadow. Its poetry is the poetry of common life, but of
the most delicious common life that can exist. The plant is in some
respects careless to the verge of disorder; and you should note that
carelessness well, till you feel the force of it, as especially in the
lame imperfection of the flower buds, only, perhaps half of them well
developed and the rest dangling all of unequal lengths. Essentially
the cowslip and the primrose are only the same plant in two different
forms, the one being convertible into the other. The primrose is the
cowslip of the woods and sheltered lanes; the cowslip is the primrose
of the fields."
The name cowslip is not derived from the lips of the cow, but,
according to Skeat, the great Anglo-Saxon authority, it comes from an
Anglo-Saxon word meaning dung and was given to the plant because it
springs up in meadows where cows are pastured.
"The common field Cowslip," says Parkinson, "I might well forbear to
set down, being so plentiful in the fields; but because many take
delight in it and plant it in their gardens, I will give you the
description of it here. It hath divers green leaves, very like unto the
wild Primrose, but shorter, rounder, stiffer, rougher, more crumpled
about the edges and of a sadder green color, every one standing upon
his stalk which is an inch or two long. Among the leaves rise up divers
long stalks, a foot or more high, bearing at the top many fair, yellow,
single flowers with spots of a deep yellow at the bottom of each leaf,
smelling very sweet.
"In England they have divers names according to several countries, as
Primroses, Cowslips, Oxlips, Palsieworts and Petty Mullins. The Frantic
Fantastic, or Foolish, Cowslip in some places is called by country
people Jack-an-Apes-on-Horseback, which is a usual name given by them
to many other plants, as Daisies, Marigolds, etc., if they be strange
or fantastical, differing in form from the ordinary kind of the single
ones. The smallest are usually called through all the North Country
Birds' Eyen, because of the small yellow circle in the bottoms of the
flowers resembling the eye of a bird."
OXLIP (_Primula eliator_). The oxlip combines the qualities of primrose
and cowslip. "These two plants," writes a botanist, "appear as
divergent expressions of a simple type, the cowslip being a contracted
form of primrose, the sulphur yellow and the fine tawny, watery rays
of the latter brightened into well defined orange spots. In the oxlip
these characters anastomose."
Thus, partaking of the character of primrose and cowslip, the oxlip
is considered by some authorities a hybrid. "The oxlip and the
polyanthus," says Dr. Forbes Watson, "with its tortoiseshell blossoms,
are two of the immediate forms; the polyanthus being a great triumph
of the gardener's art, a delightful flower, quite a new creation and
originally produced by cultivation of the primrose." In England the
oxlip is found in woods, fields, meadows, and under hedges. Though a
spring flower it lingers into summer and is found in company with the
nodding violet, wild thyme, and luscious eglantine on the bank where
_Titania_ loved to sleep lulled to rest by song.[29] _Perdita_ speaks
of "bold oxlips" ("The Winter's Tale," Act iv, Scene iii); and compared
With the primrose and cowslip the flower deserves the adjective.
"Oxlips in their cradles growing," in the song in "The Two Noble
Kinsmen,"[30] which Shakespeare wrote with John Fletcher, shows great
knowledge of the plant, for the root-leaves of the oxlip are shaped
like a cradle.
Parkinson writes: "Those are usually called oxlips whose flowers are
naked, or bare, without husks to contain them, being not so sweet as
the cowslip, yet have they some little scent, although the Latin name
doth make them to have none."
[29] "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; Act II, Scene II.
[30] Act I, Scene I.
II
"_Daffodils that Come Before the Swallow Dares_"
DAFFODIL (_Narcissus pseudo-narcissus_).
When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
Is the opening verse that _Autolycus_ sings so gaily in "The Winter's
Tale."[31] The daffodil was "carefully nourished up" in Elizabethan
gardens, as the saying went. Before Shakespeare's time a great number
of daffodils had been introduced into England from various parts of the
Continent. Gerard describes twenty-four different species, "all and
every one of them in great abundance in our London gardens."
[31] Act IV, Scene II.
There were many varieties both rare and ordinary. Parkinson
particularly distinguishes the true daffodils, or _narcissus_, from
the "Bastard Daffodils," or _pseudo narcissus_; and he gives their
differences as follows:
"It consisteth only in the flower and chiefly in the middle cup, or
chalice; for that we do, in a manner only, account those to be _Pseudo
Narcissus_, Bastard Daffodils, whose middle cup is altogether as long,
and sometimes a little longer than, the outer leaves that do encompass
it, so that it seemeth rather like a trunk, or a long nose, than a cup
or chalice, such as almost all the _Narcissi_, or true Daffodils, have.
Of the Bastard tribe Parkinson gives the great yellow Spanish Daffodil;
the Mountain Bastard of divers kinds; the early straw-colored; the
great white Spanish; the greatest Spanish white; the two lesser White
Spanish; our common English wild Bastard Daffodil; the six-cornered;
the great double yellow, or John Tradescant's great Rose Daffodil;
Mr. Wilmer's great double Daffodil; the great double yellow Spanish,
or Parkinson's Daffodil; the great double French Bastard; the double
English Bastard, or Gerard's double Daffodil; the great white Bastard
Rush Daffodil, or Junquilia; the greater yellow Junquilia; and many
others."
Then he adds:
"The _Pseudo narcissus Angliens vulgaris_ is so common in all England,
both in copses, woods and orchards, that I might well forbear the
description thereof. It hath three, or four, grayish leaves, long and
somewhat narrow, among which riseth up the stalk about a span high, or
little higher, bearing at the top, out of a skinny husk (as all other
Daffodils have), one flower, somewhat large, having the six leaves that
stand like wings, of a pale yellow color, and the long trunk in the
middle of a faire yellow with the edges, or brims, a little crumpled,
or uneven. After the flower is past, it beareth a round head, seeming
three square, containing round black seed."
Shakespeare knew all of these varieties very well and had many of them
in mind when he wrote the beautiful lines for _Perdita_, who exclaims:
O Proserpina!
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lettst fall
From Dis's wagon. Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.[32]
[32] "The Winter's Tale"; Act IV, Scene III.
Much has been written about this description of the daffodils; and it
is generally thought that "to take the winds of March with beauty"
means to charm, or captivate, the wild winds with their loveliness.
I do not agree with this idea, and venture to suggest that as the
daffodils sway and swing in the boisterous March winds with such
infinite grace and beauty, bending this way and that, they "take the
winds with beauty," just as a graceful dancer is said to take the
rhythmic steps of the dance with charming manner.
We get a hint for this also in Wordsworth's poem:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of yellow daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky-Way
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet would not be but gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant, or in pensive, mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
[Illustration: GARDENERS AT WORK, SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
[Illustration: GARDEN PLEASURES, SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
No one can read this poem without feeling that the dancing daffodils
"take the winds of March with beauty." The very name of the daffodil
touches our imagination. It carries us to the Elysian Fields, for the
ancient Greeks pictured the meads of the blessed as beautifully golden
and deliciously fragrant with asphodels. The changes ring through
asphodel, affodile, affodyl, finally reaching daffodil. Then there is
one more quaint and familiar name and personification,
Daffy-down-dilly that came up to town
In a white petticoat and a green gown.