Ye ardent Marigolds!
Dry up the moisture from your golden lids,
For great Apollo bids
That in these days your praises should be sung
On many harps, which he has lately strung;
And when again your dewyness he kisses
Tell him I have you in my world of blisses!
So happly when I rove in some far vale
His mighty voice may come upon the gale.
The Shakespearian marigold must not be confused with the French
marigold (_Flos Africanus_), called also Indian gilliflower, flower of
Africa, and flower of Tunis. A long chapter on this marigold appears
in Parkinson's book. This is the tightly rolled up little flower of
irregular ragged petals, but of a rich, deep golden hue.
Parkinson also speaks of the great Peruvian sunflower, which he admires
greatly and describes with enthusiasm. We know it well as our common
sunflower with its dark center and yellow rays--a magnificent specimen
of the floral world, worthy of the adoration of the Incas and of more
than we usually accord to it.
LARKSPUR (_Delphinium_). "Lark's-heels trim," one of the flowers in
the introductory song of "The Two Noble Kinsmen," is the Delphinium,
also called larkspur, lark's-claw, lark's-toes, and knight's-spur. The
generic name is derived from the Greek _delphinium_, because the buds
were thought to resemble the form of a dolphin.
As with many other plants, there were two kinds, the "wild" and the
"tame"; and it was the wild kind that was "nourished up in gardens,"
according to Parkinson, who describes the plant as having "small, long,
green leaves, finely cut, almost like fennel and the branches ending in
a long spike of hollow flowers with a long spur behind them. They are
of several colors: bluish purple, or white, or ash color, or red, paler
or deeper, and parti-colored of two colors in a flower.
"They are called diversely by divers writers as _Consolida regulis_,
_Calearis flos_, _Flos regius_, _Buccinum Romanorum_, and _Cuminum
silvestre alterum Dioscoridis_; but the most usual name with us is
_Delphinium_. But whether it be the true _Delphinium_ of Dioscorides,
or the Poet's Hyacinth, or the Flower of Ajax, another place is fitter
to discuss than this. We call them in English Larks-heels, Larkspurs,
Larkstoes, or claws, and Monks-hoods. There is no use of any of these
in Physicke in these days that I know, but are wholly spent for their
flowers sake."
A modern botanist remarks:
"The gardener's ideal has been the full-flowered spike with a goodly
range of colors on the chord of blue. We think of larkspur as blue.
Some of these blues are pale as the sky, some pure cobalt, others
indigo and still others are a strange broken blue, gorgeous and
intense, yet impure, glittering on the surface as if it were strewn
with broken glass, and sometimes darkened into red. The center of a
larkspur is often grotesque; the hairy petals suggest a bee at the
heart of a flower, and the flower itself looks like a little creature
poised for flight. In structure the garden race has changed very little
from the primitive type, though that type has wandered far from the
simplicity of the buttercup, which names the _Ranunculacæ_. Whatever
path of evolution the larkspur has trod, it is very clear that the
goal at which it has arrived is cross-fertilization by means of the
bee. At some time along the path the calix took on the duties of the
corolla, became highly colored, developed a spur, while at the same
time the corolla lessened both in size and in importance. The stamens
mature before the pistil and are so placed that the bee cannot get at
the honey without covering its head with pollen which it then bears to
another flower."
The name of Monk's-hood is also given to the Blue Helmet-flower, or
aconite.[67]
[67] See p. 248.
Yellow Lark's-heels is a name our Elizabethan forefathers gave to the
_Nasturtium Indicum_, a plant found in the West Indies and taken by the
early Spanish explorers to Spain, whence it traveled to all parts of
Europe.
"It is now very familiar in most gardens of any curiosity," says
Parkinson. "The likeness of this flower, having spurs, or heels, is of
so great beauty and sweetness withall that my Garden of Delight cannot
be unfurnished of it. The flowers are of an excellent gold yellow color
and grow all along the stalks. In the middle of each of the three lower
leaves there is a little long spot, or streak, of an excellent crimson
color, with a long heel, or spur, behind, hanging down. The whole
flower hath a fine small scent, very pleasing, which, being placed in
the middle of some Carnations, or Gilloflowers (for they are in flower
at the same time), make a delicious Tussiemussie, as they call it, or
Nosegay, both for sight and scent. Monardus and others call it _Flos
sanguineus_ of the red spots in the flower, as also _Nastnerzo de las
Indias_, which is _Nasturtium Indicum_; and we thereafter in English,
Indian Cresses. Yet it may be called from the form of the flowers
Yellow Lark's heels."
This flower is phosphorescent and is said to emit sparks, which are
visible in the dark.
VII
_Pansies for Thoughts and Poppies for Dreams_
PANSY (_Viola tricolor_). "Pansies--that's for thoughts," exclaims
_Ophelia_, as she holds out the flower that the French call _pensée_
(thought). And it is the pansy that is "the little western flower" upon
which "the bolt of Cupid fell" and made "purple with love's wound" and
which "maidens call Love in Idleness,"--the flower that _Oberon_ thus
described to _Puck_ when he sent him to gather it. The juice of it
squeezed by _Oberon_ upon _Titania's_ eyelids and by _Puck_ upon the
Athenian youths and maidens, who were also sleeping in the enchanted
wood on that midsummer night, occasioned so many fantastic happenings.
The pansy in those days was the small Johnny-Jump-Up, a variety of the
violet, according to the old writers, "a little violet of three colors,
blue, white and yellow." Milton noted that it was "freaked with jet."
Michael Drayton showed its close relationship to the violet in the
lines:
The pansy and the violet here
As seeming to descend
Both from one root and very fair
For sweetness yet contend.
Gerard wrote in 1587:
"The stalks are weak and tender, whereupon grow flowers in form and
figure like the Violet and for the most part of the same bigness, of
three sundry colors, whereof it took the surname Tricolor, that is to
say purple, yellow and white, or blue; by reason of the beauty and
bravery of which colors they are very pleasing to the eye, for smell
they have little, or none at all."
The pansy was beloved of Elizabethans: the great number of popular
names it had proves this. In addition to Pansy and Johnny-Jump-Up, it
was called Herb Trinity, because of the three distinct petals, which
made it a flower of peculiar religious significance. Another name
was Three-Faces-under-a-Hood because it had such a coquettish air.
Another name was Fancy Flamey, because its amethystine colors are like
those seen in the flames of burning wood; and because lovers gave it
to one another it had the pet names of Meet-me-at-the-Garden-Gate,
Kiss-me-at-the-Garden-Gate, Kiss-me-quick, Kiss-me, Call-me-to-you,
Cuddle-me-to you, Kiss-me-ere-I-rise, Pink-of-my-John, Cupid's-flower,
Love-in-Idleness, and Heartsease.
There were no "wine dark pansies" in Shakespeare's time to charm the
lover of flowers and none of the splendid deep purple velvets and
mauves and pale amethysts and burnt orange and lemon and claret and
sherry and canary hues that delight us to-day, and which are, to use
the quaint old expression, "nourished up in our gardens." The modern
beauties began to be developed about 1875, chiefly by the French
specialists, and, as a modern writer remarks:
"Such sizes, such combinations, such weirdness of expression in quaint
faces painted upon the petals were never known before. The colors now
run a marvellous range; pure-white, pure yellow, deepening to orange,
and darkening to brown, as well as a bewildering variety of blues and
purples and violets. The lowest note is a rich and velvety shade that
we speak of as black; but there is no black in flowers.
"The pansy is the flower for all. It is cheap; it is hardy; it is
beautiful; and its beauty is of an unusual and personal kind. The
bright, cheerful, wistful or roguish faces look up to you with so much
apparent intelligence that it is hard to believe it is all a pathetic
fallacy and there is nothing there."
Whether the modern pansies should be included in a Shakespeare garden
is a question for each owner of a garden to decide; but there should
certainly be a goodly number of the little "Johnny-Jump-Ups."
POPPY (_Papaver somniferum_). Shakespeare introduces the poppy only
indirectly when he speaks of the "drowsy syrup" in "Othello." The
white poppy is the flower from which the sleeping potion was made. "Of
Poppies," says Parkinson, "there are a great many sorts, both wild
and tame; but our garden doth entertain none but those of beauty and
respect. The general known name to all is _Papaver_, Poppie. Yet our
English gentlewomen in some places call it by name Joan's Silver Pin.
It is not unknown, I suppose, to any that Poppies procureth sleep."
Other old names for the poppy were Corn Rose and Cheese Bowl.
Scarlet poppies in the wreath of Ceres among the wheat-ears, scarlet
poppies mingled with large white-petaled daisies, and Ragged Robins
belong to everybody's mental picture of midsummer days.
"We usually think of the Poppy as a coarse flower," says Ruskin, "but
it is the most transparent and delicate of all the blossoms of the
field. The rest, nearly all of them, depend on the texture of their
surface for color. But the Poppy is painted glass; it never glows so
brightly as when the sun shines _through_ it. Whenever it is seen
against the light, or with the light, always it is a flame and warms in
the wind like a blown ruby."
"Gather a green Poppy bud, just when it shows the scarlet line at its
side, break it open and unpack the Poppy. The whole flower is there
compact in size and color, its stamens full grown, but all packed so
closely that the fine silk of the petals is crushed into a million of
wrinkles. When the flower opens, it seems a relief from torture; the
two imprisoning green leaves are shaken to the ground, the aggrieved
corolla smooths itself in the sun and comforts itself as best it can,
but remains crushed and hurt to the end of its days."
Delicate and fine as is the above description, the sympathetic tribute
to the poppy by Celia Thaxter does not suffer in proximity. She says:
"I know of no flower that has so many charming tricks and manners,
none with a method of growth more picturesque and fascinating. The
stalks often take a curve, a twist from some current of air, or some
impediment, and the fine stems will turn and bend in all sorts of
graceful ways, but the bud is always held erect when the time comes for
it to blossom. Ruskin quotes Lindley's definition of what constitutes a
poppy, which he thinks 'might stand.' This is it: 'A Poppy is a flower
which has either four or six petals and two or more treasuries united
in one, containing a milky stupefying fluid in its stalks and leaves
and always throwing away its calix when it blossoms.'
"I muse over their seed-pods, those supremely graceful urns that are
wrought with such matchless elegance of shape and think what strange
power they hold within. Sleep is there and Death, his brother,
imprisoned in those mystic sealed cups. There is a hint of their
mystery in their shape of somber beauty, but never a suggestion in the
fluttering blossom: it is the gayest flower that blows. In the more
delicate varieties the stalks are so slender, yet so strong, like fine
grass stems. When you examine them, you wonder how they hold even the
light weight of the flower so firmly and proudly erect; and they are
clothed with the finest of fine hairs up and down the stalks and over
the green calix.
"It is plain to see, as one gazes over the poppy-beds on some sweet
evening at sunset, what buds will bloom in the joy of next morning's
first sunbeams, for these will be lifting themselves heavenward, slowly
and silently, but surely. To stand by the beds at sunrise and see the
flowers awake is a heavenly delight. As the first long, low rays of the
sun strike the buds, you know they feel the signal! A light air stirs
among them; you lift your eyes, perhaps to look at a rosy cloud, or
follow the flight of a carolling bird, and when you look back again,
lo! the calix has fallen from the largest bud and lies on the ground,
two half-transparent light green shells, leaving the flower-petal
wrinked in a thousand folds, just released from their close pressure. A
moment more and they are unclosing before your eyes. They flutter out
on the gentle breeze like silken banners to the sun."
It would be tempting in a Shakespeare garden to include many kinds of
this joyous, yet solemn, flower; and certainly as many were common
in Elizabethan gardens it would not be an anachronism to have them.
However, if the space be restricted and the garden lover a purist then
the white poppy only should be planted.
VIII
_Crow-flowers and Long Purples_
CROW-FLOWERS (_Scilla nutans_). These are among the flowers _Ophelia_
wove into a wreath. The queen tells the court:
There is a willow grove ascaunt the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
There, with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.[68]
[68] "Hamlet"; Act IV, Scene VII.
Shakespeare did not select _Ophelia's_ flowers at random. They typified
the sorrows of the gentle victim of disappointed love whose end was
first madness, then suicide. The crow-flowers signified "fair maiden";
the nettles, "stung to the quick"; the daisies, "her virgin bloom"; and
the long purples, "under the cold hand of Death." Thus what Shakespeare
intended to convey by this code of flowers was, "A fair maiden, stung
to the quick, her virgin bloom in the cold hand of Death."
It is generally supposed that the wild blue hyacinth, or harebell
(_Scilla nutans_), a flower associated with pure and faithful love,
is the crow-flower; and authority is given to this theory in the old
ballad, which, of course, Shakespeare knew, called "The Deceased Maiden
Lover":
Then round the meddowes did she walk
Catching each flower by the stalk,
Such as within the meddowes grew,
As dead man's thumb and harebell blue,
And as she pluckt them still cried she,
"Alas! there's none ere loved like me."
Some critics have objected to the blue harebell because it is a spring
flower, and it is midsummer when _Ophelia_ drowns herself. These
authorities suggest the Ragged Robin for _Ophelia's_ crow-flower, and
others again the buttercup, also called creeping crowfoot (_Ranunculus
repens_). Bloom writes:
"It is generally assumed that the flowers are those of the meadow and
that a moist one. Why? It is equally probable they are those of the
shady hedge bank and that the crow-flowers are the poisonous rank
_Ranunculus reptans_ and its allies; that the nettles are the ordinary
_Urtica dioica_ not necessarily in flower, or if this be objected to on
account of the stinging qualities which the distraught _Ophelia_ might
not be insensible to, its place could be taken by the white dead nettle
_Lamium album L._ The daisies may be moon-daisies and the long purples
_Arum masculatum_, another plant of baleful influence, with its
mysterious dead white spadix bearing no very far fetched resemblance
to a dead man's finger wrapped in its green winding-sheet and whose
grosser name, cuckoo-pint, is ready at hand. With this selection we
have plants of the same situation flowering at the same time and all
more or less baneful in their influence."
[Illustration: PLEACHING AND PLASHING, FROM "THE GARDENER'S LABYRINTH"]
[Illustration: SMALL ENCLOSED GARDEN, FROM "THE GARDENER'S LABYRINTH"]
The crow has given its name to many flowers. There are, indeed, more
plants named for the crow than for any other bird: crowfoot, crow-toes,
crow-bells (for daffodil and bluebells) crow-berry, crow-garlick,
crow-leeks, crow-needles, and many others.
LONG PURPLE (_Arum masculatam_ or _Orchis mascula_) is very closely
related to our woodland Jack-in-the-Pulpit. It has many names: Arum;
Cookoo-pint, Cookoo-pintle, Wake-Robin, Friar's-cowl, Lords-and-Ladies,
Cow-and-Calves, Ramp, Starchwort, Bloody-men's-finger, and Gethsemane,
as the plant is said to have been growing at the Cross and to have
received some drops of the Savior's blood. This flower is mentioned in
Tennyson's "A Dirge":
Round thee blow, self-pleached deep,
Bramble roses, faint and pale,
And long purples of the dale.
Dr. Forbes Watson writes:
"I use the old name Wake Robin because it is so full of poetry--to
think of the bird aroused from sleep by the soundless ringing of the
bell. Arum, or Lords and Ladies, is the more usual name."
The plant is under the dominion of Mars, so the astrologers said.
IX
_Saffron Crocus and Cuckoo-flowers_
SAFFRON CROCUS (_Crocus verus sativus Autumnalis_). Shakespeare speaks
of saffron as a color--"the saffron Wings of Iris" and "saffron to
color the Warden [pear] pies." He never mentions the crocus from
which the saffron was obtained, yet a Shakespeare garden should have
this plant represented. Saffron had long been known in England;
for in the time of Edward III a pilgrim from the East had brought,
concealed in his staff, a root of the precious Arabic _al zahafaran_.
In Shakespeare's time saffron was used for soups and sauces and to
color and flavor pies, cakes, and pastry-confection. Saffron was also
important medicinally, and for dyeing silks and other materials. The
beautiful orange-red stigmas, the _crocei odores_ of Virgil, were
dried and the powder pressed into cakes and sold in the shops.
"The true saffron," writes Parkinson, "that is used in meats and
medicines, shooteth out his narrow long green leaves first, and, after
a while, the flowers, in the middle of them, appear about the end of
August, in September and October, according to the soil and climate
where they grow. These flowers are composed of six leaves apiece, of a
murrey, or reddish purple color, having a show of blue in them. In the
middle of these flowers there are some small yellow chives standing
upright, which are unprofitable; but, besides these, each flower hath
two, three, or four greater and longer chives hanging down, upon, or
between, the leaves, which are of a fiery red color and are the true
blades of saffron which are used physically, or otherwise, and no
other."
The raising of saffron was a great industry. Old Tusser gave the good
advice to
Pare saffron plot,
Forget it not.
His dwelling made trim,
Look shortly for him!
When harvest is gone,
Then Saffron comes on;
A little of ground
Brings Saffron a pound.
Saffron Walden in Essex and Saffron Hill in London received their names
because of the quantity of saffron crocus grown in those places.
The saffron crocus is a handsome flower, but somewhat capricious. Dr.
Forbes Watson writes:
"We look at the few well selected flowers in our hand and let our mind
wander in the depths of those fair-striped cups, their color so fresh,
so cool, so delicate, and yet not too cool, with that central yellow
stamen-column and the stigma emerging from it like a fiery orange lump.
The Purple Crocus, partly from the full materials for color-contrast
afforded by its interior, partly from the exceeding delicacy of tint,
the lilac stripes and markings, the transparent veins and the pale
watery lake which lies at the bottom of the cup, seem to bear us away
to some enchanted spot, a fairy-land of color where no shadow ever
falls--a land of dim eternal twilight and never fading flowers. Note,
too, the differences between the Crocuses with regard to the stigma. In
the Purple Crocus, where it is needed to complete the harmony of the
flower, it rises long and flame-tipped out of the tall bundle of yellow
stamens. Notice also the curve of the outside of the Purple Crocus cup
in a well-selected flower, and observe how quiet and solemnly beautiful
it is in perfect harmony with the general expression."
According to legend, the flower derived its name from a beautiful
youth, Crocus, who was transformed into the flower. His love, Smilax,
was changed at the same time into the delicate vine of that name.
Another legend says that the flower sprang from the blood of the
infant Crocus, who was accidentally killed by a disk thrown by the
god Mercury. The Egyptians encircled their wine-cups with the saffron
crocus; the Greeks and Romans adorned the nuptial couch with the
saffron crocus; the robes of Hymen, god of marriage, were saffron-hued;
and poets called the dawn saffron, or crocus-colored. Shakespeare,
therefore, had authority for "the saffron wings of Iris."
Saffron is an herb of the sun and is under the rule of Leo.
CUCKOO-FLOWER (_Lychnis Flos cuculi_): Shakespeare mentions
"cuckoo-flowers" in "King Lear,"[69] in company with troublesome weeds.
_Cordelia_ remarks:
Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With burdocks, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
On our sustaining corn.
[69] Act IV, Scene IV.
Shakespeare's cuckoo-flower is identified as the Ragged Robin, so
called from its finely cut blue petals which have a ragged appearance.
It is also known as the meadow campion, or Meadow Pink. Parkinson says:
"Feathered Campions are called _Armoraria pratensis_ and _Flos cuculi_.
Some call them in English Crow-flowers and Cuckowe Flowers, and some
call the double hereof The Fair Maid of France."
From the above we see why it is that the Ragged Robin has been
identified by some authorities as _Ophelia's_ crow-flower; for even
Parkinson seems to consider the crow-flower and cuckoo-flower as
identical. Some of the old herbalists give the name cuckoo-flower to
the lady-smock, which is called cuckoo-buds. The cuckoo's name is given
to many flowers: we have the cuckoo-flower, cuckoo-buds, cuckoo's-bread
(wood-sorrel), cuckoo's-meat, cuckoo-pint (_Arum maculatum_),
cuckoo-grass; cuckoo-hood (blue corn-flower), etc. The cuckoo-flower
(Ragged Robin) is dedicated to St. Barnabas.
X
_Pomegranate and Myrtle_
THE POMEGRANATE (_Punica_) is a regal flower. Its burning beauty
appeals to every one who loves color, for the scarlet of the
pomegranate has a depth and a quality that is all its own. The crinkled
silken petals, rising from a thick, red calix and set off by bright
green leaves of wondrous glossy luster and prickly thorns, delight
those who love beauty. Moreover, there is something luscious and
strange about the pomegranate that makes us think of Oriental queens
and the splendors of Babylon and Persia, ancient Egypt and Carthage.
It is a flower that Dido might have worn in her hair, or Semiramis in
garlands around her neck!
Shakespeare knew perfectly well what he was doing when he placed a
pomegranate beneath _Juliet's_ window, amid whose leaves and flowers
the nightingale sang so beautifully. The pomegranate was exactly the
flower to typify the glowing passion of the youthful lovers.
"There are two kinds of pomegranate trees," writes Parkinson, "the one
tame or manured, bearing fruit; the other wild, which beareth no fruit,
because it beareth double flowers, like as the Cherry, Apple and
Peach-tree with double blossoms.