 Spring, the sweet of the year, part one from the Flowers of Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sarah Michele from Michigan, 2019. The Flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton. Primroses, Cow Slips, and Doc Slips. Primrose. English poets have always regarded the primrose as the first flower of spring, the true Florida primavera. This name calls to mind Botticelli's enchanting primavera that hangs in the Uffizi, in which the sword 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 floor de primavera 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 sleep in a soil of frozen stiffness. Something of the tender and wistful beauty of early spring, her faint dreams and soft twilight, her languid afternoons and her veiled nights when pale stars tremble through grey mists, and when warm rain softly kiss the drowsy earth, Botticelli has put into his enchanting spring iddle, and this same wistful, half-drowsy and evanescent beauty is characteristic of the primrose. Primrose, firstborn child of there, Mary Springtime's harbinger, with her bells dim, is a perfect and sympathetic description of the flower in the two noble kinsmen. Observe that the bells of the primrose are dim, pale and 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 boreus. 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 smoldering 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 flower 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 cow slip, 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 they're hung about the whole plant a clothing of soft, evanescent mist, thickening about the centre 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 tone 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. 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 then 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 corpse 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 Imaging in disguise. I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack the flower that's like thy face pale primrose. Perdita in the winter's tale mentions pale primroses that die unmarried ere they can behold bright Phoebus 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 Helen's memory by the following words, and in the wood, where often you and I, upon faint primrose beds, were want to lie. Other English poets speak of the flower as the pale, or the dim. Milton writes, Now the bright star days harbinger comes dancing from the east and leads with her the flowery may, who, from her green lap, throws the yellow cow slip and the pale primrose. And again, Thomas Carew, ask me why I send you here the first bling of the infant here? Ask me why I send to you this primrose all be purled with dew? I straight whisper in your ears, the sweets of love are washed with tears. Ask me why this flower does show so yellow green and sickly too? Ask me why this dock is weak, and bending yet it doth not break? I will answer these discover what doubts and fears are in a lover. The English primrose is one of a large family of more than fifty species represented by the primrose, the cow slip, and the ox slip. 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 cow slips in our country breeding that strangers, being much delighted with them, have often furnished into diverse countries to their good content. All primroses bear their long and large, broad, yellowish-green leaves without stalks, most usually, and all the cow slips have small stalks under the leaves, which are smaller and have a darker green. The name of primola veris, or primrose, is indifferently conferred on those that I distinguish for paralysis or cow slips. All these plants are called, most usually, in Latin, primola veris, primola pertensis, and primola silvarum, because they show by their flowering the new spring to be coming on, they being, as it were, the first ambassadors thereof. They have also diverse other names as herboperalysis, arthritica, herbosanctopetri, clausanctopetri, herbosculum odoratum, lunaria arthritica, flomis, alizema silvarum, and alizematis ulterum genus. Some have distinguished them by calling the cow slips primola veris aleator, that is, the taller primrose, and the other humulus, low, or dwarf, primrose. Primroses and cow slips are in a manner wholly used in cephalical diseases to ease pains in the head. They are profitable both for the palsy and pains of the joints, even as the bears' ears are, which have caused the names of arthritica paralysis and paralytica to be given them. Tusser, in his husbandry, includes the primrose among the seeds and herbs of the kitchen, and Lit says that the cow slips, primroses, and oxlips are now used daily amongst other prod herbs, but in physics there is no great account made of them. The old name was primeralis, Dr. Pryor notes in his quaint book on flowers. Primarily, as an outlandish, unintelligible word, was soon familiarized into primeralis, and this into primrose. The name was also written primeralis and finally settled down into primrose. Tusser wrote primeral, a name derived from the French primavera, meaning like the Italian flor de primavera, the first spring flower. Cow Slip. Paralysis vulgaris pretensis. The cow slip 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 cow slip was associated with fairies. In many places it was known as fairy cups. For this reason Shakespeare makes Ariel lie in a cow slip's bell when the fey is frightened by the hooting of owls, or tired of swinging merrily on the blossom that hangs on the bow. One of the duties of Titania's little maid of honour was to hang a pearl in every cow slip's ear, and this gay little fairy informs Puck of the important place cow slips hold in the court of the tiny queen Titania. The cow slips tall her pensioners be. In their gold coats, spots, you see, these be rubies fairy favours, in these freckles live their savers. 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 science of the most distinguished families. Their dress was of extraordinary elegance and enriched heavily with gold embroidery, hence gold coats for the cow slips. Here and there jewels sparkled and glistened on the pensioners' coats, hence rubies fairy favours, favours from the queen. The pensioners also wore pearls in their ears like Raleigh and Lester and other noblemen, hence the fairy had to hang a pearl in every cow slip's ear. An idea too of the size of Titania and her elves is given when the cow slips are considered tall and tall enough to be the bodyguard 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 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 warned you in silk and gold, and yet there have been earls, and what is more, pensioners. Shakespeare also speaks of the freckled cow slip in Henry V, when the Duke of Burgundy refers to the even mead that erst brought sweetly forth the freckled cow slip. All poets love the flower. In the language where with spring letters cow slips on the hill writes Tennyson, a charming fancy. Sidney Dodle has a quaint flower song containing this verse. Then came the cow slip like a dancer in the fair, she spread her little mat of green and on it dance in 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. 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 cups of cow slips, as he has told us through the lips of the fairy. With great appreciation of the beauty of the flower he has Jacomo's description. Cinque spotted like the crimson drops in the bottom of a cow slip. 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 intense pleasure than the cow slip, yet perhaps there is scarcely any whose peculiar beauty depends so much upon locality and surroundings. There is a homely simplicity about the cow slip, 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 passage, and the manners of a simple primitive time, some golden age of shepherd life long since gone by. And more, in looking at the cow slip 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 perfumes of other plants, as lilies, narcissists 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 cow slip, 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 cow slip and the primrose are only the same plant in two different forms, the one being convertible into the other. The primrose is the cow slip of the woods and sheltered lanes, the cow slip is the primrose of the fields. The name cow slip is not derived from the lips of the cow, but according to Skeet, 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 cow slips as Parkinson I might well forbear to sit 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 diverse green leaves, very like unto the wild primrose, but shorter, rounder, stiffer, rougher, more crumpled about the edges and of a sadder green color, everyone standing upon his stalk which is an inch or two long. Among the leaves rise up diverse long stalks, a foot or more high, bearing at the top many fair yellow single flowers with spots of deep yellow at the bottom of each leaf, smelling very sweet. In England they have diverse names according to several countries, as primroses, cow slips, ox slips, palsy warts, and petty mullins. The frantic fantastic or foolish cow slip in some places is called by country people, jack and 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' eye because of the small yellow circle in the bottoms of the flowers resembling the eye of a bird. The ox slip combines the qualities of primrose and cow slip. These two plants, writes a botanist, appear as divergent expressions of a simple type, the cow slip being a contracted form of the primrose. The sulfur yellow and the fine tawny watery rays of the latter brightened into well-defined orange spots in the ox slip these characters anastomose. Thus, partaking of the character of primrose and cow slip, the ox slip is considered by some authorities a hybrid. The ox slip and the polyanthus, says Dr. Forbes Watson, with its tortoise shell 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 ox slip 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 violets, wild thyme, and luscious eglentine, on the bank where Titania loved to sleep, lulled to rest by song. Perdita speaks of bold ox slips, the winter's tale, Act Four, Scene Three, and compared with the primrose and cow slip, the flower deserves the adjective. Ox slips in their cradles growing, in the song in the two noble kinsmen, which Shakespeare wrote with John Fletcher, shows great knowledge of the plant, for the root leaves of the ox slip are shaped like a cradle. Parkinson writes, those are usually called ox slips whose flowers are naked or bare without husks to contain them, being not so sweet as the cow slip, yet have they some little scent, although the Latin name doth make them to have none. End of Primroses, Cow Slips and Ox Slips, Recording by Sarah Michelle from Michigan, 2019 Suite of the Year, Part Two, from the Flowers of Shakespeare. This is a Libydox recording. All Libydox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libydox.org. The Flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton, Daffodils that come before the swallow dares. When Daffodils begin to peer with high the dozier over the dale, why then comes in the sweet of the year for the red blood rains in the winter's pale? Is the opening verse that ought to like her sing so gaily in the winter's tale? 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 24 different species, all and every one of them, in great abundance in our London gardens. There are 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. He consists of only in the flower and chiefly in the middle cup or chalice. For that we do, in a manner only, account these 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 seemer 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 diverse kinds, the early straw coloured, the great white Spanish, the greater Spanish white, the two lesser white Spanish, our common English wild bastard Daffodil, the sixth cornered, the great double yellow, or John Trade Sant'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 John Quiller, the greater yellow John Quiller and many others. Then he adds, the Pseudo Narcissus and Guiness Valgaris is so common in all England, both in copes, woods and orchards, that I might well forbear the description thereof. It has three or four greyish leaves, long and somewhat narrow, along which rise 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 colour, and a long trunk in the middle of a fair yellow with the edges, or brims, a little crumpled or uneven. After the flower is past it bearer for round head, seeming free 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 Petita who exclaims, O Prosper Pina, for the flowers now that frightened thou let us fall from this is wagon, Daffodils, that come before the swallowed dares, and take the winds of March with beauty, the winter's tale, Act 4, Scene 3. 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 thus 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 of charming manner. We get a hint for this also in Wordsworth's poem. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o' veils and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of yellow Daffodils, besides 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 nether-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 impensive 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. 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 Elizand Fields, where the ancient Greeks pictured the meads of the blessed as beautifully golden and deliciously fragrant, with Ashpedales. The changes ring through Ashpedale, Aphadale, Aphadil, finally reaching Daffodil. Then there is one more quaint and familiar name and personification, Daffodil down Dilly that came up to town in a white petticoat and a green gown. The idea of Daffodil as a rustic maiden was popular in folklore and poetry. The feeling is so well expressed in Michael Drayton's sprightly ecolog called Daffodil that it forms a natural complement to the happy song of carefree autolikers just quoted. This pastoral captured popular fancy and it is just as fresh and buoyant as it was when it was written 300 years ago. Two shepherds, Bat and Golbo meet. Bat, Golbo as thou came us this way by yonder little hill or as thou through the fields distray saw as thou my Daffodil. She's in a flock of Lincoln green which colour likes the sight and neither hath her beauty seen but through a veil of white. Golbo, thou well described as the Daffodil. It is not full an hour since by the spring near yonder hill I saw that lovely flower. Bat, yet my fair flower thou does not meet, no news of her disbring and yet my Daffodil's more sweet than that by yonder spring. Golbo, I saw a shepherd that doth keep in yonder field of lilies was making as he fed his sheep a reef of Daffodilies. Bat, yet Golbo thou deluges me still my flower thou does not see for no my pretty Daffodil is one of none but me. The show itself but near her feet no lily is so bold except a shader from the heat or keeper from the cold. Golbo, through yonder veil as I did pass descending from the hill I met a smoking bonnie lass they call her Daffodil whose presence as long she went the pretty flowers did greet as though their heads they downward bent with homage to her feet and all the shepherds that were knife and top of every hill unto the valley's loud did cry there goes sweet Daffodil. Bat, a gentle shepherd now of joy thou see my flockstoff fill there she a lone kind shepherd boy lets us to Daffodil. The flower was called John Quill, saffron dilly, lentily a Narcissus. It was the large yellow Narcissus known as the Rosa Charon so common in Palestine of which Mohammed said he that have two cakes of bread let him serve one of them for a flower of the Narcissus. The bread is the food of the body but Narcissus is the food of the soul. Narcissus the most beautiful youth of Baraita was told that he would live happily till he saw his own face. Loved by the nymphs and particularly Echo he rejected the advances for he was immune to love and admiration. One day however he beheld himself in the stream and became so fascinated with his reflection that he pined to death gazing at his own image. For him the nades and dryads mourn whom the sad Echo answers in her turn and now the sister nymphs prepare his own when looking for his corpse they only found a rising stork with yellow blossoms crowned. In the centre of the cup are to be found the tears of Narcissus. Because the flowers consecrated to Ceres and to the underworld and to the Elysian fields the Daffodil was one of the flowers the porcipine was gathering when dusky disc had her off and the myth also hints that the earth purposely brought the Aged Fodal forth from the underworld to entice the unsuspecting daughter of Ceres. Sophocles associates the Daffodil with the garlands of great goddesses and ever day by day the Narcissus with its beautiest clusters the ancient coronet of the mighty goddesses burst into bloom by heaven's dew. The delightful Dr. Forbes Watson writes of the Daffodil like a painter with accurate observation and bright pallet. In the Daffodil the leaves and stems are of a full, grochius green, a colour not only cool and refreshing in itself a strongly suggestive of water the most apparent source of freshness the constituting of most delicious groundwork for the bright, lively yellow of the blossoms. Now what sort of spave would be likely to contribute best to this remarkable effect of the flower? Should the colours be unusually striking or the size increased or what? Strange to say in both Daffodil and Pheasant's eye per its Narcissus we find the spave dry and withered filled up like a bit of thin brown paper and clinging round the base of the flowers we cannot overlook it and most assuredly we were never meant to do so nothing could have been more beautifully ordered than this contrast there being just sufficient to make us appreciate more fully that abounding freshness of life it is a plant which affords the most beautiful contrast a cool watery sheet of leaves with bright warm flowers yellow and orange dancing over the leaves like meteors over a marsh the leaves look full of watery sap which is the lifeblood of plants and prime source of all their freshness just as the tissues of a healthy child look plump and rosy from the warm blood circulating within in its general expression the Pheasant's Narcissus seems a type of maiden purity and beauty yet worn by a love-breathing fragrance and yet what innocence in the large soft eye which few can rival among the whole tribe of flowers the narrow yet vivid fringe of red so clearly seen amidst the whiteness suggests again the idea of purity and gushing passion purity of a heart which can kindle into fire end of daffodils that come before the swallow dares the sweet of the year part 3 from the Flowers of Shakespeare this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Nima The Flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton Daisy's Pied in Violet's Blue Daisy, Belize Parenis Shakespeare often mentions the Daisy with Violet's Blue, Lady Smock's All Silver White and Cuckoo Buds of Every Hue that paints the meadows with delight and that delightful spring song in Love's Labor's Lost Shakespeare also uses this flower as a beautiful comparison for the delicate hand of Lucretia and the rape of Lucretia without the bed her other fair hand was on the green coverlet whose perfect white showed like an April Daisy on the grass the Daisy is among the flowers and the fantastic garlands the poor Ophelia wove before her death the botanical name Belize shows the origin of the flower Beletus, a beautiful dryad trying to escape the pursuit of her tumeness god of gardens and orchards prayed to the gods for help and they changed her into the tiny flower an allusion to this Robin wrote when the bright ram bedecked with stars of gold displays his fleece the Daisy will unfold to Nymphs, a chaplet, and to Beds of Grace who once herself had borne a virgin's face the Daisy was under the care of Venus it has been beloved by English poets ever since Chaucer sang the praises of the day's eye Daisy Chaucer tells us in what is perhaps the most worshipful poem ever addressed to a flower that he always rose early and went out to the fields or meadows to pay his devotions to this flower of flowers whose praises he intended to sing while ever his life lasted and he bemoaned the fact moreover that he had not words at his command to do it proper reverence next to Chaucer and paying homage to the Daisy comes word worth with his a non-demure of lowly port or sprightly maiden of Love's court thy simplicity the sport of all temptations queen and crown of rubies dressed starvelling in a scanty vest are all, as seems to suit the best, my appellations a little cyclops with one eye staring to threaten and defy that thought comes next and instantly the freak is over the shape will vanish behold a silver shield with boss of gold that spreads itself some fairy-bold in fight to cover bright flower for by that name at last when all my reveries are past I call thee into that cleaf-fast sweet silent creature that breathes with me the sun in air do thou as thou art want to repair my heart with gladness and a share of thy meek nature Daisy's smell less yet most quaint is a line from the flower song in The Two Noble Kinsmen written by John Fletcher and Shakespeare Milton speaks of Meadows trim with Daisy's pied and Dryden pays a tribute to which even Chaucer would approve and then a band of flutes began to play to which a lady sang a tirley and still at every close she would repeat the burden of the song the Daisy is so sweet the Daisy is so sweet when she began the troops of knights and dames continue down the English Daisy is the wee modest crimson tipped flower as Burns has described it and must not be confused with the Daisy that powders the fields and meadows in our southern states with a snow of white blossom supported on tall stems this Daisy called sometimes the moon Daisy, chrysanthemum, chrysanthemum is known in England as the Midsummer Daisy and Oxfine in France it is called Marguerite and Pacqurette being a Midsummer flower it is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist it is also associated with Saint Margaret and Mary Magdalene and from the latter it derives the names of Maudelin and Maudelin as Ophelia drowned herself in Midsummer the Daisies that are described in her wreath are most probably Marguerite and not the Daisy of Chaucer Parkinson does not separate Daisies very particularly they are usually called in Latin he tells us and in English Daisies some of them Herba Marguerite and Promula Veris as is likely after the Italian names of Marguerite and Flor di Prima Veragenti the French call them Pacqurette and Marguerite and the fruitful sort are those that have small flowers about the middle one Margueritans our English women call them the Daisy that an Elizabethan poet quaintly describes as a two door princess resembles the Midsummer Daisy rather than the we modest crimson tip flower of burns about her neck she wears a rich rut rough with double sets most brave and broad beast bread resembling lovely lawn or camber stuff pinned up and pricked upon her yellow head also brown in his pastoral seems to be thinking of this flower the Daisy scattered on each mead and down a golden tuft within a silver crown Violet Viola Oro Rata the Violet was considered a choice flower of delight in English gardens Shakespeare speaks of the Violet on many occasions and always with tenderness deep appreciation of his qualities violets are among the flowers that the Frightened Proserpine dropped from Pluto's ebbing car Violet's dim and sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes or Satheria's breath thus in Shakespeare's opinion the Violet out-sweetened both Juno Majestic Queen of Heaven and Venus, goddess of love and beauty how could he praise the Violet more? to throw a perfume on the Violet is wasteful and ridiculous excess Shakespeare informs us in King John with the utmost delicacy of perfection he describes to Tanya's favorite haunt as a bank where the wild time blows where oxlips and the knotting violet grows in truth the tiny flower seems to knot among its leaves Shakespeare makes the elegant Duke in Twelfth Night who is lounging nonchalantly on his divan compare the music he hears to the breeze blowing upon a bank of violets Shelley held the same idea that the delicious perfume of flowers is like the softest melody the snow drop and then the Violet arose from the ground with warm rain wet and there was mixed with fresh color sent from the turf like the voice and the instrument and the hyacinth purple and white and blue which flung from its bells a sweet peel anew of music so delicate soft and intense it was felt like an odor within the sense Ophelia laments that she has no Violets to give to the court ladies and lords for they withered when her father died she tells us Shakespeare also associates Violets with melancholy occasions Marina enters in Pericles with a basket of flowers on her arm saying the yellows, blues the purple Violets and marigolds shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave while summer days do last on another occasion with a broad sweeping gesture Shakespeare mentions the Violets that strew the green lap of the new cum spring in Sonnet 99 he writes the forward Violet thus did I chide sweet thief whence didst thou steal the sweet that smells if not for my love's breath the purple pride which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells in my love's veins thou hast too grossly died Bacon deemed it most necessary to know what flowers and plants do best perfume the air Andy thought that which above all others yields the sweetest smell is the Violet and next to that the muskers Perhaps of all warwick shire flowers writes a native of Shakespeare's country none are so plentiful as Violet's our own little churchyard of white church is sheeded with them they grow in every hedge bank until the whole air is filled with their fragrance the wastes near Stratford are sometimes purple as far as the eyes can see with the flowers of viola canina our English Violet's are twelve in number the plant is still used in medicine and acquired of late a notoriety as a suggested cancer cure and in Shakespeare's time was eaten raw with onions and lettuces and also mingled in broth and used to garnish dishes while crystallized Violet are not unknown in the present day for the beauty of its form for the depth and richness of its color for the graceful drooping of its stock and the nodding of its head for its lovely heart-shaped leaf and above all for its delicious perfume the Violet has admired then when we gaze into its tiny face and note the delicacy of its veins which Shakespeare so often mentions we gain a sense of its deeper beauty and significance Dr. Forbes Watson observed I give one instance of nature's care for the look of the stamens and pistols of a flower the blossom of the scented Violet the stamens form by their convergence a little orange beak at the end of this beak is the summit of the pistol a tiny speck of green but barely visible to the naked eye yet small as it is it completes the color of the flower by softening the orange and we can distinctly see that if this mere point were removed there would be imperfection for the want of it which Francis De Sales a contemporary of Shakespeare gave a lovely description of the flower when he said a true widow is in the church as a March Violet shedding around an exquisite perfume by the fragrance of her devotion and always hidden under the ample leaves of her lowliness and by her subdued coloring showing the spirit of her mortification she seeks untrodden and solitary places the Violet's qualities of lowliness, humility, and sweetness have always appealed to poets the Violet is also beloved because it is one of the earliest spring flowers Violets are like primrose and cowslips the first to rise and smile beneath spring's awakening skies the courier of a band of coming flowers the Violet was also an emblem of constancy at the Floral Games instituted by Clemens Isar at Toulouse in the fourteenth century the prize was a golden Violet because the Poetus had once sent a Violet to her night as a token of faithfulness with the troubadours the Violet was a symbol of constancy and a handful of pleasant delights a popular song-book published in Elizabeth's Reign in 1566 there is a poem called a nose-gay always sweet for lovers to send tokens of love at New Year's tide or for fairings as they in their mind shall be disposed to write this poem contains a verse to the Violet Violet is for faithfulness which in me shall abide hoping likewise that from your heart you will not let it slide and will continue in the same as you have now begun and then forever to abide then you my heart have won the Violet has always held a loved place in the English Garden Gerard writes quickly in his herbal the black or purple Violets or March Violets of the Garden have a great prerogative above all others not only because the mind conceiveth a certain pleasure and recreation by smelling and handling those most odiferous flowers but also for the very many by these Violets receive ornament and comely grace for there be made of them garlands for the head nosegays and posies which are delightful to look on and pleasant to smell to speaking nothing of their appropriate virtues yay gardens themselves receive by these the greatest ornament of all chiefest beauty the most gallant grace and the recreation of the mind which is taken thereby cannot but be very good and honest for they admonish and stir up a man to that which is comely and honest for flowers through their beauty variety of color in exquisite form you bring to a liberal and great mind the remembrance of honesty comeliness and all kinds of virtue prosopene was gathering Violets among other flowers fields of Ena and Sicily when Pluto carried her off Shakespeare touched upon the story most exquisitely through the lips of Perdita as quoted above another Greek myth accounts for the Greek word for the Violet which is Ion it seems when in order to protect her from the persecutions of Juno Jove transformed lovely Europa into a white heifer named Ion he caused sweet violets to spring up from the earth wherever the white cow placed her lips and from her name Ion the flower acquired the name Ion the Athenians adored the flower tablets were engraved with the word Ion and set up everywhere in Athens and of all sober case the citizens preferred that of Athenian crowned with Violets the Persians also loved the Violet and made a delicious wine from it a sherbet flavored with Violet blossoms served in Persia and Arabia today at feast and Muhammadians say the excellence of the Violet is as the excellence of El Islam above all other religions end of Daisy's Pied and Violets Blue Spring Part 4 from the Flowers of Shakespeare this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jennifer Painter The Flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton Lady Smokes all silver white and cuckoo buds of yellow hue Lady Smok Cardamine Pritensis the lovely little spring song in Love's Labour's Lost with the line Lady Smokes all silver white has immortalised this little flower of the English meadows but little known in our country the Lady Smok is very common in England in early spring properly speaking it should be Our Lady's Smok as it is one of the many plants dedicated to the Virgin Mary and bearing her name the list is a long one including Lady's Slippers Lady's Bower Lady's Cushion Lady's Mantle Lady's Laces Lady's Looking Glass Lady's Garters Lady's Thimble Lady's Hair Lady's Seal Lady's Thistle Lady's Fingers Lady's Gloves and so on These flowers originally dedicated to Venus, Juno and Diana in Greek and Roman mythology and to Freya and Bertha in Northern Law and Legend were gradually transferred to the Virgin with the spread of Christianity the Lady's Smok takes its name from the Pancid but far-fetched resemblance to a Smok said by way of explanation that when these flowers are seen in great quantity they suggest the comparison of linen Smoks bleaching on the green meadow other names for the plant are Cuckoo Flower Meadow Cress Spinks and Mayflower and in Norfolk the Cardamine Pritensis is called Canterbury Bells the petals have a peculiarly soft and translucent quality and it's almost lilac tinge Shakespeare describes the flower as silver white an epithet that has puzzled many persons however one ardent Shakespeare lover has made a discovery gather a Lady Smok as you tread the rising grass in fragrant May and although in individuals the petals are sometimes cream colour as a rule the flower viewed in the hand is lilac pale but purely and indisputably lilac where then is the silver whiteness it is the meadows remember that are painted when as often happens the flower is so plentiful as to hide the turf and most particularly if the ground be a slope and the sun be shining from behind us all is changed the flowers are lilac no longer the meadow is literally silver white so it is always epithets are like prisms let them tremble in the sunshine and we discover that it is he who knows best the beautiful song begins when days is pied and violets blue and Lady Smok's all silver white and cuckoo buds of yellow hue do paint the meadows with delight the cuckoo then on every tree mocks married men for thus sings he cuckoo cuckoo or word of fear unpleasing to a married ear cuckoo buds renunculus it is quite possible that in cuckoo buds of yellow hue Shakespeare meant the blossoms of the butter cup or king cup called by the country people of Warwickshire horse blobs some authorities claim that cuckoo buds is intended to represent the lesser selendine of which words were so fond that he wrote three poems to it others call cuckoo buds carmine pretensis but that could hardly be possible because Shakespeare speaks of Lady Smok's all silver white in one line and cuckoo buds of yellow hue in the succeeding line there is much confusion in the identification of Lady Smok's cuckoo buds cuckoo flowers and crow flowers are more or less related Gerard says Our Lady Smok is also called the cuckoo flower because it flowers in April and May when the cuckoo duff begin to sing of pleasant notes without stammering end of Lady Smok's all silver white and cuckoo buds of yellow hue spring part 5 from the flowers of Shakespeare this is a LibriVox recording are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jennifer Painter the flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton anemones and azured hairbells anemone anemone perpureo striata, stellata the anemone is described in Venus and Adonis very manutely by this the boy that by her side lay killed was melted like a vapour from her sight and in his blood that on the ground lays spill a purple flower sprung up checkered with white resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood which in round drops upon their whiteness stood Adonis the beautiful youth beloved of Venus to which he had given chase Venus found him as he lay dying on the grass to make him immortal she changed him into an anemone or wind flower naturally the flower was dedicated to Venus beyond sang alas the paphion fair Adonis slain tears plenteous as his blood she pours a man but gentle flowers are born from every drop that falls upon the ground where streams his blood their blushing springs arose and where a tear has dropped a wind flower blows Pliny asserted the anemone only blooms when the wind blows the flower was associated with illness in the days of the Egyptians and also during the middle ages when there was also a superstition that the first anemone gathered would prove an arm against disease the first spring blossom was therefore eagerly searched for delightedly plucked and carefully guarded no token of affection was more prized by a loved one going off on a journey than the gift of an anemone an old ballad has the lines the first spring blown anemone she has in his doublet wove to keep him safe from pestilence wherever he should row anemones were greatly valued in Elizabethan gardens indeed it was a fad to grow them Parkinson distinguishes the family of anemones as the wild and the tame or manured both of them nourished up in gardens he classifies them still further as those that have broader leaves and those that have thinner or more jagged leaves and then again into those that bear single flowers and those that bear double flowers the wild kinds included all the pulsatillas or pasque Easter flowers Parkinson mentions many varieties he describes the tame anemones as white yellow purple crimson scarlet blush red line between peach color and violet orange tawny apple blossom flower and many others from his list we can have no doubt that Shakespeare's flower was one of the purple star anemones the anemone perperia striata stillata whose flowers have many white lines and stripes through the leaves Parkinson's name is the purple striped anemone of recent years anemones have again become the fashion how gorgeous are these flowers to behold exclaims rider haggard with their hues of vivid scarlet and purple to be really appreciated however they should I think be seen in their native home the east in the neighbourhood of mount tabore in Palestine I have met with them in such millions that for miles the whole plane is stained red blue and white growing so thickly indeed that to walk across it setting foot on a flower at every step would be difficult I believe and I think that this view is very generally accepted that these are the same lilies of the field but toil not neither do they spin which our lord used to illustrate his immortal lesson truly Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these the adonis flower floss adonis spoken of by Ben Johnson and others has nothing to do with the anemone it is a kind of chamomile some have taken the red kind to be a kind of anemone says Parkinson the most usual name now with us is floss adonis in English it is also called the may weed and Rosa Ruby and adonis flower hair bell sila newtons measured hair bell which Shakespeare uses in Cymbaline for comparison with the delicate veins of Fidele Imogen has been identified as the English Jason blue hair bell or hair spell Brown's pastoral show that this flower was only worn by faithful lovers and therefore the flower is most appropriately selected for association with Imogen Brown says the hair bell for her stainless azured hue claims to be worn of none but who are true this flower is also called the wild hyacinth blossoming in May and June it is one of the precious ornaments of English woods dust of sapphire it's jewel like flowers have been called our English jacinth or hair bells writes Parkinson so common everywhere that it scarce needeth any description it beareth divers long narrow green leaves not standing upright not yet fully lying on the ground among which springeth up the stalk bearing at the top many long and hollow flowers hanging down their heads all forwards for the most part parted at the brims into six parts turning up their points a little again of a sweetish but heady scent like unto the grape flower the heads for seed are long and square wherein is much black seed the color of the flowers is in some of a deep blue tending to purple in others of a paler blue or of a bleak blue tending to an ash color some are pure white and some are party colored blue and white I'm delayed purplish red or bluish color which some call a pearl color end of anemones and azured hair bells the sweet of the year part one from the flowers of Shakespeare this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton Columbine and Broome Flower Columbine Achillesia Olgares there's fennel for you in Columbine says Ophelia as she hands the flowers to the courtiers Shakespeare also mentions the Columbine in Love's Labor's Lost where Don Armado the fantastical Spaniard a caricature of a real person at Queen Elizabeth's Court exclaims I am that flower to which Domaine and Longaville reply in derision that mint that Columbine of the Columbine of Shakespeare's time Parkinson says there be many sorts of Columbines as well differing in form as color of the flowers and of them both single and double carefully nursed up in our gardens with the delight both of their forms in colors the varieties of the colors of these flowers are very much for some are holy white some of a blue or violet color others of a blueish or flesh color or deep or pale red or of a dead purple or dead Murray color as nature listed to show the generic name is derived from the word an eagle because of the fancy resemblance of some parts of the flower to the talons of an eagle the English name comes from the Latin Colomba a dove from the likeness of its nectaries to the heads of doves in a ring around a dish and to the figure of a dove hovering with expanded wings discovered by pulling off one pedal with its detached sepals hence this was called the dove plant the leaf that it was the favorite plant of the lion it was called Herba Leonis the columbon was valued for many medicinal virtues the scarlet and yellow columbon writes Matthew is one of our most beautiful wild flowers it is my experience that certain flowers have certain favorite haunts which are exclusively held by them year after year this flower is in its prime about the first of June nearly always found beside some like and covered rock the English and American flowers differ although the early colonists brought the English flower with them Grant Allen tells us the English columbon 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 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 ultra-marine 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 that the color John Lubbock that these 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 columbon is due in one way or another to the selective tastes and preferences of the higher insects the colors of the American columbon are dark opaque blues purples dull pinks pale blues lavender reds and yellows infinite variety the flowering of the columbon commendable as Scouton called it 400 years ago says Harriet L. Keeler marks the beginning of summer the rain of the bulbs is over the wind flower and the violet they perished long ago the petals of the early roses are falling white along the fence rows and the season waxes to its prime a while flower of English fields the columbon was early transferred into English gardens and has held its place securely there for at least 500 years its seeds were among the treasures born 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 columbon is a unique and interesting form the sepals look like petals and the petals are bearable horns of plenty filled with nectar at the closed ends for the swarm of bees which gather about it the sweets are produced by the blossoms on a generous scale into a columbon bed in full bloom the bees come big and little noisy and silent all giddy with a feast there is no use trying to drive them away they can't go clumsy bumblebees 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, viable, 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 in each spur becomes a nest of spurs like a set of Chinese cups though the innermost are frequently imperfect the columbon 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 columbon in her left hand and gazes at it with tender loving emotion the early Italian and Flemish painters include the columbon with the rose, lily, pink violet, strawberry and clover in the gardens where the Madonna sits with the holy child the reason that the columbon was chosen as a flower of religious symbolism was because of the little doves formed by the five petals the columbon 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 columbon has these religious associations we always think of it as an airy, frequent flower the gay and irresponsible dancer of the rocks and dells clad as it were in fantastic and party-colored dress graceful in form and charming in color put together with extreme delicacy on splendor, flexible, fragile stems and adorned with a leaf approaching out of the fern in delicacy and lace-like beauty the columbon is one of the most delightful flowers always associated with folly we love it nonetheless for that for there are times when we enjoy harlequin and columbon among our flowers and these fantastic and frivolous columbons dancing so gaily in the breeze always fill us with delight broom cytysis scoparius although the broom was a popular plant in Elizabethan days it is only once in Shakespeare in the Tempest where Iris in the mask in her apostrophe to Cire's most bounteous lady speaks of the broomgroves who shadow the dismissed bachelor loves being last worn the queen of the sky bids thee leave these when in blossom the broom is lovely to look upon the large yellow flowers are gracefully arranged branches and its perfume is delightful sweetest the broom flower exclaims Spencer the broom is the Plata 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 Giafre Anju 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 root it firmly among rocks and upholding that which is ready to fall his son Henry was called the sprig of Genesta the golden plume of broom flowers was worn by the Plantagenets till the last of the line Richard III lost the crown of England to Henry VII the first of the tutors in 1264 the plantagenesta was honored by Saint 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 floor to lease 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 is in common with other briars was used to make brooms for sweeping and also for staffs to walk with and to lean upon end of Columbine and broom flower part one from the flowers of Shakespeare this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Chad Horner from Liverpool the flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton sweet summer buds part one morning roses newly washed with dew the rose Rosa Shakespeare speaks of the rose more frequently than any other flower 60 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 perfumed 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 Shakespeare's special roses are the red the white the musk, the eglentine the sweet briar, the provincial or province the damask, the canker and the variegated the red rose 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 and in other places never grow with so high as the damask rose bush but more usually abideth low and shouldeth forth many branches from the red bush and his but seldom suffer to grow up as the damask grows 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 sight and abiding for some are of an orient red or deep crimson colour and very double although never so double as the white which when it is full blown hath the largest leafs of any other rose some of them again are paler tending somewhat to a damask and some are so pale a red as that it is rather of the colour 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 synth 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 colour and scent longer than the damask the white rose rosa andica alba the white rose is of two kinds says Parkinson the one more thick and double than the other the one rises up in some shadowy places onto eight or ten foot high with a stalk of great thickness for a rose the other growing seldom higher than a damask rose both these roses have somewhat smaller and wider green leaves in many other roses five most usually set on a stalk 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 few of a blush especially towards the ground or bottom the flower very thick double and close set together and for the most part not opening itself so largely and fully with 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 rose that they might be held to a single yet all of little or no smell at all from this rosa alba Pliny says the Isle of Abion derived its name a happy thought when we remember that the rose is still the national emblem of England mask rose rosa muschata mask roses and eglentine mingled with honeysuckle formed the canopy beneath which Titania slumbered on a bank made soft and lovely with wild time ox lips and nodding violets and in the cornet of fresh and fragrant flowers that the dainty little fairy queen placed upon the hairy temples of bottom the weaver mask roses were conspicuous and the sweetness of these was intensified by the round and orient pearls that swelled upon the petals as the pretty florets bewailed their own disgrace it is this delicious rose which keeps when listening to the nightingale sensed rather than visualised in the twilight dimness the coming musk rose full of dewy wine the murmurous hunt of flies on summer eaves the musk rose was adorned by the elisabethans Lord Bacon considered it sent to come next to that of the violet 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. Gascal 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 a clute in 1582 gave the date of its introduction into England the turkey cocks and hens he says were brought in about 50 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 Hurdi Gwena turning now to Parkinson and opening his big volume at the page Rosa Moschata simple and multiplex we read musk rose both single and double rises up often times to a very great height that it overgrowth any arbor in a garden or being set by a house side to be 10 or 12 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 eglentines the flowers come forth at the tops of the branches many together as it were in an umbil or tuft which for the most part do flower all at a time or not long one after another everyone 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 thumbs also in the middle both of them of a very sweet and pleasing smell resembling musk some there be that have a vouched that the chief scent of these roses consist not in the leaves but in the threads of the flowers the color of the musk roses white slightly tinged pink eglentine also sweetbrier wozer eglentaria this is a conspicuous adornment of Titania's flower and is as remarkable for its beauty as for its scent the pink flowers with their golden threads in the center are familiar to everyone the sweetbrier or eglentine Parkinson writes is not only planted in gardens for the sweetness of its leaves but growing wild in many woods and hedges half exceeding long green shoots armed with the cruelest 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 7 or 9 most usually set together on a rib or stock very green and sweeter and smell about the leaves of any other kind of rose the flowers are small single blush roses Provincial or Provence Cintifolia this old fashioned cabbage rose of globular flowers massive foliage hard knob in the center and sweet perfume is affectionately known as the hundred leaf 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 holds 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 is a native of Syria whence it was brought to Europe about 1270 by Thibault 4th Comte Bray returning from the Holy Land we know exactly when it was introduced into England because Hakklet writing in 1582 says in time of memory many things have been brought in that were not here before as the Damascus rose by Dr. Linnaker King Henry the 7th a King Henry the 8th physician gloves as sweet as Damascus roses or to like us carries in his peddler's pack for lads to give their deers along with masks for their faces perfume, necklace amber pins, weaves and lawn as white as driven snow Perkinson informs us the Damascus rose bush is more usually nourished up to a competent height to stand alone which we call standards than any other rose 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 colour as all known 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 of 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 but the Damascus rose besides the super excellent sweet water it yielded being distilled or the perfume of its leaves being dried serving to fill sweet bags service to cause solubleness of the body made into a syrup or preserved with sugar moist and candid the name is obviously from Damascus canker rose 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 Jovane's remark in Machidae about nothing 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 priors of this variety of rose 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 modelled with white and of a white modelled 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 Lancashire Perkson says this rose in the form and order of the growing is the nearest onto the ordinary Damascus 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 Damascus rose half the one, half of it sometimes for pale whitish colour and the other half of a paler Damascus colour than the ordinary this happeneth so many times but sometimes also the flower stripes and marks on it one leaf white or stripped with white and the other half blush or stripped with blush sometimes all stripped or spot it over and other times little on no stripes or marks at all as nature listed to play with varieties in this as another flowers yet this I have observed that the longer it abideth blown open to the sun the paler and the fewer stripes or spots will be seen in it the smell is of a weak Damascus rose scent this rose recalls the old song of a lover to his Ancastrian mistress on handling her a white rose if this fair rose offend thy sight placed in thy bosom bare till blush to find itself less white and turn Ancastrian there but if thy ribby lip it's by as kiss it thy may estein with envy pale lusits die and Yorkish turn again in his play of King Henry the sixth 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 Ancastrians a red rose is chosen Richard Plantagenet Plucks a white rose and the Earl of Somerset a red rose from the rose bushes that are still growing and blooming in the same spot when Shakespeare imagined the scene in King Henry the sixth in Shakespeare's day the rose was enormously cultivated in the gardens of LA Place the home of Queen Elizabeth dashing Lord Chancellor 20 bushels of roses were gathered annually a good deal for the time about 30 species of roses writes Edmund Goss were known to the Elizabethan gardeners most of them did particularly well in London until the reign of James I the smoke of coal fires exterminated the most lovely and 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 sequel 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 this week water was distilled from the Damascus rose the red varieties of the rose were considered the best medicinally and they purchased that rose syrup which was so widely used both as a cordial and as an apparent the fashion for keeping purporae in dwelling rooms became so prevalent that the native gardens could not supply enough and dried yellow roses became a recognised import from Constantinople we must think of the parters of the ladies who saw Shakespeare's performance performed for the first time as a redolent with the perfume of dried, spiced and powdered rose leaves in sonnet 54 Shakespeare writes the rose looks fair but fairer we deem for that sweet ardour with stuff in it live the canker blooms have full as deep a dye as the perfumed tincture of the roses hang on such thorns and play as wantonly when summer's breath their masked buds discloses but for their virtue only as their show they live unwound and unrespected fade die to themselves sweet roses do not so have their sweet deaths our sweetest orders made for twenty seven centuries and more the rose has been considered queen of flowers her perfume her colour 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 the very word rose is a beautiful one and conjures up a particular 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 lair the words hoe the rose hoe the rose Sir Henry Watten wrote you violets that first appear purple mantles known like the proud versions of the year as if the spring were all your own what are you when the rose is blown and Hood sang the coy slip is a country winch the violet is a nun but I will woo the dainty rose the queen of every one and Shelly and the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed which unveiled the depths of her growing breast till fold after fold to the fainting air the soul of her beauty and love made bare Shelly's fold after fold reminds us that Ruskin points out that one of the rose's purees 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 ferris cheek of white no longer snowy like the Narcissus but flushed with hues of animating pink either flower, white or red being a like 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 jammy says he may place a handful of frequent 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 of rose water in the 10th 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 atar of rose or 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 erus or kippet is also wreathed in garland with roses kippet gave a rose to herpocrates, 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 reins of the pastime roses and myrtle adorn the brides of grey syndrome are used for decorations at feasts, astounds us even today no epicure was satisfied with the cup of phylirnian wine unless it were perfumed with roses and the spartan soldiers at the battle of syra 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 dedicated to gibbeter, damask roses to benus and white roses to deanna 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 saint dominic the admiration of his having been shown a chaplet of roses by the virgin originally consisted of rose leaves pressed into balls end of sweet summer buds sweet summer buds part 2 from the flowers of shakespeare this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by amy graymore the flowers of shakespeare by esther singleton lilies of all kinds the lily lilyum candidum the fact that perdita called 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 connelly the splendid yellow lilies the red martigan and spotted martigan, 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 shelly sings and the wand like lily which lifteth up as a main ad its moonlight colored cup till the fiery star which is its eye gazed through clear dew on the tender sky the ordinary white lily lilyum 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 foot stalks of a fair white color with a long pointelle in the middle and white chives tipped with yellow pendants about it the smell is something heady and strong it is called lilyum album the white lily by most writers but by poets rosa junosis junos rose how perfect is this flower texture form you sheen perfume all express exquisite loveliness the lily refreshes us with its cool beauty and its purity and lifts our thoughts upward to heaven jarad describes eight lilies in his herbal 1597 all of which were known to Shakespeare certainly among paredita's flowers was the martigan which takes its name from the Italian martigone meaning a turks turban this lily is also called chakadonian and scarlet martigan and turkscap by parkinson who tells us that the lilyum rubrum bizantantinum martigan constantinople attainum or the red martigan 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 first so highly esteemed it deserves its place and commendations it rises 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 footstocks which hang down their heads and turn up their leaves again of an excellent red crimson color and sometimes paler having a long pointale in the middle compassed with whitish chives tipped with loose yellow pendants of a reasonable good scent but somewhat faint we have another of this kind the red spotted martigan of constantinople that grow with somewhat greater and higher with a larger flower and of a deeper color spotted with diverse black spots or streaks and lines as it is to be seen in mountain lilies the martigan 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 Carmen and when the wind sweeps by them on their emerald stalks they've been so proud and graceful they are Circassian women the favorites of the Sultan down 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 oh for the burning lilies the tender eastern lilies the gorgeous tiger lilies 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 guild 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 spilt 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 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 everyone loves them and why they are entwined with many of our thoughts of art and life under the name of drossidae 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 drossidae the floral spirit passes into the calyx also and the entire flower becomes a six raid star bursting out of the stem laterally as if it were the first 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 rude and simple but most wholesome food for man then the drossidae are divided into five great orders lilies, asphidels, 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 drossidae 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 exquisite fantastic symmetry as the gladiolus put by their side their naryad 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 have been to the spirit of man first in their nobleness the lilies gave the lily of the annunciation, the asphidels the flower of the elysian fields the irids, the florida lease 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 the ididas, 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 jiglio in the French fleur de lice 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 and of lilies of all kinds summer part 3 from the flowers of Shakespeare this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Sarah Michele from Michigan 2019 the flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton crown imperial and fleur de lice the crown imperial fitillaria imperilis 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 pedal is a white and concave nectare 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 show fair-orient pearls the which drops if you take away there do it immediately appear the like not withstanding if they may be suffered and 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 in this our Garden of Delight the stock rises up three or four foot high being great, round and of a purplish color at the bottom but green above be set 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 bear or naked without leaves for a certain space upwards 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 footstock round about the great stem or stock 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 stock every leaf thereof hath on the outside a certain bunch or eminence of a dark purplish color and on the inside there lieth 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 style or pointel forked or divided at the end and six white chives tipped 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 wherewith 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 petricum or Persian lily but because we have another which is more usually called by that name I had rather with Adolphus Pancius the Duke of Florence his physician who first sent the figure thereof unto Mr. John DeBrensian 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 stock 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 plant its head and tears of sorrow filled its cup ever since that time the plant has continued to bow and sorrow and its tears flow forever Dr. Forbes Watson loves the flower with its bold decided lines 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 bear till it is topped by the crowning sheaf of leafswords out of which 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 a celebrated book called Guilonde de Julie which the Duke des Montessiers gave on New Year's Day 1634 to his bride Julie des Ramboyers it was a magnificent album every sheaf bore a beautifully painted flower and a verse descriptive of it or in praise of it contributed by different artists and poets Chapellein chose the crown imperial for his theme pretending that it spring 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 Sudacoris Pertitas' 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 daughter 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 deluses or iris in his monumental work we find the purple the blue, the purple striped the peach colored, the white the white striped, the party 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 Murray the great turkey, the common purple the great Dalmatian the yellow of Tripoli, the double blue the double purple, the purple dwarf and many others which prove how popular this flower was in Tudor and Stewart Gardens and what splendid specimens were known to the people of Shakespearean times Parkinson also adds the dried root called oris is of much use to make sweet powders and other things to perfume apparel or linen the fleur de lice early became the symbol of France at the proclamation of a new king the Franks always placed a living flower or flag that 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 the seventh took the iris for his device in 1137 from which it became known as the fleur de louis later contracted into fleur de lice when Edward III claimed the crown of France in 1340 he courted the old French shield bearing the fleur de lice with his English lion the iris or fleur de louis as the English wrote it did not disappear from the English coat of arms until 1801 Shakespeare speaks of the fleur de lice in the messenger's speech in King Henry VI Awake, awake English nobility let not sloth dim your honors new begot are the fleur de lice on your arms of England's coat one half is cut away and again in the same play lapousel I am prepared here is my keen edge sword decked with fine fleur de lice on each side in the merry wives of Windsor there is a humorous play upon words regarding the heraldic use of the fleur de lice end of Crown Imperial and Fleur de lice Starting by Sarah Michelle from Michigan 2019