Shakespeare on Flowers
The many references in the plays and sonnets to flowers and gardening conjure images of Shakespeare relaxing at his home in Stratford, away from the frantic pace of the London stage. We hope you enjoy the following selection.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (2.1.169-72)
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (2.1.255-60)
When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The Winter's Tale (4.3.1-4)
Sir, the year growing ancient,
Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter, the fairest
flowers o' the season
Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,
Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind
Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not
To get slips of them.
The Winter's Tale (4.4.92-9)
Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age.
The Winter's Tale (4.4.122-7)
Now, my fair'st friend,
I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bight Phoebus in his strength--a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,
To strew him o'er and o'er!
The Winter's Tale (4.4.133-50)
Lawn as white as driven snow;
Cyprus black as e'er was crow;
Gloves as sweet as damask roses.
The Winter's Tale (4.4.248-50)
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
King John (4.2.11-17)
Like the lily,
That once was mistress of the field and flourish'd,
I'll hang my head and perish.
Henry VIII (3.1.168-70)
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Romeo and Juliet (2.2.45-7)
What, no more ceremony? See, my women!
Against the blown rose may they stop their nose
That kneel'd unto the buds.
Antony and Cleopatra (3.13.44-6)
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks...
Sonnet 130
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
Sonnet 35
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
Sonnet 54
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Sonnet 98
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.
Sonnet 99
At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
Love's Labours Lost (1.1)
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
Love's Labours Lost (5.2.900-4)
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.
Othello (3.3.368-71)
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise.
Cymbeline (2.3.20-6)
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Ha!
Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season.
Measure for Measure (2.2.186-91)
I think the king is but a man, as I
am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the
element shows to him as it doth to me.
Henry V (4.1.155-7)
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute.
Hamlet (1.3.9-12)
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
Hamlet (4.5.170-1)
There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,--
Hamlet (4.5.190-5)
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook.
Hamlet (4.7.182-91)
Lay her i' the earth:
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.
HAMLET. What, the fair Ophelia!
QUEEN GERTRUDE. Sweets to the sweet: farewell! (Scattering flowers)
Hamlet (5.1.237-43)
'Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to
drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this
nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
1 Henry IV (2.3.9-11)
He was met even now
As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;
Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.
King Lear (4.4.2-6)
_________
Related Articles
 Daily Life in Shakespeare's London
Preface to The First Folio
Shakespeare Q & A
Quotations About William Shakespeare
Why Shakespeare is so Important
Shakespeare's Language
|
|