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| Thursday, 12 August 2004 |
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Flowers from Shakespeare's Warwickshire by Gwen Herat
Born to rural England of his time, William Shakespeare was passionately fond of flowers from his native Warwickshire gardens with such matchless skills, it would have amazed a botanist of the day. He was a keen observer, the flowers had effect on the changing of the seasons as found in his plays. He sang their praise and the homage to them remained eternal as we see it today each time we study his plays. Most of these flowers whose glory he wrote upon are still found in the gardens of Warwickshire and Stratford-Upon-Avon. With an instinct by birth and influenced by his native surroundings, his plays and sonnets made room for them to play key roles. His knowledge of flowers, plants, herbs as found in the innumerable passages is ample proof of his knowledge. The Shakespeare properties of Mary Arden's House at Wilmcote, Nash's House and New Place at Stratford, Hall's Croft in Old Town, Anne Hathaway's Cottage in Shottery and Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford.
All these houses had gardens over-laden with flowers of choice as well as with wild flowers the Bard loved. The Shakespeare Trust endeavour to maintain them in the same identity of Bard's lifestyle. Some flowers are retained from the original seeds, propagated over and over the seasons without a break in lineage. A difficult process but then that is the passion of the gardeners of the Shakespearean properties. Even some of the roses still endure this process. 'What's in a name? This which we call a Rose By any other name would smell as sweet.' Romeo and Juliet II. 2. Come sit thee down upon this flowery bed. While I thy amiable cheeks do coy. And stick musk-roses in the sleek smooth head, And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.' Midsummer Night's Dream IV. 4. Roses were clearly his favourites. He discovered an unsurpassed beauty and incomparable fragrance whereby most of his exquisite poetry was inspired by them. The red and white roses were the emblems of the House of York and Lancaster that also drew approval from the Bard. Even the simple Promrose had his ardour and to him it meant a messenger heralding the joy of springtime. 'Pale promrose, that die unmarried, ere they can behold, Bright Pheobus his strength. The Winter's Tale, IV. 4. During Shakespeare's time, wild pansies were small to what they are today but retained the colours of white, purple and yellow and often in variegated mixture. The Bard his own name for the pansy, calling it love-in-idleness and used them for his own magic love charm. 'Yet marked 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 II. 1. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts. Hamlet IV. 5. Shakespeare's As You Like It clearly provided the magical inspiration he derived from the lush freshness of the Avon meadows and the wooded landscape of the Arden forests and hardly less than what he found in his home town and in London. Twenty nine scenes of his plays are set in gardens which displayed the calm, serene and old-fashioned loveliness of cultivated flowers. The Bard was equally familiar with trees and plants, herbs and foliage as that of the woodlands and hedge grow which instilled in him an accurate knowledge of the processes of pruning and grafting that existed during his time. He had the poetic feeling on imageries and their presence whenever he encountered them. He wrote on the Adonis Flower. 'The flowers are sweet, their colour fresh and trim.' Venus and Adonis He wrote exquisitely on daffodils and conveyed their beauty and freshness and symbolised the joy and freedom of youth. He even mentioned that the harsh winds of March could not daunt the daffodils which heralded the spring in woodlands. Such were his keen observations; 'When daffodils begin to peer. With hey, the doxy over the dale. Why then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns the winter's pale.' The Winter's Tale, IV. 3. 'Daffodils that come before the swallows dares, and take the winds of March with beauty. The Winter's Tale, IV. 4. The Long-Purple was a flower that even baffled Shakespeare as many identified it as an early purple orchid of the woods and meadows. Though many had different opinions about the strange looks about the flowers, it did not escape the keen eye of the Bard who described its mystery; 'Of crow-flowers, daisies and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name but our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.' Hamlet, IV. 7. And to the poet whose passion were flowers, his monument in the chapel of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-Upon-Avon is bedecked with floral tributes year after year on 23 April the day was born and the day he died which is also the day of St. George. |
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