"There's rosemary, that's for rememberance, pray you love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts." ~Ophelia
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxslips and the nodding violet grows, quite overcanopied with lucious woodbine, with sweet musk roses and with eglantine." ~Oberon
Shakespeare used references to many varieties of flora and fauna in his plays and sonnets. These descriptions are sometimes lovely in themselves, and the often have symbolic meanings. Certain fowers in Elizabethan, and later Victorian, society carried specific messages.
Interested in learning about these meanings? Finding some of Shakespeare's "flowery" passages? Want to make your own Shakespeare Garden? It's all here. |
