"SWEET SUMMER BUDS" 201 



white and yellow." Milton noted that it was 

 "freaked with jet." Michael Drayton showed its 

 close relationship to the violet in the lines: 



The pansy and the violet here 



As seeming to descend 

 Both from one root and very fair 



For sweetness yet contend. 



Gerard wrote in 1587: 



"The stalks are weak and tender, whereupon 

 grow flowers in form and figure like the Violet and 

 for the most part of the same bigness, of three sundry 

 colors, whereof it took the surname Tricolor, that 

 is to say purple, yellow and white, or blue; by rea- 

 son of the beauty and bravery of which colors they 

 are very pleasing to the eye, for smell they have lit- 

 tle, or none at all." 



The pansy was beloved of Elizabethans : the great 

 number of popular names it had proves this. In 

 addition to Pansy and Johnny-Jump-Up, it was 

 called Herb Trinity, because of the three distinct 

 petals, which made it a flower of peculiar religious 

 significance. Another name was Three-Faces- 

 under-a-Hood because it had such a coquettish air. 

 Another name was Fancy Flamey, because its ame- 

 thystine colors are like those seen in the flames of 

 burning wood; and because lovers gave it to one 



