"SWEET SUMMER BUDS" 207 



VIII 



Crow-flowers and Long Purples 



CROW-FLOWERS (Scilla nutans). These are 

 among the flowers Ophelia wove into a wreath. The 

 queen tells the court: 



There is a willow grove ascaunt the 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. 1 



Shakespeare did not select Ophelia's flowers at 

 random. They typified the sorrows of the gentle 

 victim of disappointed love whose end was first mad- 

 ness, then suicide. The crow-flowers signified "fair 

 maiden"; the nettles, "stung to the quick"; the 

 daisies, "her virgin bloom"; and the long purples, 

 "under the cold hand of Death." Thus what Shake- 

 speare intended to convey by this code of flowers 

 was, "A fair maiden, stung to the quick, her virgin 

 bloom in the cold hand of Death." 



It is generally supposed that the wild blue 

 hyacinth, or harebell (Scilla nutans), a flower asso- 



1 "Hamlet"; Act IV, Scene VII. 



