THE WEEPING WILLOW 149 



over a sepulchral urn, and conveys those soothing, 

 though melancholy reflections that made the poet 

 write 



" ' "lis better to have loved and lost 

 Than never to have loved at all.' " 



In the classical poets, we meet with only a few 

 allusions to the Willow as growing by the water-side, 

 and as twisted into baskets by the ancient Britons, 

 the word " basket " itself being one of the few words 

 which, under the form " bascauda," ancient Britain 

 seems to have given to the Latin vocabulary. The 

 word Willow itself, from the early English ivelig, 

 indicates pliability or willingness, and is assuredly 

 more appropriate to the Weeping Willow, with its 

 lonsf, slender, flexible shoots, than to some other 

 species ; but from Elizabethan times the tree has in- 

 variably been the symbol of forsaken love. This is 

 remarkable, since, with one exception, all the Biblical 

 references to this group of trees are associated with 

 joyfulness and fertility. Yet for Spenser it is 



"The Willow worne of forlorne paramoures " ; 



whilst in addition to the ballad fragment sung by 

 Desdemona, the beautiful description of Ophelia's 

 death, and various other allusions to the tree, Shake- 

 speare, in the Merchant of Venice, represents 

 Dido lamenting the loss of /Eneas 



" with a Willow in her hand 

 Upon the wild sea banks, and waved her love 

 To come again to Carthage." 



It is difficult not to associate the Willow that 



" grows ascaunt the brook, 

 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream," 



