ON DAFFODILS AND NARCISSI 135 



probably be a futile task to endeavour to trace the cir- 

 cumstances in which the " d " became added. 



The Daffodil is not merely the Daffodil, however it 

 is also the Daffadowndilly ; so that at some time or other 

 it not only acquired an extra letter in front, but several 

 additional ones at the end. Dr. Prior thinks that Daffa- 

 downdilly is a corruption of Saffron Lily, but it may 

 have been manufactured by a poet to assist a metre. 

 Constable (1562-1613) uses the word 



" Diaphenia, like the Daffadowndilly 

 White as the sun, fair as the Lilly." 



And Milton speaks of " the Daffodillies " that 

 " Fill their cups with tears." 



Our greatest poets have written of the Daffodil. 

 Shakespeare refers to it repeatedly, and no lines relating 

 to a flower are more familiar than those from "The 

 Winter's Tale," Act iv., scene 3, where Perdita cries 



" Now, my fair'st friend, 



I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might 

 Become your time of day ; and yours, and yours, 

 That wear upon your virgin branches yet 

 Your maidenheads growing : O Proserpina ! 

 For the flowers now that frighted thou lett'st fall 

 From Dis's waggon : Daffodils, 

 That come before the swallow dares, and take 

 The winds of March with beauty." 



And in the same play, so rich in allusions, which 

 have now become classical, to flowers, scene 3 of the 

 fourth act begins with Autolycus singing 



" When Daffodils begin to peer, 

 With heigh ! the doxy over the dale, 

 Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year ; 

 For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale." 



Herrick, Keats, and Shelley continued the Daffodil 



