ON LILIES 245 



He used it repeatedly to give an effect of stainless 

 purity 



" Most radiant Pyramus, most Lily-white of hue." 



Midsummer Nights Dream. 



" Now by my maiden honour, yet pure 

 As the unsullied Lily." 



Love's Labour's Lost. 



" A most unspotted Lily shall she pass 

 To the ground." 



Henry VIII. 



" Full gently now she takes him by the hand, 

 A Lily prison'd in a jail of snow." 



Venus and Adonis. 



What was the Lily which Shakespeare had in his 

 mind in making these exquisite parallels ? In his day, 

 and later, the name Lily was used very loosely. We 

 have his own 



"Lilies of all kinds, 

 The Flower-de-luce being one," 



and we have decided already (see Chapter XXIV.) that 

 the Flower-de-luce was the Iris. But the bard could 

 hardly have had any other flower before him than the 

 true old white Lily, Lilium candidum, when he chose 

 a white Lily as a type and symbol of purity. His 

 career ranged from 1564 to 1616. The White Lily is 

 said to have been introduced to Great Britain in that 

 wonderful year for new plants, 1596. (No student can 

 fail to be struck by the number and importance of the 

 plants which botanical records tell us were introduced 

 in 1596, and the more sceptically inclined among them 

 will incline to the belief that the herbalists resolved to 

 credit 1596 with any plant of whose exact year of 

 introduction they were uncertain.) If that date were 



