MAY 113 



which leaves a disagreeable bitter taste in the mouth 

 when bitten. 



No flower has a greater wealth of alias than the 

 pansy. Oberon explains its colour : 



' Yet marked I where the dart of Cupid fell ; 

 It fell upon a little western flower, 

 Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, 

 And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.' 



Note, however, that this does not mean love in in- 

 dolence; love-in-idleness, more commonly love-in-idle, 

 means love-in-vain hopeless love, as in the Pardoner's 



Tale: 



* The other heste of hym is this, 

 Take not in ydel my name nor arnys.' 



Spenser calls this flower the pawnee, and Dr. Prior 

 enumerates the following names for it herb Trinity, 

 three-faces-under-a-hood, fancy, flamy, kiss-me-ere-I- 

 rise, jump-up-and-kiss-me, pink-of-my-John, and others 

 such as fond lovers use. With all these to choose from, 

 it seems rather unfair that this spoiled darling should 

 have been allowed to filch the name 'heartsease,' 

 which the wallflower had already earned in virtue of 

 its cordial properties, and imported into it some of that 

 amatory allusion in which the profligate pansy is so 

 deeply involved. 



But from the earliest times lovers have been incor- 

 rigible in appropriating blossoms to their own purposes, 

 though some of the resulting names have been the 

 consequence of blunders. For instance, it is hardly 

 likely that any swain would choose the coarse annual 

 called love-lies-bleeding to express his pain ; there 

 II 



