PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
61 
(23) As Corn o’ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear 
Is almost choked by unresisted lust.— Lucrece , 281. 
I have made these quotations as short as possible. They 
could not be omitted, but they require no comment. 
Cowslip, 
(1) The even mead that erst brought sweetly forth 
The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and green Clover. 
Henry V\ v. 2, 48. 
(2) The Violets, Cowslips, and the Primroses, 
Bear to my closet.— Cymbeline , i. 5, 83. 
(3) On her left breast 
A mole, cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops 
I’ the bottom of a Cowslip. — Ibid. , ii. 2, 37. 
(4) Where the bee sucks there suck I, 
In a Cowslip’s bell I lie.— Tempest , v. 1, 88. 
(5) Those yellow Cowslip cheeks. 
Midsummer Night's Dream, v. 1, 339. 
(6) The Cowslips tall her pensioners be ; 
In their gold coats spots you see ; 
Those be rubies, fairy favours, 
In those freckles live their savours ; 1 
I must go seek some dewdrops here, 
And hang a pearl in every Cowslip’s ear. 
Midsununer Night's Dream , ii. 1, 10. 2 
“ Cowslips ! how the children love them, and go out into 
the fields on the sunny April mornings to collect them in 
their little baskets, and then come home and pick the pips 
1 “Their savours.” £< The five orange spots at the bottom of the corolla 
are supposed to contain the peculiar odour of the plant. ”— Hamilton, 
“ River-side Naturalist,” p. 361. 
2 Drayton also allotted the Cowslip as the special Fairies’ flower— 
“ For the queene a fitting bower, 
(Quoth he) is that tall Cowslip flower.”— Nymphidia. 
