Saffron. 
(1) Who (z. el Iris), with thy Saffron wings upon my flowers, 
Diffusest honeydrops, refreshing showers.— Tempest , iv. i, 78. 
(2) Did this companion with the Saffron face 
Revel and feast it at my house to-day ? 
Comedy of Errors , iv. 4, 64. 
(3) I must have Saffron to colour the Warden pies. 
Winter’s Tale , iv. 3, 48. 
(4) No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow there, 
whose villanous Saffron would have made all the unbaked and 
doughy youth of a nation in his colour. 
All’s Well that Ends Well , iv. 5, 1. 
AFFRON (from its Arabic name, al zahafaran ) 
was not, in Shakespeare’s time, limited to the 
drug or to the Saffron bearing Crocus (C. 
sativus ), but it was the general name for all the 
Croci, and was even extended to the Colchi- 
cums, which were called Meadow Saffrons. 1 
We have no Crocus really a native of Britain, but a few species 
(C. vernus , C. niidiflorus , C. aureus , and C. biflorus ) have 
been so naturalized in certain parts as to be admitted, though 
very doubtfully, into the British flora; but the Saffron Crocus 
can in no way be considered a native, and the history of its 
1 Fuller says of the crocodile—“ He hath his name of xP°X^-^ el ^ 05 > or 
the Saffron-fearer, knowing himself to be all poison, and it all antidote.” 
— Worthies of England^ i. 336, ed. 1811. See Phipson— Animal Lore of 
Shakespeare , 309. 
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