IO 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
And again : 
Thou shalt not lack 
The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose. 
Cymbeline, IV, ii. 220. 
And once the word “pale” is replaced by “ faint” : 
Where often you and I 
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie. 
Midsummer-Night's Dream, I. i. 214 . 
Twice the primrose-decked way is used as a synonym 
for easy dalliance: Hamlet , I. iii. 50, and Macbeth , 
II. iii. 21 . 
Certes Shakespeare dearly loved the primrose¬ 
decked banks of his native lanes, where they still 
flourish in wonted luxuriance. 
But the flower has a more than romantic interest : 
it is so variable, so tending to cross with its near 
relatives, that it has ever been a botanical puzzle. It 
is the Primula acaulis of Linn., the P. vulgaris of Huds., 
and found throughout Europe as far south as North 
Africa. It has a very marked stalked variety and 
two hybrids, while crosses with the oxslip and cowslip 
are met with in a wild state. It is, moreover, the 
parent of all the numerous variegated polyanthus 
flowers of our old-fashioned cottage gardens. 
Its name is as much a difficulty with the etymolo¬ 
gist as the plant itself is to the botanist, and it 
has passed, so says Prior, from jlor di prima vera , 
through the Italian primaverola to the French prime - 
verole , and thus through primerole to Spensers 
“ primrose,” but was also used in the form “ pryme- 
rose ” for privet (Turner), and even Gerard calls 
privet “prim privet,” and the Latin form primida 
seems to have been assigned by early writers to the 
daisy. There is little doubt Shakespeare stamped the 
name upon the flower now so called, and after his date 
it is rarely named by any other. Following the prim- 
