72 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
Venus, with young Adonis sitting by her, 
Under a myrtle shade began to woo him.—xi. 2. 
And in Venus and Adonis, 865 : 
Then sad she hasteth to a myrtle grove. 
It is also mentioned in the plays, Antony and 
Cleopatra, III. xii. 8, and Measure for Measure , II. 
ii. 117. The old English name, gale, is still used 
of the bog myrtle ( Myrica gale, L.), a plant of our 
moors and bogs still, employed for tea-making and in 
cottage medical recipes. 
Perhaps few flowers have more popular names than 
the pansy ( Viola tricolor, L.). We find in Shake¬ 
speare Cupid's flower, love-in-idleness, and pansy, 
while heart’s-ease is inferred; and Prior adds to 
them: Herb Trinity; three faces under a hood; fancy 
flamy; kiss me, cull me, or cuddle me to you; tickle- 
my-fancy; kiss me ere I rise ; jump up and kiss me; 
kiss me at (or over) the garden gate ; pink of my 
John; love-in-idleness. 
“ Its habit ” (he says, p. 171) “of coquettishly 
hanging its head and half hiding its face, as well 
as some fancied resemblances in the throat of the 
corolla, have led to many quaint names in our own 
and foreign languages.” 
Pansy, or pawnee, comes from French pensee, or 
menues pensees, and the German unmitze sorge; Latin 
panacea. Love-in-idleness is quite a common name in 
Warwickshire to-day. The name heart's-ease is sug¬ 
gested in Hamlet , IV. v. 176 : 
There is pansies—that’s for thoughts. 
That of Cupid's flower, said by Ellacombe (p. 207) 
to be peculiar to Shakespeare, occurs in Midsummer- 
Night's Dream, IV. i. 78 : 
Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower 
Hath such force and blessed power. 
