The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare

PINKS.

(1)	Romeo.	A most courteous exposition.
	Mercutio.	Nay, I am the very Pink of courtesy.
	Romeo.	Pink for flower.
	Mercutio.	Right.
	Romeo.	Why, then is my pump well flowered.
Romeo and Juliet, act ii, sc. 4 (60).

(2)	Maiden.	Pinks of odour faint.
Two Noble Kinsmen, Introd. song.

To these may perhaps be added the following, from the second verse sung by Mariana in "Measure for Measure," act iv, sc. 1 (337)—

Hide, oh hide, those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears!
On whose tops the Pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears.

The authority is doubtful, but it is attributed to Shakespeare in some editions of his poems.

The Pink or Pincke was, as now, the name of the smaller sorts of Carnations, and was generally applied to the single sorts. It must have been a very favourite flower, as we may gather from the phrase "Pink of courtesy," which means courtesy carried to its highest point; and from Spenser's pretty comparison—

"Her lovely eyes like Pincks but newly spred."

Amoretti, Sonnet 64. The name has a curious history. It is not, as most of us would suppose, derived from the colour, but the colour gets its name from the plant. The name (according to Dr. Prior) comes through Pinksten (German), from Pentecost, and so was originally applied to one species—the Whitsuntide Gilliflower. From this it was applied to other species of the same family. It is certainly "a curious accident," as Dr. Prior observes, "that a word that originally meant 'fiftieth' should come to be successively the name of a festival of the Church, of a flower, of an ornament in muslin called pinking, of a colour, and of a sword stab." Shakespeare uses the word in three of its senses. First, as applied to a colour—

Come, thou monarch of the Vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with Pink eyne.

Antony and Cleopatra, act ii, sc. 7.[210:1]

Second, as applied to an ornament of dress in Romeo's person—

Then is my pump well flowered;

Romeo and Juliet, act ii, sc. 4.

i.e., well pinked. And in Grumio's excuses to Petruchio for the non-attendance of the servants—

Nathaniel's coat, Sir, was not fully made,
And Gabriel's pumps were all unpinked
I' the heel.

Taming of the Shrew, act iv, sc. 1.

And thirdly, as the pinked ornament in muslin—

There's a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that railed upon me till her Pink'd porringer fell off her head.

Henry VIII, act v, sc. 3.

And as applied to the flower in the passage quoted above. He also uses it in another sense—

This Pink is one of Cupid's carriers;
Clap on more sail—pursue!

Merry Wives of Windsor, act ii, sc. 7.

where pink means a small country vessel often mentioned under that name by writers of the sixteenth century.

FOOTNOTES:

[210:1] It is very probable that this does not refer to the colour—"Pink = winking, half-shut."—Schmidt. And see Nares, s.v. Pinke eyne.

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