THE LILY (Lilium candidum). The fact that Perdita calls for "lilies of all kinds" shows that Shakespeare loved one of the most beautiful families of flowers that grace the earth, and knew the many varieties that grew in the English gardens of his day, which include the Lily-of-the-Valley (in his time called Lily Conally); the splendid yellow lilies; the red martagon and spotted martagon (tiger-lilies); as well as the pure white lily. Parkinson, who writes so beautifully of plants and blossoms, did not neglect the lily. He says: "The lily is the most stately flower among many," and he directs attention "to the wonderful variety of lilies known to us in these days, much more so than in former times."

First on the list comes the white lily, which has always been regarded from time immemorial as the most beautiful member of this most beautiful family, a picture of purity with its white silken petals exquisitely set off by the yellow anthers and breathing such delicious fragrance. This is the lily of which Shelley sings:

"The ordinary White Lily, Lilium candidum," writes Parkinson, "scarce needeth any description, it is so well known and so frequent in every garden. The stalk is of a blackish green color, having many fair broad and long green leaves. The flower stands upon long green footstalks, of a fair white color, with a long pointell in the middle and white chives tipt with yellow pendants about it. The smell is something heady and strong. It is called Lilium album, the White Lily, by most writers; but by poets, Rosa Junonis, Juno's Rose."

How perfect is this flower! Texture, form, hue, sheen, perfume—all express exquisite loveliness. The lily refreshes us with its cool beauty and its purity and lifts our thoughts upward to heaven.

Gerard describes eight lilies in his "Herbal" (1597), all of which were known to Shakespeare. Certainly among Perdita's flowers was the martagon, which takes its name from the Italian martagone, meaning a Turk's turban. This lily is also called "Chalcedonian" and "Scarlet martagon" and "Turk's Cap," by Parkinson, who tells us that the "Lilium rubrum Byzantinum Martagon Constantinopolitanum, or the red martagon of Constantinople, is become so common everywhere and so well known to all lovers of these delights that I shall seem unto them to lose time to bestow many lines upon it; yet because it is so fair a flower and was at the first so highly esteemed, it deserveth its place and commendations. It riseth out of the ground bearing a round, brownish stalk, beset with many fair green leaves confusedly thereon, but not so broad as the common White Lily, upon the top whereof stand one, two, or three, or more, flowers upon long footstalks, which hang down their heads and turn up their leaves again, of an excellent red crimson color and sometimes paler, having a long pointell in the middle compassed with whitish chives, tipt with loose yellow pendants, of a reasonable good scent, but somewhat faint. We have another of this kind, the Red Spotted Martagon of Constantinople, that groweth somewhat greater and higher with a larger flower, and of a deeper color, spotted with divers black spots, or streaks, and lines, as is to be seen in Mountain Lilies."

The martagon belongs to the tiger-lily class, whose characteristics have been so imaginatively brought out by Thomas Bailey Aldrich:

Shakespeare has many beautiful passages concerning the lily. He often refers to its whiteness. He considers it as impossible a task "to paint the lily" as it is "to gild refined gold," or "to throw a perfume on the violet."

How the lily was loved by the ancients! The Egyptians adored it; the Persians named cities for it; the Hebrews worshiped it. The Greeks and Romans called the lily Juno's flower, and fancied that the flower owed its very existence to drops of milk spilled on earth from Juno's white breast when she was nursing the infant Hercules.

The church consecrated the lily to the Virgin Mary. It was her flower as Queen of Heaven. In many old religious paintings of the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel, appearing before the Virgin, usually holds the "Annunciation Lily," or "Madonna Lily" in his hand. Joseph's staff was said to have blossomed into lilies, and it is the white lily that is usually represented in this connection.

Wonderful family this lily tribe, flowers of the grand style and haughty demeanor! Ruskin enlightens us as to why it is every one loves them and why they are entwined with many of our thoughts of art and life:

"Under the name of DrosidÆ come plants delighting in interrupted moisture—moisture which comes either partially, or at certain seasons—into dry ground. They are not water-plants, but the signs of water resting among dry places. In the DrosidÆ the floral spirit passes into the calix also, and the entire flower becomes a six-rayed star, bursting out of the stem laterally, as if it were the first of flowers and had made its way to the light by force through the unwilling green. They are often required to retain moisture, or nourishment, for the future blossom through long times of drought; and this they do in bulbs underground, of which some become a rude and simple, but most wholesome food for man.

"Then the DrosidÆ are divided into five great orders—lilies, asphodels, amaryllis, irids and rushes. No tribes of flowers have had so great, so varied, or so healthy an influence on man as this great group of DrosidÆ, depending not so much on the whiteness of some of their blossoms, or the radiance of others, as on the strength and delicacy of the substance of their petals; enabling them to take forms of faultless, elastic curvature, either in cups, as the Crocus, or expanding bells, as the true Lily, or heath-like bells, as the Hyacinth, or bright and perfect stars, like the Star of Bethlehem, or, when they are affected by the strange reflex of the serpent nature which forms the labiate group of all flowers, closing into forms of exquisitely fantastic symmetry as the Gladiolus. Put by their side their Nereid sisters, the Water-lilies, and you have in them the origin of the loveliest forms of ornamental design and the most powerful floral myths yet recognized among human spirits, born by the streams of the Ganges, Nile, Arno and Avon.

"For consider a little what each of those five tribes has been to the spirit of man. First, in their nobleness; the Lilies gave the Lily of the Annunciation; the Asphodels, the flower of the Elysian Fields; the Irids, the fleur-de-lys of chivalry; and the Amaryllis, Christ's lily of the fields; while the Rush, trodden always under foot, became the emblem of humility. Then take each of the tribes and consider the extent of their lower influence. Perdita's 'the Crown Imperial, lilies of all kinds,' are the first tribe, which, giving the type of perfect purity in the Madonna's Lily, have, by their lovely form, influenced the entire decorative design of Italian sacred art; while ornament of war was continually enriched by the curves of the triple petals of the Florentine 'giglio' and the French fleur-de-lys; so that it is impossible to count their influence for good in the Middle Ages, partly as a symbol of womanly character and partly of the utmost brightness and refinement in the city which was the 'flower of cities.'"

Astrologers placed the lily under the moon; and the flower is certainly dreamy enough and celestial enough to be under the rule of Diana, or Astarte.