  CROW-FLOWERS (Scilla nutans). These are among the flowers Ophelia wove into a wreath. The queen tells the court: There is a willow grove ascaunt the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. There, with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. Shakespeare did not select Ophelia's flowers at random. They typified the sorrows of the gentle victim of disappointed love whose end was first madness, then suicide. The crow-flowers signified "fair maiden"; the nettles, "stung to the quick"; the daisies, "her virgin bloom"; and the long purples, "under the cold hand of Death." Thus what Shakespeare intended to convey by this code of flowers was, "A fair maiden, stung to the quick, her virgin bloom in the cold hand of Death." It is generally supposed that the wild blue hyacinth, or harebell (Scilla nutans), a flower asso Then round the meddowes did she walk Catching each flower by the stalk, Such as within the meddowes grew, As dead man's thumb and harebell blue, And as she pluckt them still cried she, "Alas! there's none ere loved like me." Some critics have objected to the blue harebell because it is a spring flower, and it is midsummer when Ophelia drowns herself. These authorities suggest the Ragged Robin for Ophelia's crow-flower, and others again the buttercup, also called creeping crowfoot (Ranunculus repens). Bloom writes: "It is generally assumed that the flowers are those of the meadow and that a moist one. Why? It is equally probable they are those of the shady hedge bank and that the crow-flowers are the poisonous rank Ranunculus reptans and its allies; that the nettles are the ordinary Urtica dioica not necessarily in flower, or if this be objected to on account of the stinging qualities which the distraught Ophelia might not be insensible to, its place could be taken by the white dead nettle Lamium album L. The daisies may be moon-daisies and the long purples PLEACHING AND PLASHING, FROM "THE GARDENER'S LABYRINTH" SMALL ENCLOSED GARDEN, FROM "THE GARDENER'S LABYRINTH" The crow has given its name to many flowers. There are, indeed, more plants named for the crow than for any other bird: crowfoot, crow-toes, crow-bells (for daffodil and bluebells) crow-berry, crow-garlick, crow-leeks, crow-needles, and many others. LONG PURPLE (Arum masculatam or Orchis mascula) is very closely related to our woodland Jack-in-the-Pulpit. It has many names: Arum; Cookoo-pint, Cookoo-pintle, Wake-Robin, Friar's-cowl, Lords-and-Ladies, Cow-and-Calves, Ramp, Starchwort, Bloody-men's-finger, and Gethsemane, as the plant is said to have been growing at the Cross and to have received some drops of the Savior's blood. This flower is mentioned in Tennyson's "A Dirge": Round thee blow, self-pleached deep, Bramble roses, faint and pale, And long purples of the dale. Dr. Forbes Watson writes: "I use the old name Wake Robin because it is so full of poetry—to think of the bird aroused from sleep by the soundless ringing of the bell. Arum, or Lords and Ladies, is the more usual name." The plant is under the dominion of Mars, so the astrologers said. |
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