The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
Dead to the world, keep house unknown."
G. HERBERT, _The Flower_.
APPENDIX I.
_THE DAISY:_
_ITS HISTORY, POETRY, AND BOTANY._
There's a Daisy.--_Ophelia._
Daisies smel-lesse, yet most quaint.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.
The following Paper on the Daisy was written for the Bath Natural
History and Antiquarian Field Club, and read at their meeting, January
14th, 1874. It was then published in "The Garden," and a few copies were
reprinted for private circulation. I now publish it as an Appendix to
the "Plant-lore of Shakespeare," with very few alterations from its
original form, preferring thus to reprint it _in extenso_ than to make
an abstract of it for the illustration of Shakespeare's Daisies.
THE DAISY.
I almost feel that I ought to apologize to the Field Club for asking
them to listen to a paper on so small a subject as the Daisy. But,
indeed, I have selected that subject because I think it is one
especially suited to a Naturalists' Field Club. The members of such a
club, as I think, should take notice of everything. Nothing should be
beneath their notice. It should be their province to note a multitude of
little facts unnoticed by others; they should be "minute philosophers,"
and they might almost take as their motto the wise words which Milton
put into the mouth of Adam, after he had been instructed to "be lowlie
wise" (especially in the study of the endless wonders of sea, and earth,
and sky that surrounded him)--
"To know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom."--_Paradise Lost_, viii. (192).
I do not apologize for the lowness and humbleness of my subject, but,
with "no delay of preface" (Milton), I take you at once to it. In
speaking of the Daisy, I mean to confine myself to the Daisy, commonly
so-called, merely reminding you that there are also the Great or Ox-eye,
or Moon Daisy (_Chrysanthemum leucanthemum_), the Michaelmas Daisy
(_Aster_), and the Blue Daisy of the South of Europe (_Globularia_).
The name has been also given to a few other plants, but none of them are
true Daisies.
I begin with its name. Of this there can be little doubt; it is the
"Day's-eye," the bright little eye that only opens by day, and goes to
sleep at night. This, whether the true derivation or not, is no modern
fancy. It is, at least, as old as Chaucer, and probably much older. Here
are Chaucer's well-known words--
"Men by reason well it calle may
The Daïsie, or else the Eye of Day,
The Empresse and the flowre of flowres all."
And Ben Jonson boldly spoke of them as "bright Daye's-eyes."
There is, however, another derivation. Dr. Prior says: "Skinner derives
it from dais or canopy, and Gavin Douglas seems to have understood it in
the sense of a small canopy in the line:
"The Daisie did unbraid her crounall small.
"Had we not the A.-S. dæges-eage, we could hardly refuse to admit that
this last is a far more obvious and probable explanation of the word
than the pretty poetical thought conveyed in Day's-eye." This was Dr.
Prior's opinion in his first edition of his valuable "Popular Names of
British Plants;" but it is withdrawn in his second edition, and he now
is content with the Day's-eye derivation. Dr. Prior has kindly informed
me that he rejected it because he can find no old authority for
Skinner's derivation, and because it is doubtful whether the Daisy in
Gavin Douglas's line does not mean a Marigold, and not what we call a
Daisy. The derivation, however, seemed worth a passing notice. Its other
English names are Dog Daisy, to distinguish it from the large Ox-eyed
Daisy; Banwort, "because it helpeth bones[362:1] to knit agayne"
(Turner); Bruisewort, for the same reason; Herb Margaret, from its
French name; and in the North, Bairnwort, from its associations with
childhood. As to its other names, the plant seems to have been unknown
to the Greeks, and has no Greek name, but is fortunate in having as
pretty a name in Latin as it has in English. Its modern botanical name
is Bellis, and it has had the name from the time of Pliny. Bellis must
certainly come from _bellus_ (pretty), and so it is at once stamped as
the pretty one even by botanists--though another derivation has been
given to the name, of which I will speak soon. The French call it
Marguerite, no doubt for its pearly look, or Pasquerette, to mark it as
the spring flower; the German name for it is very different, and not
easy to explain--Gänseblume, _i.e._, Goose-flower; the Danish name is
Tusinfryd (thousand joys); and the Welsh, Sensigl (trembling star).
As Pliny is the first that mentions the plant, his account is worth
quoting. "As touching a Daisy," he says (I quote from Holland's
translation, 1601), "a yellow cup it hath also, and the same is crowned,
as it were, with a garland, consisting of five and fifty little leaves,
set round about it in manner of fine pales. These be flowers of the
meadow, and most of such are of no use at all, no marvile, therefore, if
they be namelesse; howbeit, some give them one tearme and some another"
(book xxi. cap. 8). And again, "There is a hearbe growing commonly in
medows, called the Daisie, with a white floure, and partly inclining to
red, which, if it is joined with Mugwort in an ointment, is thought to
make the medicine farre more effectual for the King's evil" (book xxvi.
cap. 5).
We have no less than three legends of the origin of the flower. In one
legend, not older, I believe, than the fourteenth century (the legend is
given at full length by Chaucer in his "Legende of Goode Women"),
Alcestis was turned into a Daisy. Another legend records that "this
plant is called Bellis, because it owes its origin to Belides, a
granddaughter to Danaus, and one of the nymphs called Dryads, that
presided over the meadows and pastures in ancient times. Belides is said
to have encouraged the suit of Ephigeus, but whilst dancing on the grass
with this rural deity she attracted the admiration of Vertumnus, who,
just as he was about to seize her in his embrace, saw her transformed
into the humble plant that now bears her name." This legend I have only
seen in Phillips's "Flora Historica." I need scarcely tell you that
neither Belides or Ephigeus are classical names--they are mediæval
inventions. The next legend is a Celtic one; I find it recorded both by
Lady Wilkinson and Mrs. Lankester. I should like to know its origin; but
with that grand contempt for giving authorities which lady-authors too
often show, neither of these ladies tells us whence she got the legend.
The legend says that "the virgins of Morven, to soothe the grief of
Malvina, who had lost her infant son, sang to her, 'We have seen, O!
Malvina, we have seen the infant you regret, reclining on a light mist;
it approached us, and shed on our fields a harvest of new flowers. Look,
O! Malvina. Among these flowers we distinguish one with a golden disk
surrounded by silver leaves; a sweet tinge of crimson adorns its
delicate rays; waved by a gentle wind, we might call it a little infant
playing in a green meadow; and the flower of thy bosom has given a new
flower to the hills of Cromla.'" Since that day the daughters of Morven
have consecrated the Daisy to infancy. "It is," said they, "the flower
of innocence, the flower of the newborn." Besides these legends, the
Daisy is also connected with the legendary history of St. Margaret. The
legend is given by Chaucer, but I will tell it to you in the words of a
more modern poet--
"There is a double flouret, white and rede,
That our lasses call Herb Margaret
In honour of Cortona's penitent;
Whose contrite soul with red remorse was rent.
While on her penitence kind Heaven did throwe
The white of puritie surpassing snowe;
So white and rede in this faire floure entwine,
Which maids are wont to scatter on her shrine."
_Catholic Florist_, Feb. 22, St. Margaret's Day.
Yet, in spite of the general association of Daisies with St. Margaret,
Mrs. Jameson says that she has seen one, and only one, picture of St.
Margaret with Daisies.
The poetry or poetical history of the Daisy is very curious. It begins
with Chaucer, whose love of the flower might almost be called an
idolatry. But, as it begins with Chaucer, so, for a time, it almost ends
with him. Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton scarcely mention it. It holds
almost no place in the poetry of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries; but, at the close of the eighteenth century, it has the good
luck to be uprooted by Burns's plough, and he at once sings its dirge
and its beauties; and then the flower at once becomes a celebrity.
Wordsworth sings of it in many a beautiful verse; and I think it is
scarcely too much to say that since his time not an English poet has
failed to pay his homage to the humble beauty of the Daisy. I do not
purpose to take you through all these poets--time and knowledge would
fail me to introduce you to them all. I shall but select some of those
which I consider best worth selection. I begin, of course, with Chaucer,
and even with him I must content myself with a selection--
"Of all the floures in the mede,
Then love I most those floures white and redde;
Such that men callen Daisies in our town.
To them I have so great affection,
As I said erst when comen is the Maye,
That in my bedde there dawneth me no daie,
That I n'am up and walking in the mede
To see this floure against the sunné sprede.
When it upriseth early by the morrow,
That blessed sight softeneth all my sorrow.
So glad am I, when that I have presence
Of it, to done it all reverence--
As she that is of all floures the floure,
Fulfilled of all virtue and honoure;
And ever ylike fair and fresh of hue,
And ever I love it, and ever ylike new,
And ever shall, till that mine heart die,
All swear I not, of this I will not lye.
There loved no wight hotter in his life,
And when that it is eve, I run blithe,
As soon as ever the sun gaineth west,
To see this floure, how it will go to rest.
For fear of night, so hateth she darkness,
Her cheer is plainly spread in the brightness
Of the sunne, for there it will unclose;
Alas, that I ne had English rhyme or prose
Suffisaunt this floure to praise aright."
I could give you several other quotations from Chaucer, but I will
content myself with this, for I think unbounded admiration of a flower
can scarcely go further than the lines I have read to you.
In an early poem published by Ritson is the following--
"Lenten ys come with love to toune
With blosmen ant with briddes roune
That al thys blisse bryngeth;
Dayeseyes in this dales,
Notes suete of nyghtegales
Vch foul song singeth."
_Ancient Songs and Ballads_, vol. i, p. 63.
Stephen Hawes, who lived in the time of Henry VII., wrote a poem called
the "Temple of Glass." In that temple he tells us--
"I saw depycted upon a wall,
From est to west, fol many a fayre image
Of sundry lovers. . . . ."
And among these lovers--
"And Alder next was the freshe quene,
I mean Alceste, the noble true wife,
And for Admete howe she lost her life,
And for her trouthe, if I shall not lye,
How she was turned into a Daysye."
We next come to Spenser. In the "Muiopotmos," he gives a list of flowers
that the butterfly frequents, with most descriptive epithets to each