The daisy is among the flowers in the fantastic garlands that poor Ophelia wove before her death.[36]
[34] Act V, Scene II.
[35] Stanza 57.
[36] "Hamlet"; Act IV, Scene VII.
The botanical name Bellis shows the origin of the flower. Belides, a beautiful Dryad, trying to escape the pursuit of Vertumnus, god of gardens and orchards, prayed to the gods for help; and they changed her into the tiny flower. In allusion to this Rapin wrote:
When the bright Ram, bedecked with stars of gold,
Displays his fleece the Daisy will unfold,
To nymphs a chaplet and to beds a grace,
Who once herself had borne a virgin's face.
The daisy was under the care of Venus. It has been beloved by English poets ever since Chaucer sang the praises of the day's eye—daisy. Chaucer tells us, in what is perhaps the most worshipful poem ever addressed to a flower, that he always rose early and went out to the fields, or meadows, to pay his devotions to this "flower of flowers," whose praises he intended to sing while ever his life lasted, and he bemoaned the fact, moreover, that he had not words at his command to do it proper reverence.
Next to Chaucer in paying homage to the daisy comes Wordsworth with his