Conf. Aman., lib. quint.
Chaucer spoke of the "yellow Goldes;"[157:1] in the "Promptorium Parvulorum" we have "Goolde, herbe, solsequium, quia sequitur solem, elitropium, calendula;" and Spenser says—
"And if I her like ought on earth might read
I would her liken to a crowne of Lillies,
Upon a virgin brydes adorned head,
With Roses dight and Goolds and Daffodillies."
Colin Clout.
But it was its other quality of opening or shutting its flowers at the sun's bidding that made the Marigold such a favourite with the old writers, especially those who wrote on religious emblems. It was to them the emblem of constancy in affection,[157:2] and sympathy in joy and sorrow, though it was also the emblem of the fawning courtier, who can only shine when everything is bright. As the emblem of constancy, it was to the old writers what the Sunflower was to Moore—
"The Sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she did when he rose."
It was the Heliotrope or Solsequium or Turnesol of our forefathers, and is the flower often alluded to under that name.[158:1] "All yellow flowers," says St. Francis de Sales, "and, above all, those that the Greeks call Heliotrope, and we call Sunflower, not only rejoice at the sight of the sun, but follow with loving fidelity the attraction of its rays, gazing at the sun, and turning towards it from its rising to its setting" ("Divine Love," Mulholland's translation).
Of this higher and more religious use of the emblematic flower there are frequent examples. I will only give one from G. Withers, a contemporary of Shakespeare's later life—
"When with a serious musing I behold
The grateful and obsequious Marigold,
How duly every morning she displays
Her open breast when Phœbus spreads his rays;
How she observes him in his daily walk,
Still bending towards him her small slender stalk;
How when he down declines she droops and mourns,
Bedewed, as 'twere, with tears till he returns;
And how she veils her flowers when he is gone.
When this I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours,
And give us fair examples to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries
Wherewith we court these earthly things below,
Which merit not the service we bestow."