And Jove’s own flower, in which three colours meet,
To rival Violets, though without their sweet.”
In addition to this grandiose title, the little flower rejoices in a multiplicity of epithets bestowed on it by rural admirers. It is Heart’s-ease, Forget-me-not, Herb Trinity, Three-Faces-under-a-Hood, Love-and-Idle, Love-in-idleness, Live-in-Idleness, Call-me-to-you, Cuddle-me-to-you, Jump-up-and-kiss-me, Kiss-me-ere-I-Rise, Kiss-me-at-the-Garden-Gate, Tittle-my-Fancy, Pink-of-my-John, and Flamy, because its colours are seen in the flame of wood. In the North-east of Scotland, and in Scandinavia, the flower is with a spice of irony called Step-mother. In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Shakspeare gives the Heart’s-ease magical qualities. Oberon bids Puck procure for him “a little western flower” on which Cupid’s dart had fallen, and which maidens called “Love-in-Idleness.”
Says the fairy king:—
“Fetch me that flower—the herb I showed thee once;
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.”
The poet Herrick tells us, in regard to the origin of these favourite flowers, that—
“Frolick virgins once there were,