Then stain’d with dusky blue the virgin’s face:
Discolour’d thus an humbler state she prov’d,
Less fair, but by the goddess more belov’d;
Changed to a Violet with this praise she meets,
Chaste she retires to keep her former sweets.
The lowest places with this flower abound,
The valuable gift of untill’d ground;
Nor yet disgraced, though amongst Briars brought forth,
So rich her odour is, so true her worth.”
Ion, the Greek name for the Violet, is reputed to have been bestowed on it because, when Jupiter had metamorphosed Io into a white heifer, he caused sweet Violets to spring from the earth, in order to present her with herbage worthy of her.