FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Cowslip. Primula Veris.
Dedicated to St. Catharine of Sienna.
MAY.
Then came faire May, the fayrest mayd on ground,
Deckt all with dainties of her seasons pryde,
And throwing flow’res out of her lap around:
Upon two brethren’s shoulders she did ride,
The twinnes of Leda; which on either side
Supported her, like to their soveraine Queene.
Lord! how all creatures laught, when her they spide,
And leapt and daunc’t as they had ravisht beene!
And Cupid selfe about her fluttred all in greene.
Spenser.
So hath “divinest Spenser” represented the fifth month of the year, in the grand pageant which, to all who have seen it, is still present; for neither the laureate’s office nor the poet’s art hath devised a spectacle more gorgeous. Castor and Pollux, “the twinnes of Leda,” who appeared to sailors in storms with lambent fires on their heads, mythologists have constellated in the firmament, and made still propitious to the mariner. Maia, the brightest of the Pleiades, from whom some say this month derived its name, is fabled to have been the daughter of Atlas, the supporter of the world, and Pleione, a sea-nymph. Others ascribe its name to its having been dedicated by Romulus to the Majores, or Roman senators.