Five Flowers for Friday

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, 

remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, 

and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. 

O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy. I 

would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father 

died. They say he made a good end.

Of course Ophelia was quite mad, and grieving over her father's death, when she made this speech in Hamlet, but the fact that Shakespeare included such a rich and symbolic reference to flowers shows how important they were in Elizabethan culture.

I made a recent visit to Kenilworth's Elizabethan Garden and covered the archaeological and historical background in my other blog. What I didn't say much about was the variety of flowers and plants I found there.

The idea of using flowers as symbols goes back as far as the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible. By Elizabethan times the social norms of the day prevented normal communications, particularly between potential lovers, so much was said using the code of floriography, or the language of flowers.

Robert Dudley's great garden of love has been reconstructed using contemporary sources to ensure its authenticity. It contains very many 'hidden' messages to the Queen he created it for. Here are some examples:

Let's start with the ones that Ophelia mentions.  First rosemary. Like I said, she was madly remembering her father's death, but in Dudley's case this would have been to tell Elizabeth that she was always in his thoughts.

Daisies are a difficult topic because they have very many meanings. They can mean unhappy or forsaken love, as Ophelia implies about Hamlet, but they can also mean innocence. So Dudley could have been praising his Virgin Queen.  And red daisies stand for beauty that is unknown to its possessor. Now there's a bit fat piece of flattery. QEI wasn't exactly pretty, if you study her portraits, but Dudley would have told her she was, as part of his campaign to win power.

Here's aquilegia, or columbine. This one symbolises innocence as well. Its name 'columbine' derives from the Latin for dove, because the flower is said to resemble four doves. I can't see it, frankly, but there you go. However, there's a religious link to the christian Holy Spirit, which is also symbolised by a dove. Hence purity and innocence.

The grassy bank below the viewing terrace is packed with primroses. Not only does it make for a very pretty sight (there are cowslips in among them too - representing grace) but it also screams "I will love you forever. I can't live without you" to anyone who understands the message. The flower's Latin name Primula means 'the first', because it is among the earliest flowers to appear in spring. But that was also used to imply that a person is 'first' in another's thoughts.

And finally we come to a bit of a cheat, because I'm going to talk about the hedges as one item, even though they have several species in them. Traditionally the hedges around Elizabethan knot gardens would have been box, but its meaning is stoicism, which isn't too romantic. True, Dudley had to be a bit of a stoic to keep up his pursuit of the queen's hand for as long as he did, even though he never succeeded, but that wouldn't have been too complimentary to her.  So the hedges at Kenilworth include hawthorn and holly. Hawthorn stands for hope and holly for domestic happiness. How clear a message is that?

I've done a bit of research for this post, not just at Kenilworth itself but also online. Thanks to Wikipedia (as ever) but also to this page which refers to “The Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting” by Mirella Levi D’ancona.

Thanks as always to Amy at Love Made My Home for organising the Five on Friday .  Take yourself off there to see what other people have to offer. Click here to be taken there.