VIOLET

OBERON

Where oxlips and the nodding VIOLET grows.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act II, sc. 1]

QUEEN

The VIOLETS, cowslips, and the primroses,

Bear to my closet.

—Cymbeline [Act I, sc. 5]

SALISBURY

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

To throw a perfume on the VIOLET . . .

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

—King John [Act IV, sc. 2]

ANGELO

It is I,

That, lying by the VIOLET in the sun,

Do as the carrion does,

not as the flower,

Corrupt with virtuous season.

—Measure for Measure [Act II, sc. 2]

HENRY V

I think the king is but a man, as I am; the

VIOLET smells to him as it doth to me.

—Henry V [Act IV, sc. 1]

LAERTES

A VIOLET in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent; sweet, not lasting.

The perfume and suppliance of a minute;

No more.

—Hamlet [Act I, sc. 3]

OPHELIA

I would give you some VIOLETS,

but they withered all when my father died.

—Hamlet [Act IV, sc. 5]

LAERTES

Lay her i’ the earth,

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May VIOLETS spring!

—Hamlet [Act V, sc. 1]

BELARIUS

They are as gentle

As zephyrs blowing below the VIOLET . . .

—Cymbeline [Act IV, sc. 2]

ORSINO

It came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of VIOLETS . . .

—Twelfth Night [Act I, sc. 1]

SONG OF SPRING

When daisies pied, and VIOLETS blue . . .

—Love’s Labour’s Lost [Act V, sc. 2]

PERDITA

VIOLETS dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes

Or Cytherea’s breath.

—Winter’s Tale [Act IV, sc. 4]

DUCHESS OF YORK

Welcome, my son; who are the VIOLETS now,

That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?

—Richard II [Act V, sc. 2]

MARINA

The yellows, blues,

The purple VIOLETS and marigolds,

Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave

While summer-days do last.

— Pericles [Act IV, sc. 1]

These blue-veined VIOLETS whereon we lean

Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.

—Venus and Adonis

Who when he lived, his breath and beauty set

Gloss on the rose, smell to the VIOLET.

—Venus and Adonis

When I behold the VIOLET past prime,

And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go . . .

—Sonnet XII

The forward VIOLET thus did I chide:

“Sweet thief, whence didst thou

steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells

In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly died.”

—Sonnet XCIX