LILY/LILY OF THE VALLEY

PERDITA

LILIES of all kinds,

The flower-de-luce being one!

—Winter’s Tale [Act IV, sc. 4]

LAUNCE

Look you, she is as white

as a LILY and as small as a wand.

—Two Gentlemen of Verona [Act II, sc. 3]

PRINCESS OF FRANCE

Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure

As the unsullied LILY.

—Love’s Labour’s Lost [Act V, sc. 2]

KATHERINE OF ARAGON

Like the LILY

That once was mistress of the field and flourish’d,

I’ll hang my head, and perish.

—Henry VIII [Act III, sc. 1]

JULIA

The air hath starved the roses in her cheeks,

And pinch’d the LILY-tincture

of her face.

—Two Gentlemen of Verona [Act IV, sc. 4]

FLUTE/THISBE

Most radiant Pyramus,

most LILY-WHITE of hue.

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

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

LILIES that fester smell far worse than weeds.

—Sonnet XCIV

FLUTE/THISBE

These LILY lips.

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

CRANMER

Yet a virgin,

A most unspotted LILY shall she pass

To the ground.

—Henry VIII [Act V, sc. 5]

IACHIMO

How bravely thou becomes thy bed,

fresh LILY!

—Cymbeline [Act II, sc. 2]

TROILUS

Give me swift transportance to those fields,

Where I may wallow in the LILY beds . . .

—Troilus and Cressida [Act III,sc. 2]

MARCUS

O, had the monster seen those LILY hands

Tremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute.

—Titus Andronicus [Act II, sc. 4]

TITUS

Fresh tears

Stood upon her cheeks, as doth the honey-dew

Upon a gather’d LILY almost wither’d.

—Titus Andronicus [Act II, sc. 1]

CONSTANCE

Of Nature’s gifts thou may’st

with LILIES boast,

And with the half-blown rose.

—King John [Act III, sc. 1]

GUIDERIUS

O sweetest, fairest LILY!

My brother wears thee not the one half so well,

As when thou grew’st thyself.

—Cymbeline [Act IV, sc. 2]

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]

KENT

A LILY-LIVERED, action taking knave.

—King Lear [Act II, sc. 2]

MACBETH

Thou LILY-LIVER’D boy.

—Macbeth [Act V, sc. 3]

Nor did I wonder at the LILY’S white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion of the rose.

—Sonnet XCVIII

The LILY I condemned for thy hand.

—Sonnet XCIX

Their silent war of LILIES and of roses

Which Tarquin view’d in her fair face’s field.

—Lucrece

Her LILY hand her rosy cheek lies under,

Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss.

—Lucrece

The colour in thy face

That even for anger makes the LILY pale,

And the red rose blush at her own disgrace.

—Lucrece

A LILY pale with damask die to grace her.

—Passionate Pilgrim

Full gently now she takes him by the hand,

A LILY prison’d in a jail of snow.

—Venus and Adonis

She locks her LILY fingers one in one.

—Venus and Adonis

Whose wonted LILY white

With purple tears, that his wound wept,

was drench’d.

—Venus and Adonis