Shakespeare's Botanical
Catalogues
The
use of flower catalogues is a common feature of Renaissance
literature. The accuracy, extent, and detail of botanical
knowledge may be judged from the literary essay "Of
Gardens" by Francis Bacon. The literary
purpose of flower catalogues is fundamentally aesthetic: i.e.,
poetry is an art form using words, and the words for flower
species are among the most beautiful in the language. These
flower catalogues are the artistic equivalent of flower bouquets,
or, in the word of the times, "nosegays." And what is the
purpose of picking or buying a boquet of flowers, and
putting it up in your home? It's the enrichment of our daily
life, the same general, everyday purpose behind all
poetry, culture and art.
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from Love's Labour's
Lost
When daisies
pied and violets
blue,
And lady-smocks,
all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds
of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo
then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
Cuckoo!
from Hamlet
The
ousel-cock
so black of hue,
With orange-tawny
bill;
The throstle
with his note so true,
The wren
with little quill.
What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
The finch,
the sparrow,
and the lark,
The plainsong cuckoo
grey,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer
'Nay.'
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