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What was love-in-idleness?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

March 12, 2004

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The modern day pansy (Viola x wittrockiana Gams) is far from its wild heritage finding a home among gardeners around the world. According to the American Horticultural Society, the numerous pansy cultivars are complex hybrids of the Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor), the yellow violet (V. lutea), the horned violet (V. cornuta), and Viola altaica. (A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, AHS, Brickell and Zuk, Dorling Kindersley, 1996)

Johnny Jump Up, Cache Valley, Utah, USA Photographic Print
Scott T. Smith Buy Photographic Print at AllPosters.com

The pansy has been cultivated for centuries. In general, the name refers to any of the color forms and hybrids of Viola tricolor and comes from its French name pensée meaning thought, idea, think, or remember. Viola tricolor with its typical purple, blue, and yellow or white 'face' was known in the Middle Ages as Herba Trinitatis, the three colors symbolic of the Christian trinity.

Wild pansy flowers may be solid or any combination of yellow, white, blue, or purple. Mrs. M. Grieve listed twenty-five names for pansies that she had heard in England. Most of the names suggest its romantic charm and use in love philters; Johnny-jump-up is simply a shortened version of Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me. Other names included: heart's-ease, cuddle me, love idol, kiss-her-in-the-buttery, and meet-me-in-the-entry. (A Modern Herbal, Mrs. M. Grieve, 1931, reprinted Barnes and Noble, 1996)

William Shakespeare used the legend of love-in-idleness as a vehicle for a misadventure. Titania, queen of the fairies, was quite fed up with the romantic liaisons of her husband, Oberon. And Oberon, jealous of his queen, demanded that she give him the orphaned son of a votaress (devotee). Titania "foreswore his bed and company" and refused to turn over the child.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II Scene II: Oberon Squeezes the Flower onto Titania's Eyelids Giclee Print Walter Paget Buy Giclee Print at AllPosters.com

Oberon plotted revenge and sent Puck to retrieve the pansy.

"...Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before, milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once; The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid, Will make a man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees....

"I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, And drop the liquor of it in her eyes: The next thing then she waking looks upon, (Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,) She shall pursue it with the soul of love...." (Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene I)

The Digital Flora of Texas, Vascular Plant Image Gallery, has posted a photograph by James Manhart of the typical Viola tricolor or Johnny-jump-up. To view the normal form, click on the link:

http://botany.cs.tamu.edu/FLORA/dcs420/fa02/fa02065.jpg

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