Pansies and Poets.
By R.M. Hamilton
It is now spring in our garden Down-Under. Mum bought me a box of pansies from Bunnings to plant in the garden.
I’m very fond of pansies. The name ‘Pansy’ comes from the French word ‘pensée’ which means thought. That’s why poor old Ophelia starts moaning, ““And there is pansies; that's for thoughts” in Hamlet, when she’s going mad.
The Victorians reckoned you could hear your lover’s thoughts if you stuck your ear to a pansy. Presumably, this was before Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. That’s the nice thing about technology, it’s always improving.
They’re in the genus Viola which means they are related to violets, another one of my favourite flowers. In really old literature, a reference to violets can be read as a reference to pansies. Pansies, as we know them, are a fairly recent invention, created in the 1800s by a chap called Lord Gambier and his gardener William Thompson.
Pansies are non-toxic and that’s good and bad news. The good news is they make wonderful cake decorations for those of us who can’t even look at a sugar rose without getting a spot.
The bad news is, they are a favourite treat for slugs and snails. I’ll have to sprinkle a few pallets, I think.
They’re supposed to adore full sun, but I have a feeling they won’t like the full sun of a Griffith Summer, so I’ll try and find them a little bit of partial shade.
Because ‘Pansy’ comes from the French for ‘thought’, pansies have a special place in the heart of poets.
William Wordsworth wrote,
“Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there’s a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,
They will have a place in story:
There’s a flower that shall be mine,
’Tis the little Celandine.”
Edmund Spenser writes in his poem The Faerie Queene:
“Roses red, and violets blue, And all the sweetest flowres,(sic) that in the forrest (sic) grew.”
This connection between poets and pansies was lampooned by the humourist P.G. Wodehouse in his short story, Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court. Two sensitive vegetarian poets meet each other at a café called The Crushed Pansy. They start off by bemoaning the cruelty of a meat-eating world, devoid of poetic thoughts. Then they travel to Bludleigh Court, where, falling under the spell of the ancient castle, they end by writing a poem on how much fun it is to kill gnus, and then go off to hunt fat old Uncle Francis with a pop-gun, while he’s sunbathing.
I am sad to have to tell you, that although I am descended from the Scottish poet Donald Daniel Fergusson ( he was always winning the Queen Victoria's prize for Gaelic poetry in Scotland, until the other poets refused to compete with him, and he was booted out), I prefer the P.G. Wodehouse pansy connection.
And after that rather unromantic revelation, I must potter off to plant my pansies.
Toodle-pip.
Love, Ruthie.
The writing and photos belong to R.M. Hamilton and may not be reproduced without written consent.