Forbid the sun to enter" (act iii, sc. 1).

_Midsummer Night's Dream._ The name marks the season, and there is a
profusion of flowers to mark it too. It may seem strange to us to have
"Apricocks" at the end of June, but in speaking of the seasons of
Shakespeare and others it should be remembered that their days were
twelve days later than ours of the same names; and if to this is added
the variation of a fortnight or three weeks, which may occur in any
season in the ripening of a fruit, "apricocks" might well be sometimes
gathered on their Midsummer day. But I do not think even this elasticity
will allow for the ripening of mulberries and purple grapes at that
time, and scarcely of figs. The scene, however, being laid in Athens and
in fairyland, must not be too minutely criticized in this respect. But
with the English plants the time is more accurately observed. There is
the "_green_ corn;" the "dewberries," which in a forward season may be
gathered early in July; the "lush woodbine" in the fulness of its
lushness at that time; the pansies, or "love-in-idleness," which (says
Gerard) "flower not onely in the spring, but for the most part all
sommer thorowe, even untill autumne;" the "sweet musk-roses and the
eglantine," also in flower then, though the musk-roses, being rather
late bloomers, would show more of the "musk-rose buds" in which Titania
bid the elves "kill cankers" than of the full-blown flower; while the
thistle would be exactly in the state for "Mounsieur Cobweb" to "kill a
good red-hipped humble bee on the top of it" to "bring the honey-bag" to
Bottom. Besides these there are the flowers on the "bank where the wild
thyme blows; where oxlips and the nodding violet grows," and I think the
distinction worth noting between the "_blowing_" of the wild thyme,
which would then be at its fullest, and the "_growing_" of the oxlips
and the violet, which had passed their time of blowing, but the living
plants continued "growing."[386:1]

_Love's Labour's Lost._ The general tone of the play points to the full
summer, the very time when we should expect to find Boyet thinking "to
close his eyes some half an hour under the cool shade of a sycamore"
(act v, sc. 2).

_All's Well that Ends Well._ There is a pleasant note of the season in--

"The time will bring on summer,
When briars will have leaves as well as thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp" (act iv, sc. 4);

but probably that is only a proverb