hat
the "mermaid on a dolphin's back" was a reminiscence of a pageant which he
might have visited Kenilworth at the age of eleven to see; and it may be
true that he meant to hint at Leicester.

On the other hand, I think that another explanation is more obvious and
more rational. Shakespeare had to introduce into his play the magic herb
which was to alter the loves of those into whose eyes it was squeezed. We
may reasonably guess that he had read somewhere one of the many popular
legends that explain why the violet is purple, why the rose is red, _etc._;
there are some in Ovid's _Metamorphoses_[93] which Shakespeare read in
Golding's translation. He saw an opportunity of paying a graceful
compliment to Elizabeth by saying that the magic flower, once white, had
been empurpled by a shaft of Cupid's drawn at the fair vestal and imperial
votaress, who yet passed on untouched;

"And maidens call it love-in-idleness"

--a popular name for the common pansy.

NOTES ON THE INTRODUCTION

[1] For _The Knightes Tale_, see Prof. Skeat's edition (modern spelling) in
the "King's Classics," and his excellent introduction.

[2] was named

[3] realm

[4] called

[5] were not

[6] besieged

[7] See Mr. R.B. McKerrow's note on Nashe's reference to the name in _Have
with You to Saffron-Walden_ (_Works,_ iii. 111).

[8] See Statius, _Thebais_, I, 13-14, etc. (Chaucer refers to "Stace of
Thebes," _Knightes Tale_, 1436.) Athamas, having incurred the wrath of
Hera, was seized with madness, and slew his son Learchus. His wife Ino
threw herself, with his other son Melicertes, into the sea, and both were
changed into sea-deities, Ino becoming Leucothea, and Melicertes Palaemon,
whom the Greeks held to be friendly to the shipwrecked. The Romans
identified him with Portunus, the protector of harbours.

[9] See Skeat's _The Knight's Tale_, xi-xv.

[10] little.

[11] In this passage, Statius describes the meeting between Theseus,
returning in triumph with Hippolyta, and the widows of those slain at the
siege of Thebes, who complain that the tyrant Creon will not permit their
husbands' bodies to be either burned or buried. This episode, as we shall
see, is the opening of the _Knightes Tale,_ and reappears in a modified
form in _The Two Noble Kinsmen._

[12] J. M. Rigg's introduction to his translation of the _Decameron_ (1903)

[13] This opening, derived from Statius (see note, p. 13), serves merely to
introduce the main stor