PRIMROSE

2nd March 2024

QUOTATION

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep

As watchman to my heart. But, good, my brother,

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads

And recks not his own rede.

OPHELIA: Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3

PRIMROSE (Primula vulgaris)

Primrose in the quotation above is a metaphor for pleasant and indulgent behaviour which will lead you on the road to damnation. This metaphor is also used in Macbeth. Primroses are also compared with skin colour in both Cymbeline and Henry VI Part 2.

Primroses were such familiar and well known spring flowers that Gerard (1597) tells us ‘the common whitish yellow field primrose needeth no description’. Primroses are still commonly seen as a spring flower in most parts of the UK.

More Information

BSBI Plant Atlas 2020: Primula vulgaris

Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

Gerard, J. 1597 The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (1636 edition accessed via Archive.org)