/ · 1894 Brewer’s · L · Love-in-Idleness
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One of the numerous names of the pansy or heartsease. Originally white, but changed to a purple colour by the fall of Cupid’s bolt upon it.
“Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon a little Western flower,
Before, milk-white, now purple with love’s wound;
The maidens call it Love-in-idleness.”
Shakespeare: Midsummer Night’s Dream, ii. 2.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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