...There is a willow grows askant the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she make Of crowflowers, nettles,...shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds Clamb'ring to hang, an envious...

...decorated with references to flowers: There is a willow grows askant the brook And shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream. Therewith fantastic garlands...shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. (4.7.165-70) The succession of three names (the second merely alluded to)...

...QUEEN as she tells her tale. GERTRUDE There is a willow grows askant the brook That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream. Therewith fantastic garlands...shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds Clamh'ring to hang, an envious...

...QUEEN. There is a willow grows askant the brook That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. 16s Therewith fantastic garlands did she make Of crowflowers,...shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds no Clamb'ring to hang, an envious...

...garlands of odd flowers, at least one of which has a sexually connotative name, just before her death: Therewith fantastic garlands did she make Of crow-flowers,...That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cull-cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. (IV. vii. 168-71) Natalie, a cull-cold (chaste) maid...

...moments violets are replaced by garlands of another purple flower, significantly described by Gertrude: 'long purples, / That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, / But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them' (iv. vii. 169-71). The demure violet becomes the phallic early purple orchid,29...

...sister's drowned, Laertes. LAERTES Drowned! Oh where? 165 GERTRLDE There is a willow grows askant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream....purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, 170 But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There on the pendant boughs her cronet weeds...

...brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream, There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples...shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them. There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds Clamb'ring to hang, an envious...

...his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come, Of crow-Jlowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them; There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious...

...right at once. Recently I was being asked by a student in Peking what to make of the long purples Which liberal shepherds give a grosser name But our cold maids do Dead Men's Fingers call them. Why are the obscene thoughts of these peasants necessary in the impossible...