A Victorian Flower Dictionary - Mandy Kirkby [15]
IRIS
Message
The iris is the floral herald, the bearer of good tidings and warm wishes: ‘My compliments. I have a message for you.’
In classical mythology, Iris was the goddess of the rainbow, the link between heaven and earth. She was also the messenger of the gods; clothed in colourful robes, she brought messages of hope to mortals on earth. Like the rainbow, the iris possesses a multitude of colours, every tone imaginable, all delicately painted in sky-washed hues, and so its emblem, ‘messenger’, is an inspired one.
This flower is also the fleur-de-lis of the arms of France. Clovis, the fifth-century King of the Franks, won a significant victory thanks to the flower. He found himself trapped between enemy soldiers and what seemed to be a deep river. But when he saw yellow irises growing in the water, he knew it would be safe to cross. The emblem was revived in the twelfth century by Louis VII of France, who adopted the purple iris as his symbol during the Crusades. The iris became known as the ‘fleur de Louis’, and eventually the ‘fleur-de-lis’, and was taken into the English arms when Edward III claimed the French throne in 1339.
It is one of the oldest of cultivated flowers, in Britain since the fifteenth century. New varieties arrived in the sixteenth century, and the Dutch East India Company brought many more into Europe from Japan a century later. By the nineteenth century, the Victorians had a wealth of different irises to choose from for their flower gardens; they also knew the wild irises, found in woodlands and watery places.
The Victorians loved the strong shape of the flower, and it appeared on numerous fireplace tiles and as a bold image on domestic stained glass. One wild variety, the stinking iris, was used in the winter decoration of churches for its brilliant orange seeds, which lie in rows like peas in a pod. An announcement of a birth, an invitation to a dance, a token for a lover or a simple message of introduction, all could be accompanied by an iris.
A pleasant message will you bring?
The most pleasant will be the wedding ring.
In medieval iconography, the iris was associated with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin that she is to bear a child. In Hans Memling’s 1482 painting The Annunciation, the angel appears to Mary in her bedchamber. In this simple and ordinary domestic interior, a vase of flowers stands on the floor, filled with white lilies and a single blue iris.
IVY
Fidelity
The ivy that clings to the wall,
Symbols my heart’s love for thee;
The ivy clings closely, so does my heart,
To the one adored by me.
ANON.
We love the ivy green for its lustrous foliage, which wraps itself softly around ancient trees and ruined buildings. Nothing can separate it from the tree it has once embraced. The faithful companion of its destiny, it falls when the tree is cut down; death itself does not relax its grasp, and it continues to adorn the dry trunk that once supported it. Its attachments end only with its life. Such steadfastness is a sign of true love and great friendship, and so the emblem of the ivy is ‘fidelity’.
Fidelity was high on the list of Victorian virtues, and friendship brooches, one of the most popular gifts of the period, usually took the form of a small metal bar entwined with ivy, and the inscription NOTHING CAN DETACH ME FROM YOU. A tiara of gold ivy leaves expressed the same sentiment. When she was young, George Eliot gave flower names to her closest friends: her old schoolfriend Patty became Ivy; Maria, her teacher, she called Veronica (‘fidelity in friendship’); and she called herself Clematis, for ‘mental beauty’.
In two Victorian paintings, the ivy plays a highly symbolic role. In Arthur Hughes’s The Long Engagement,