Note 168 — Chapter VI · CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORRESPONDENCIES AND PARALLELISMS OF SHAKESPEARE WITH EMBLEM WRITERS. (continued 4)

Virgil’s Æneid (bk. xii. 412–414), thus expressed in Dryden’s rendering, will explain the passage; he is speaking of Venus,—

“A branch of healing dittany she brought:

Which in the Cretan fields with care she sought:

Rough is the stem, which wooly leafs surround;

The leafs with flow’rs, the flow’rs with purple crown’d.”

See also Joachim Camerarius, Ex Animalibus Quadrup. (ed. 1595, Emb. 69, p. 71).