The Iris in Shakespeare

Tall Bearded Iris botanical print

"Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall

His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends."

- Troilus and Cressida, Act I, Scene 3

Today the Iris is a name given to a genus of about 300 different species, however the genus was only created in 1753 by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. During the 16th and 17th centuries a much smaller number of plants bore the name of Iris. Those familiar to an Elizabethan gardener would have included:

• Iris pseudocorus, Yellow Iris, Yellow Flag. This is the flower believed to be the inspiration of the heraldic symbol the Fleur-de-lis. John Gerard uses the name Iris and Flour-de-luce interchangeably. 
• Iris foetidissima, Stinking Iris, Stinking Gladdons, Blue Seggin, Gladwyn Iris. This and the Yellow Iris are the only Irises indigenous to the British Isles. 
• Iris tuberosa, Snake's-head, Widow Iris, Black Iris or Velvet Flower-de-luce.  
• Iris germanica, Tall Bearded Iris, German Iris, Blue Flower-de-luce. 
• Iris florentina, now classified as Iris germanica nothovar. 
• Iris susiana, Mourning Iris, Sad Iris, Chalcedonian Iris  
• Iris pumila, Pygmy Iris  
• Iris pallida (dalmatica), Dalmation Iris, Sweet Iris  
• Iris graminea, Grass-Leaved Flag, Grass-Leaved Iris, Plum Iris and Plum Tart Iris.  
• Iris xiphioides, English Iris
  

The roots of Irises, known as Orris root (Rhizoma iridis) are often used in perfumery for their violet-like scent. 

From ancient times the Iris flower has represented power and majesty. It is thought to be the flower placed on top of the sceptres of the ancient kings of Babylon and Assyria. The Egyptians placed the flower on the brow of the Sphinx. The Iris is named after the Greek goddess of the rainbow, referring to the wide varieties of colors found among the species. In Greek mythology Iris was the messenger of the gods, a role later taken by Hermes. She carried messages from the gods along a rainbow reaching into the depths of the sea and into the underworld. She is also the handmaiden of Hera (Roman - Juno), the goddess of women and marriage. Iris appears as a character in The Tempest, as one of Prospero's spirits at the wedding masque.

"the queen of' the' sky,

Whose watery arch and messenger am I."

- The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1

In The Tempest Iris acts as the mistress of the ceremonies, invoking Ceres and calling forth the nymphs and reapers. When Shakespeare refers to Iris in his other plays it seems he is also referring to the goddess, rather than to the flower.

Mythologists view Iris as a rather ambivalent figure. For classical writers she was both a figure of reconciliation, the rainbow after the storm, and of discord, the bringer of the storm. In Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica (3rd century BC) and in Valerius Flaccus's Argonatutics (1st century AD), Iris either calms the storm or heralds the end of the storm, allowing the Argo to continue its voyage. However in Virgil's Georgics (29 BC) she announces the storm and in Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 AD) it is Iris who will cause the universal deluge by sucking up the rivers into the clouds. In the Aeneid (29-19 BC) Virgil describes her as a mischief maker, as she causes the frenzy that makes the women set fire to Aeneas’s fleet. The late fourth/early fifth-century grammarian Servius believed that the name Iris derived from Eris, the goddess of discord. (Source www.shakmyth.org)

This dual representation is echoed in the work of Shakespeare. In The Tempest Iris is a figure of harmony and reconciliation. However on a number of other occasions Iris is used to express sorrow and woe. In All's Well That Ends Well the Countess of Rossillion asks the mournful Helena

"What's the matter,

That this distempered messenger of wet,

The many-coloured Iris, rounds thine eye?"

- All's Well That Ends Well, Act I, Scene 3

Likewise in The Two Noble Kinsmen when the wooer of the jailer's daughter reports her death, Iris is associated with death and grief .  

"...  about her stuck

Thousand freshwater flowers of several colours

That she appeared, methought, like the fair nymph

That feeds the lake with waters, or as Iris

Newly dropped down from heaven."

- The Two Noble Kinsmen, Act IV, Scene 1

In Henry VI Part 2, the allusion to Iris is as both messenger and as bringer of bad tidings. When Queen Margaret takes leave of Suffolk she says:

"To France, sweet Suffolk: let me hear from thee;

For wheresoe'er thou art in this world's globe,

I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out."

To which Suffolk responds:

"Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we

This way fall I to death."

- Henry VI, Part II, Act III, Scene 2

In Troilus and Cressida the Iris is still used with negative connotations. Ulysses plans to take Achilles down a peg or two and trick him into thinking that everyone thinks Ajax is the best man in the army.

“For that will physic the great Myrmidon,

Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall

His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends."

- Troilus and Cressida, Act I, Scene 3

Some scholars believe that Shakespeare is referring quite literally to the blue Iris flower. Others however maintain that he is still referring to Iris as goddess of the rainbow. The bright colors of the rainbow were also symbolic of pride and ostentation. To say that the plume on Achilles helmet stands prouder than Iris is to say that he is vain and arrogant.

Although when Shakespeare refers to Iris he is more than likely invoking the rainbow goddess, he does refer to the Yellow Iris elsewhere; like John Gerard he calls its the Flour-deluce/Flower-de-luce and you can read more about it here.

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