Shakespeare's Richard 11

Mather Brown, Richard II Resigning the Crown (1801) The Boydell Shakespeare Prints

King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England (ruled 1377–1399) and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, part 1, Henry IV, part 2, and Henry V. It may not have been written as a stand-alone work. Although the First Folio (1623) edition of Shakespeare's works lists the play as a history play, the earlier Quarto edition of 1597 calls itself The tragedie of King Richard the second. Read more on Wikipedia

Lowry was taken by his father Arthur to see a production of the play at the Birkenhead Hippodrome circa 1918/19. No details of the production are available. Arthur Lowry loved Shakespeare and took the text along to read between acts. (Bowker Pursued By Furies Pgs16-17)

Lowry refers to the play in his short story 'Through The Panama'; "A poem by Conrad Aiken, a performance of Richard II when he was 10 years old at the Birkenhead Hippodrome, a gramophone record of Frankie Trumbauer's with Eddie Lang, Venuti and Beiderbecke, and a French film directed by Zilke (rhymes with Rilke?) called the Tragedy of a Duck." (Pg. 121)

Robert Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit

Lowry alludes in his novel Ultramarine to Robert Greene's criticism of Shakespeare when speaking about Janet; "Your lamb's heart was beating under your white woollen sweater. A sheep in sheep's clothing ... a tiger's heart wrapped in a sailor's hide" (Pg. 52). Greene is reputedly parodying Henry VI Part 3 when York curses Margaret: "O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!" - a play Shakespeare contributed to.

Robert Greene (1558 – 1592) was an English author best known for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to him, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, widely believed to contain a polemic attack on William Shakespeare. He was born in Norwich and attended Cambridge University, receiving a B.A. in 1580, and an M.A. in 1583 before moving to London, where he arguably became the first professional author in England. Greene published in many genres including autobiography, plays, and romances, while capitalizing on a scandalous reputation.

The dramatist is most familiar to Shakespeare scholars for his pamphlet Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit (full title: Greene's Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance), which the majority of scholars agree contains the earliest known mention of Shakespeare as a member of Elizabethan London's dramatic community. In it, Greene disparages Shakespeare, for being an actor who has the temerity to write plays, and for committing plagiarism. The passage quotes a line which is purportedly from Shakespeare's play Henry VI, part 3, but scholars are not agreed on exactly what is meant by this cryptic allusion:

"...for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey".

Greene evidently complains of an actor who believes he can write as well as university-trained playwrights, alludes to the actor with a quotation from a Shakespearean play, and uses the term "Shake-scene," a unique term never used before or after Greene's screed, to refer to the actor. Though anti-Stratfordians argue that the early date of Greene's remark precludes a reference to Shakespeare (who in 1592 had no published works to his name), most scholars think that Greene's comment refers to Shakespeare, who would in this period have been an "upstart" as an actor who is writing and contributing to plays such as Henry VI, Parts 1-3 and King John, which were most likely written and produced (though not published) before Greene's death. Others argue that it is a reference to another actor, Edward Alleyn, whom Greene had attacked in an earlier pamphlet, using much the same language.

Some scholars think that all or part of the Groats-Worth may have been written shortly after Greene's death by one of his fellow writers (the pamphlet's printer, Henry Chettle, being the favoured candidate) hoping to capitalize on a lurid tale of death-bed repentance. Wikipedia

Lowry would have been aware of both the line in Henry VI to describe deceit in women and Greene's parody. Lowry firstly creates a joke that Janet is an innocent compared to Margaret in Henry VI - "Your lamb's heart was beating under your white woollen sweater. A sheep in sheep's clothing..." (Pg. 52) Then the change of the line in Henry VI to "a tiger's heart wrapped in a sailor's hide" both alludes to Dana's status as a sailor but alludes to Greene, with Lowry making a joke about his own plagiarism in Ultramarine and maybe the "accusations" that Lowry was a "literary upstart" who was trying to be too clever.

Stock-gillyflower

Lowry refers to the flower in Chapter 3 of Ultramarine during a long internal dialogue by Dana Hilliot as he muses on his drunken drift through the red light district of Dairen; "while through the attic window must be blown the scent of stock-gillyflower".

A popular name applied to various flowers, but principally to the clove, Dianthus Caryophyllus, of which the carnation is a cultivated variety, and to the stock, Matthiola incana, a well-known garden favourite .

 The word is sometimes written gilliflower or gilloflower, and is reputedly a corruption of July-flower, " so called from the month they blow in." Henry Phillips (1775–1838), in his Flora historica, remarks that Turner (1568) " calls it gelouer, to which he adds the word stock, as we would say gelouers that grow on a stem or stock, to distinguish them from the clove-gelouers and the wall-gelouers . Gerard, who succeeded Turner, and after him Parkinson, calls it gilloflower, and thus it travelled from its original orthography until it was called July-flower by those who knew not whence it was derived." Dr Prior, in his useful volume on the Popular Names of British Plants, very distinctly shows the origin of the name . He remarks that it was " formerly spelt gyllofer and gilofre with the o long, from the French girojlee, Italian garofalo (M . Lat. gariofilum), corrupted from the Latin Caryophyllum, and referring to the spicy odour of the flower, which seems to have been used in flavouring wine and other liquors to replace the more costly clove of India.

The name was originally given in Italy to plants of the pink tribe, especially the carnation, but has in England been transferred of late years to several cruciferous plants." The gillyflower of Chaucer and Spenser and Shakespeare was, as in Italy, Dianthus Caryophyllus; that of later writers and of gardeners, Matthiola .

Dictionnaire encyclopédique Trousset

Much of the confusion in the names of plants has doubtless arisen from the vague use of the French terms giroflee, ceillet and violette, which were all applied to flowers of the pink tribe, but in England were subsequently extended and finally restricted to very different plants . 

The use made of the flowers to impart a spicy flavour to ale and wine is alluded to by Chaucer, who writes: " And many a clove gilofre To put in ale " (Tale of Sir Thopas); also by Spenser, who refers to them by the name of sops in wine: "" With gellifiowres; " Bring coronations, and sops in wine, ..." (The Shepheard's Calendar), which was applied in consequence of their being steeped in the liquor. In both these cases, however, it is the clove-gillyflower which is intended, as it is also in the passage from Gerard, in which he states that the conserve made of the flowers with sugar " is exceeding cordiall, and wonderfully above measure doth comfort the heart, being eaten now and then.".

Spenser also refers to the flower in his poem Amoretti "Her lips did smell lyke unto Gillyflowers" and Shakespeare; "The fairest flowers o' the season/Are our carnations and streaked gillyflowers : Winter's Tale, iv. 2.

We must assume carnations were growing at the Lowry family garden hence the reference "while through the attic window " is to Lowry's study in Inglewood. He must have also been aware of the references made to the flower in Chaucer, Shakespeare and Spenser.