Love-in-idleness

Love-in-idleness is another name for the wild pansy

It is the flower mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare that inspired love.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare uses the flower as a plot device in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Oberon plots to take revenge on Titania and sends Puck to retrieve the flower:

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,—
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,—
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.

Fetch me that flower, the herb I showed thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.

— Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 2, Scene 1)

Oberon's account is that he diverted an arrow from Cupid's bow aimed at "a fair vestal, throned by the west" to fall upon the plant. The "imperial vot'ress" passes on "fancy-free", destined never to fall in love. The juice of the magical purple love-in-idleness flower became a love potion: When dripped into someone's eyes cause that individual to madly dote upon (fall in love with) the next person they see. Equipped with such powers, Oberon and Puck control the fates of various characters in the play to provide Shakespeare's essential dramatic and comic structure for the play.

In The Taming of the Shrew

Shakespeare mentions it in his play The Taming of the Shrew where Luciento claims he found the effect of love-in-idleness - alluding to its qualities to simulate the effects of love.

O Tranio! till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely;
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love in idleness;
And now in plainness do confess to thee,
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was,
Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.

— Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (Act 1, Scene 1)