Science recreates Puck's love potion

The key is a flower "where the bolt of Cupid fell"

Scientists who have recreated a Shakespearean love potion may offer some help to the love-struck this Valentine's Day.

Studies of A Midsummer Night's Dream have enabled them to recreate the elixir used on Titania, queen of the fairies, to make her fall in love with the first person she saw.

Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid Will make man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees

Oberon
Act II scene i

In the play, the mischievous character Puck was instructed to find a "little western flower" and produce a magic potion from its juice.

The brew is applied to the sleeping Titania's eyelids and she falls in love with Bottom - despite the fact that he has been given a donkey's head.

The Royal Society of Chemistry says research of the play's text revealed the wild pansy - or heart's ease - was the basis of the potion.

Fragrance company Quest International, which is part of ICI, was then asked to create a perfume.

Not for sale

Dr Charles Sell, head of organic chemistry at Quest, said: "This was a fascinating project on which to work.

"There are scores of references to plants and herbs in Shakespeare, who was obviously very knowledgeable about their real and mythical potency."

The potion made Titania fall for Bottom

Heart's ease, referred to in the text as "love-in-idleness" was used in old folk remedies for cardiac problems.

The study was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to coincide with a new production of the play at Stratford-upon-Avon.

The resulting perfume is being called Puck's Potion, but has a powerful, old-fashioned Parma violet smell and there are no plans to commercialise it.

That may be just as well for those wanting to avoid making an ass of themselves on Valentine's Day.