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# Black hellebore in a painting by Charles Cope titled after a line by Coleridge
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/eta-kartina-viktorianskogo-khudozhnika-charlza-koupa-nazvana-strochkoi-iz-stikhotvoreniia-semiuela-teilora-kolridzha-kotoruiu-mozhno-perevesti-kak-nadezhdy-i-strakhi-razzhigaiushchie-na/
- Published: 2021-01-21T07:10:07.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:01:45.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Books, Nature

This picture by the Victorian artist Charles Cope takes its title from a line of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poetry, which might be rendered as "Hopes and fears that kindle hope". It is a fairly typical Victorian subject, a pining young woman, in which the details are every bit as eloquent as the heroine: a dreary seascape on the wall, gloves flung despairingly on the floor, a book carelessly cast aside, and flowers on the table, for how could there be a scene without them? It is usually said that this primrose is supposed to symbolise a confession of fatal love. Only the flowers lying on the table are not primroses at all, but blooms of the black hellebore. And here things become most interesting. In the first place, hellebore is poisonous; in the second, it was used to make medicines for certain disorders of a nervous nature, including madness and chronic melancholy. Yet if the potion was clumsily prepared, black hellebore could have grave consequences for one's health, and even cause death.