Greetings one and all.

Someone has posed a question to me, and I'm stumped.  In Donne's "The Primrose," he walks "to find a true love."  Now, I'm assuming he's not just wandering about on the hill, looking for a girlfriend, although that's possible I suppose.  Just highly unlikely.

Having done a bit of research, it appears that what he means by "true love" is a four- or six-petaled Primula vulgaris (cowslip), an oddity (in the vein of a four-leafed clover) given that normal primroses are always five-petaled (a fact which Donne references later in the poem).  Sort of like looking for hen's teeth.

I know my plants and my horticulture, but this little nugget has got me perplexed.

My problem is that he seems to be on only person to have ever come up with this concept, i.e., a "true love" being a flower with a petal count other than the norm.  Or at least to have articulated it in this way.

Spenser mentions "true love" as a descriptive phrase, as does Coolridge (both obliquely reference knots), but there the trail goes cold. 

Nothing I could find in Willy Boy.  So I'm stumped.

Any thoughts? 

As I don't check this often (I'm a bit too thick-headed to get Donne), I'd appreciate any responses to be forwarded as well to ngieleghem@cwclaw.com or lapageria@aol.com

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.  You must be quite the daunting crew if you can parse Donne.  Yikes!!!!!