Blue Ice Arizona Cypress

This beautiful tree doesn’t seem melancholy, but references to cypress in Shakespeare are often references to mourning or death.  In Twelfth Night, Feste sings “Come away, come away death, and in sad cypress let me be laid” (2.4).  

Cypress also referred to a kind of transparent cloth.  Two scenes later, Olivia uses the word to mean transparent cloth when she says “A cypress, not a bosom/Hideth my heart” (3.1).   The association with mourning lingers, but at this moment she is confessing her love for Cesario/Viola, and starting to move out of her deep mourning for her brother.

Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew mentions storing textiles in “cypress chests” (2.1), where they would be protected and preserved.

The two cypress trees in the garden were here before the Shakespeare Reconciliation Garden was planted.  We are committed to retaining these trees, especially because David Shayler (UFV Facilities Management) told us he loves these trees.