自古以来，花草在文学中有着重要的地位。文人们借景抒情、托物言志，赋予了花草独特的象征意义。英国作家劳伦斯(D.H Lawrence)是其中的大家之一，读者若想深刻领会他的一系列作品，除了拥有丰富的植物学知识外，还必须精通花草的文学及宗教含义。
此文来探讨一下劳伦斯笔下的Lily。他的小说中出现了几种百合科的lily,包括Madonna lily （圣母百合）、tiger lily (虎皮百合)、mariposa lily（蝴蝶百合），铃兰（lily of the valley）等。
在他的第一部长篇小说《白孔雀》（the White Peacock）中，圣母百合隐喻了一段注定要毁灭的男女之情。小说第三部第一章，“母马走上陡峭的小山坡，山顶上矗立着公羊旅馆。 在寂静中，当马车慢慢停下来时，我们（西里尔与乔治）听到了花园里传来低吟的歌声。 我们静静地坐在车子里，望着破旧的院子，看到高大的圣母百合从香雪球花丛中直立起来。 鲜花的旁边是梅格，在鹅栗丛中弯着腰。” （The mare walked up the sharp little rise on top of which stood the Ram Inn. In the quiet, as the horse slowed to a standstill, we heard the crooning of a song in the garden. We sat still in the cart, and looked across the flagged yard to where the tall Madonna lilies rose in clusters out of the alyssum. Beyond the border of flowers was Meg, bending over the gooseberry bushes. ）
乔治打算与梅格去登记结婚的，梅格见到乔治来，却说自己打算做布丁，她的双手沾了鹅莓汁。她让乔治把两人的婚讯告诉她的脾气古怪的老祖母。一直陪伴着这对新人的西里尔（Cyril）写道：“我坐在那儿，可以闻到白百合的香味”。（I could smell the white lilies where I sat）。这是一个不祥之兆，圣母百合代表着一股邪恶的女性力量。婚后，原本热爱大自然、情感丰富的乔治接受了妻子安排的生活方式，他与大自然疏远了，穿着硬领衫成天呆在室内。他开始酗酒，精神萎靡……
之后的第七章，西里尔拜访这对夫妇时，注意到原本朝气蓬勃的乔治模样大变，“梅格更壮实了，有一种不可动摇的自信。 她是权威的，和蔼的，冷静的。 她穿着漂亮的深绿色连衣裙，头戴饰有华丽鸵鸟毛的无边帽。 当她在房间里走来走去时，她似乎支配着一切，尤其支配着她的丈夫，他皱着眉头，垂头丧气地坐着，他的背心松散地垂在衬衫上。” （Meg had grown stouter, and there was a certain immovable confidence in her. She was authoritative, amiable, calm. She wore a handsome dress of dark green, and a toque with opulent ostrich feathers. As she moved about the room she seemed to dominate everything, particularly her husband, who sat ruffled and dejected, his waistcoat hanging loose over his shirt. ）
继《白孔雀》之后，劳伦斯推出了半自传长篇小说《儿子与情人》（Sons and Lovers），圣母百合出现在几个重要章节里，其邪恶隐喻愈发明显。第一章，怀着第二胎的莫雷尔太太被酒醉的丈夫赶出家门，她注意到“高大的白百合在月光下摇摇欲坠，空气中弥漫着芬芳，仿佛有一种存在感。 莫雷尔太太因害怕而微微喘息。 她摸了摸大而苍白的花朵的花瓣，然后颤抖起来。 花瓣好像在月光下伸展开来。 她把手伸进一个白色的花朵里：月光下隐约可见手指上的金粉。 她弯下腰仔细看着花朵里的黄色花粉，但只看到了暗淡的颜色。 然后她深深吸了一口香味， 这几乎让她头晕目眩。” “莫雷尔太太靠在花园大门上，向外张望，她迷失了一会儿。 她不知道自己在想什么。 除了轻微的不适感，以及意识到胎儿的存在，她自己就像花香一样融化在闪亮、苍白的空气中。 过了一会儿，胎儿也和她一起融化在月光中，她和山丘、百合花、房屋化为一体，陷入某种晕眩。 ”
（The tall white lillies were reeling in the moonlight, and the air was charged with perfume, as with a presence. Mrs. Morel gasped slightly in fear. She touched the big, pallid flowers on their petals, then shivered. They seemed to be stretching in the moonlight. She put her hand into one white bin: the gold scarcely showed on her fingers by moonlight. She bent down to look at the binful of yellow pollen; but it only appeared dusky. Then she drank a deep draught of the scent. It almost made her dizzy.”
Mrs. Morel leaned on the garden gate, looking out, and she lost herself awhile. She did not know what she thought. Except for a slight feeling of sickness, and her consciousness in the child, herself melted out like scent into the shiny, pale air. After a time the child, too, melted with her in the mixing-pot of moonlight, and she rested with the hills and lilies and houses, all swum together in a kind of swoon. ）
古希腊神话中，女神赫拉在给大力神赫拉克勒斯喂奶时，少量的乳汁从天空中逸出，形成了银河。 几滴乳汁落到了地球上，长成了百合花。 爱神阿芙罗狄蒂非常妒忌百合花的完美无瑕，于是给了它们酷似驴阳具的黄色雄蕊。百合花代表了一种阳具巨大的雄性花，让莫雷尔太太害怕、晕眩，不由自主地反抗。生下威廉和保罗两个儿子后，她把全部的精力和希望都转移到儿子身上，由此产生畸形的母爱。两个儿子活在她的精神控制之下，威廉劳累致死，保罗直到母亲病故后，才真正成人，开始了新的生活。
保罗在娘胎里就闻到了百合香，出生后继承了百合花的雄性气质，这就注定了他不心甘情愿成为母亲的傀儡，与母亲针锋相对的“情敌”关系让他痛苦不已。
小说第11章有一段精彩的景观描写：
“圣母百合的幽香悄悄地透过敞开的房门飘进来，突然，他起身出了门。 夜色之美，令他想放声长啸。一弯暗金色的新月正落向花园尽头的那棵黑黑的梧桐树后，月光把天际染成暗紫色。近处，百合花连成的一排暗淡的白色花墙穿过花园，四周的空气似乎都散发着花香，生机盎然。他踏进石竹花坛，其刺鼻的香味和百合花摇曳的浓香掺合在一起。他在百合花旁停下。这些花都有气无力耷拉着脑袋，好像在喘气。花香熏得他醉了。他走到田里去看月亮西坠。
干草场上一只秧鸡叫个不停，月亮飞速坠落着，射出越来越红的光。他身后的大花前躬着身子，仿佛在呼唤他。突然，他意外地闻到了另一种花香，有些刺鼻呛人。环顾四周，他发现了紫色的鸢尾花，于是抚摸着它们肉质的花喉和仿佛在抓着什么的黑色花瓣。不管怎么说，他总算找到了。这些花僵硬地立在黑暗中，散发着呛鼻的气味……”
(Through the open door, stealthily, came the scent of madonna lilies, almost as if it were prowling abroad. Suddenly he got up and went out of doors.
The beauty of the night made him want to shout. A half-moon, dusky gold, was sinking behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden, making the sky dull purple with its glow. Nearer, a dim white fence of lilies went across the garden, and the air all round seemed to stir with scent, as if it were alive. He went across the bed of pinks, whose keen perfume came sharply across the rocking, heavy scent of the lilies, and stood alongside the white barrier of flowers. They flagged all loose, as if they were panting. The scent made him drunk. He went down to the field to watch the moon sink under.
A corncrake in the hay-close called insistently. The moon slid quite quickly downwards, growing more flushed. Behind him the great flowers leaned as if they were calling. And then, like a shock, he caught another perfume, something raw and coarse. Hunting round, he found the purple iris, touched their fleshy throats and their dark, grasping hands. At any rate, he had found something. They stood stiff in the darkness. Their scent was brutal……)
年轻的保罗在暗夜里被百合花香熏醉了，接着又发现了紫鸢尾花刺鼻的香味，回到家，他作出了一个决定：“我要和米丽安分手，妈妈 。”（I shall break off with Miriam, mother）。当时的他虽然无法完全摆脱母亲的精神枷锁，作出了既符合母亲愿望也符合自己内心的决定，但这个简短的声明也表示了他男性自主意识的觉醒。
小说《虹》（rainbow）第11章,
“他们(厄苏拉和安东)在夜色中返家， 四周一片惨淡的月光，以阴影和微光显示存在。她清楚地看到了篱笆下的花朵，看到细细的白色禾捆散开在带刺的篱笆上。
多么美好，多么美好！ 她痛苦地想，自从他吻了她，她今晚是多么的高兴。 但当他搂着她的腰一起走时，她对着月色皎洁的黑夜献祭了自己，那一轮壮丽的神月，洁白坦诚如新郎，花朵银白，变幻，填满了阴影。 ”
（They went home through the night that was all pale and glowing around, with shadows and glimmerings and presences. Distinctly, she saw the flowers in the hedge-bottoms, she saw the thin, raked sheaves flung white upon the thorny hedge.
How beautiful, how beautiful it was! She thought with anguish how wildly happy she was to-night, since he had kissed her. But as he walked with his arm round her waist, she turned with a great offering of herself to the night that glistened tremendous, a magnificent godly moon, white, and candid as a bridegroom, flowers silvery and transformed filling up the shadows. ）
劳伦斯没有点出花名，但参照《儿子与情人》的相关景色描写，读者很容易把月光下的银白花朵联想成圣母百合。女主人公Ursula (厄苏拉)感到了大自然中雄性力量的强大和威胁，而自己不得不屈从于这种力量，由衷地感到愤怒。 在随后的情节中，“她吻了他，她的吻狠狠地抓住了他，又硬又猛，像燃烧着腐蚀性的月光。 她似乎要毁了他。 他晕倒了，用尽全身的力气将他的吻留在她身上，让自己留在这个吻中。 但她紧紧地猛烈地抓住他，像月亮一样冰冷，像烈盐一样燃烧。 直到他这个温暖、柔软的铁块渐渐屈服了，屈服了，而她依旧凶猛、具有腐蚀性，随着他的毁灭而沸腾，像某种残忍的、腐蚀性的盐一样围绕着他的生命最后的物质沸腾，毁灭他，在吻中毁灭他。 她的灵魂因胜利而结晶，而他的灵魂因痛苦和毁灭而溶解。 所以她把他抱在那里，一个被吞噬，被歼灭的受害者。 她胜利了：他什么也不是了。 ”
（She took him in the kiss, hard her kiss seized upon him, hard and fierce and burning corrosive as the moonlight. She seemed to be destroying him. He was reeling, summoning all his strength to keep his kiss upon her, to keep himself in the kiss.
But hard and fierce she had fastened upon him, cold as the moon and burning as a fierce salt. Till gradually his warm, soft iron yielded, yielded, and she was there fierce, corrosive, seething with his destruction, seething like some cruel, corrosive salt around the last substance of his being, destroying him, destroying him in the kiss. And her soul crystallized with triumph, and his soul was dissolved with agony and annihilation. So she held him there, the victim, consumed, annihilated. She had triumphed: he was not any more. ）
厄苏拉是英国工业革命后出现的现代人，受过高等教育，试图探索新的两性关系，却屡受挫折。 劳伦斯通过圣母百合阐述了自己的观点：女性意识与自然的阳具力量是一种亲密的互补关系，但如果缺乏男性语言意识的自然发泄，这种觉醒会变得危险，呈现出歇斯底里的状态。
原生于巴尔干和中东地区的圣母百合传到欧洲后，广受民众的喜爱，从五世纪起，与基督教联系在一起，尤其与圣母玛利亚密切相关，象征着纯洁和谦虚。信徒们采摘下新鲜的圣母百合，供奉在教堂里。而劳伦斯对百合花语的解释却是反传统的，他认为“a plucked lily”（一朵被采摘的百合）是没有生命力的，雄性的花离开了滋养它的雌性的根，两性关系就会失衡。他在多部作品里表达了这个观点，现摘录以下几段。
第一处：《亚伦杖》（Aaron’s Rod）讲述了男主人公亚伦在一战期间游历欧洲的经历。他在意大利佛罗伦萨遇到了一位叫Lilly的女子， 第17章：
“阳光，可爱的充足的阳光，温暖地徘徊在阳台上，照着如百合花尖的教堂侧端的立面，照着乔托钟楼的柱子，像一根百合花茎，或者像大教堂百合花上的长长的可爱浅粉色、白色和绿色的雌蕊。Florence，繁花似锦的小镇。Firenze—Fiorenze，繁花似锦的小镇：红百合。Fiorentini，花之魂。在泥土和淤泥中扎根的花朵，应该是这样的：在空气中开出无畏的花朵，就像大教堂、钟楼和大卫一样。 ”
“我喜欢它，”莉莉说。 “我喜欢这个地方，我喜欢大教堂和钟楼。我喜欢它的粉红色和苍白。哥特人的灵魂会挑剔它，说它花哨、俗气和廉价。但我喜欢它，它是精致和玫瑰色的，深色的条纹应有尽有，就像粉红色百合上的虎纹。它是百合，而不是玫瑰；带有虎纹的粉白色的百合。而且本身也很重，土质的，从大地升到空中：永远不会忘却黑暗的、黑色凶猛的大地—我认为这里的人们有一刻是真实的，就像一棵开花的植物有一瞬间是完全真实的。然后它就消失了。就像佛罗伦萨一样消失了。现在没有花。但它已经开过花了。我不明白为什么一个种族应该像一棵芦荟树，开了一次花就死掉。为什么会这样？为什么不再开花？为什么不呢？
（Sunlight, lovely full sunlight, lingered warm and still on the balcony. It caught the facade of the cathedral sideways, like the tips of a flower, and sideways lit up the stem of Giotto's tower, like a lily stem, or a long, lovely pale pink and white and green pistil of the lily of the cathedral. Florence, the flowery town. Firenze--Fiorenze--the flowery town: the red lilies. The Fiorentini, the flower-souled. Flowers with good roots in the mud and muck, as should be: and fearless blossoms in air, like the cathedral and the tower and the David.
"I love it," said Lilly. "I love this place, I love the cathedral and the tower. I love its pinkness and its paleness. The Gothic souls find fault with it, and say it is gimcrack and tawdry and cheap. But I love it, it is delicate and rosy, and the dark stripes are as they should be, like the tiger marks on a pink lily. It's a lily, not a rose; a pinky white lily with dark tigery marks. And heavy, too, in its own substance: earth-substance, risen from earth into the air: and never forgetting the dark, black-fierce earth--I reckon here men for a moment were themselves, as a plant in flower is for the moment completely itself. Then it goes off. As Florence has gone off. No flowers now. But it has flowered. And I don't see why a race should be like an aloe tree, flower once and die. Why should it? Why not flower again? Why not?"）
第二处：《瓢虫》（Ladybird）里的受伤的德国军官普萨内克伯爵在一战后期逗留于伦敦时，邂逅贵族女子达芙妮（Daphne），与她分享了自己的人生观、爱情观。他对达芙妮说：“不是你的如被采摘的百合般的身体。 我没有为我的奢侈生活采过任何花。 但在寒冷的黑暗中，你的百合根，达芙妮夫人。 啊，是的，你这一生都会知道，我知道你的根埋在哪里，带着悲伤，生命的悲伤。 这有什么关系！”（Not the white plucked lily of your body. I have gathered no flower for my ostentatious life. But in the cold dark, your lily root, Lady Daphne. Ah, yes, you will know it all your life, that I know where your root lies buried, with its sad, sad quick of life. What does it matter!）
很显然，伯爵认为百合根才是生命力之所在。
第三处：1984年，劳伦斯生前并未完稿的小说《农先生》（MR. Noon）得以出版，第17章，吉尔伯特（Gilbert）在特里尔小城的集市上看到农妇贩卖新采摘的铃兰花束（lily of the valley），不禁浮想联翩，认为“一个人应该像百合花一样！ ——一个可爱的空灵存在？ 他的生活就像一朵百合花！ 他自己就是一朵百合花。 甚至不是一朵味道刺鼻的虎皮百合。 ”（Ought one to be like a lily! — a lovely ethereal presence? Much of a lily his life was! Much of a lily he was himself. Not even a rank tiger-lily.）“百合花！一朵 百合花在地底下有着凶猛缠结的根。 啊，在寒冷、恐怖的土壤里，它的根在探索、战斗和吸吮。 他不想让他的百合花成为被采摘的、一切都非常美好和美丽的百合。 不，老天啊，让我们拥有一个整体吧：深沉的、难以言喻的激情的纠缠，向下喷射的欲望的狂暴！ 啊，铃兰在腐烂的草皮上挣扎扭动时，发生的所有可怕和难以形容的事情。 就在此时！ 他已经准备在灵魂的地下世界战斗、扭动和摔跤。 激情总是一场斗争，欲望总是一场冲突。 那么，为战斗和冲突欢呼吧。 让它永无止境，否则我们都会成为被采摘的花朵。 ”（Lily! A lily has a ferocious tangle of roots underearth. Ach, in the cold, horrible earth its roots probe and fight and suck. He didn’t want his lily a plucked blossom, all very nice and fair. No, good heaven, let us have the whole party: the tangle of deep, unspeakable passions, the rage of downward shooting desires! Ah, all the terrible and unspeakable things that happen to a lily of the valley as it wrestles and writhes in the corrosive sod. Right then! He was ready for the fight and writhing and wrestling in the soul’s underground. Passion is always a fight, desire is always a strife. Hurray then for the fight and the strife. Let it never end, or we are picked blossoms.）
（铃兰）
吉尔伯特接着想到，“他不想像其他有教养的文明人一样，成为一朵被采摘的花朵。采摘的花朵，被困在一个美轮美奂的罐子里：它们就在那里，水变成死水然后腐烂掉。被采摘的花！无数芬芳的百合花——插在蓝色的花瓶里。该死的蓝色花瓶里的雌百合。他想要一朵深深扎根于泥土的百合，快速、紧握、得意地扎根在泥土里。然后她可以枯萎和变老，却不死。而那一朵被采摘的、宗教化的、精心栽培的百合却不是这样的，在一瓶腐烂的水里只枯萎一次却永远死去。” “不，他不会试图将他的爱理想化。上帝拯救我们。我们在萌芽状态时挑选它，并实现它的人生还原。他要在黑暗中，在地下，在潮湿、腐烂、刺鼻的泥土中与它搏斗。泥土中的根万岁！感谢上帝，这场战斗是永远的。”
（he didn’t want to be a picked blossom, like the rest of cultured civilised people. Picked blossoms, stuck in a nice aesthetic jar: there they are, while the water goes stagnant and rots. Picked blossoms! Myriads of sweet lilies — in blue vases. Damn the female lilies in blue vases. He wanted a lily with her roots deep down in the muck, fast, gripped, triumphant rooted in the muck. Then she could wither and grow old, and yet not die. Unlike one of these picked, spiritual, cultured lilies, that wither once and for all in a vase of putrifying water. Pah.
No, he was not going to try and idealise his love. Heaven save us. We pick it in the bud, and achieve its undoing. He was going to wrestle with it in the dark, down under-ground, in the damp, rotting, pungent earth. Long live the roots in the muck! The fight, thank God, is for ever.）
劳伦斯的作品里出现了不少性描写，有人因此斥责他是淫秽作家，同时，某些人因为他对女性情感与内心世界的细致刻画，赞扬他是妇女解放的拥护者和实践者。我认为，他的内心世界还是传统的，他把两性关系喻为一朵带根的花，只希望女人做沉默于黑暗的地下的“根”，由男人（花朵）来发声。他多次表达了这样的观念：女性若是闯入男性的世界，或被男性化，则会导致阴阳失调，造成现代社会的一个个灾难性的悲剧。
他在某些作品里含蓄地批判了过激的女权主义，但同时以极大的笔墨关注女性的生存状况并探索她们走向幸福生活的道路，更多的时候，他扮演的是一个探索者的角色。
