On the Royal Shakespeare Company's stage yesterday Puck pulled the stopper out of a blue vial and released a scientist's recreation of the scent that has a role in Shakespeare's most famous comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Fortunately, nothing at all happened.
In the play, the scent's victims fall instantly, insanely, in love with the next being they lay eyes on: Titania swoons over the hairy ears of Bottom the Weaver, while Lysander kicks aside his fianceé to chase his best friend's girl.
Shakespeare's recipe for Puck's love potion is poetic, but a bit thin as a formula, finds Charles Sell, a fellow of the other RSC - the Royal Society of Chemistry - who is also the organic chemist at Quest, a fragrance design firm.
Oberon orders Puck to fetch a particular flower:
"Where the bolt of Cupid fell ... upon a little western flower - Before, milk white; now purple with love's wound - and maidens call it love-in-idleness."
Dr Sell pored over the text, and over references to plants in Shakespeare's works. A Midsummer Night's Dream alone mentions cowslips, primroses, musk roses, oxlips, woodbine, eglantine and wild thyme.
He rapidly concluded that love-in-idleness was wild pansy, also known as heart's ease. This, he said yesterday, has been used as a folk remedy for asthma, epilepsy, bronchitis, and heart trouble - both physical and emotional. It is almost unscented, but is a first cousin of sweet violet, the "parma violet" scent that was a favourite of Queen Victoria.
Clare Dal Zotto, a perfumer, added to the scent an exotic mix of sweet violets, tangerine, bergamot, white pepper and clove, creating, they say, "a voluptuous sensuality, reminiscent of soft skin reinforced by the soft woody musk notes".
So what was the scent that wreaked such havoc in the woods of Athens? Dominic Cooper, who plays Puck in the production now being staged by the RSC at Stratford-upon-Avon, thinks the potion is on the right track. Still reeking of the scent during his break between shows, he said: "I'm turning heads, I can tell you - and animals love it, the ducks and swans really went for it."
There has been so much interest in the project that the company is considering having the elixir made up in commercial quantities.
In fairness, Dr Sell should now apply his skills to the antidote, which Oberon describes as the crushed juice of "this herb whose liquor hath this virtuous property to take from thence all error with his might". This potion has the essential power - which could be much needed tomorrow morning, post St Valentine's Day - to cause women to wake up and realise they have spent the night with a shambling fool.
