A Midsummer Night's Dream

The painting was inspired by the description of love in Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream:
The gentle doe chased the tiger; But when the weak fall in love with the brave, it is always in vain; and a married woman, like a plucked rose, whose fragrance remaineth, is always so much happier in the eyes of the world than a perishing, perishing, lonely flower.