Primrose Path

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Idioms

To be "lead down the primrose path" is a common idiom suggesting that one is being deceived or lead astray, often by a hypocrite.

An early appearance of the phrase in print occurs in Shakespeare's 1602 play Hamlet (Act I, Scene III), where Ophelia, rebuffing her brother Laertes' insistence that she resist Hamlet's advances, accuses Laertes of hypocrisy: "Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede."

The phrase also appears in Macbeth, where the porter speaks of "treading the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire."

Variations of the phrase are also common: "primrose way" and "primrose lane."

The Film

Primrose Path is a 1940 film with Marjorie Rambeau.

External links

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