The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe · English · Gutenberg #28407 · 892,467 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
Author: Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
Release date: March 25, 2009 [eBook #28407]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28407
Credits: Produced by Irma Spehar, Michael Zeug, Lisa Reigel, and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian
Libraries)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLANT-LORE & GARDEN-CRAFT OF SHAKESPEARE ***
Produced by Irma Spehar, Michael Zeug, Lisa Reigel, and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian
Libraries)
Transcriber's Notes: Some typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected. A complete list follows the text. Variations in spelling and
hyphenation have been left as in the original. Words in Greek in the
original are transliterated and placed between +plus signs+. Words
italicized in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. Words in
bold in the original are surrounded by =equal signs=. Characters
superscripted in the original are inclosed in {} brackets.
There are diacritic accents in the original. In this text, they are
represented as follows:
[=a] = "a" with a macron
[=e] = "e" with a macron
[=i] = "i" with a macron
[=o] = "o" with a macron
[=u] = "u" with a macron
[=w] = "w" with a macron
_THE PLANT-LORE AND GARDEN-CRAFT OF SHAKESPEARE._
PRESS NOTICES OF FIRST EDITION.
"It would be hard to name a better commonplace book for summer
lawns. . . . The lover of poetry, the lover of gardening, and the lover
of quaint, out-of-the-way knowledge will each find something to please
him. . . . It is a delightful example of gardening literature."--_Pall
Mall Gazette._
"Mr. Ellacombe, with a double enthusiasm for Shakespeare and for his
garden, has produced a very readable and graceful volume on the
Plant-Lore of Shakespeare."--_Saturday Review._
"Mr. Ellacombe brings to his task an enthusiastic love of horticulture,
wedded to no inconsiderable practical and theoretical knowledge of it; a
mind cultivated by considerable acquaintance with the Greek and Latin
classics, and trained for this special subject by a course of extensive
reading among the contemporaries of his author: and a capacity for
patient and unwearied research, which he has shown by the stores of
learning he has drawn from a class of books rarely dipped into by the
student--Saxon and Early English herbals and books of leechcraft; the
result is a work which is entitled from its worth to a place in every
Shakesperian library."--_Spectator._
"The work has fallen into the hands of one who knows not only the
plants themselves, but also their literary history; and it may be
said that Shakespeare's flowers now for the first time find an
historian."--_Field._
"A delightful book has been compiled, and it is as accurate as it is
delightful."--_Gardener's Chronicle._
"Mr. Ellacombe's book well deserves a place on the shelves of both the
student of Shakespeare and the lover of plant lore."--_Journal of
Botany._
"By patient industry, systematically bestowed, Mr. Ellacombe has
produced a book of considerable interest; . . . full of facts, grouped
on principles of common sense about quotations from our great
poet."--_Guardian._
"Mr. Ellacombe is an old and faithful labourer in this field of
criticism. His 'Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare' . . . is the
fullest and best book on the subject."--_The Literary World (American)._
THE
PLANT-LORE & GARDEN-CRAFT
OF
SHAKESPEARE.
BY
REV. HENRY N. ELLACOMBE, M.A.,
OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD,
VICAR OF BITTON, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, AND HON. CANON OF BRISTOL.
SECOND EDITION.
PRINTED FOR
W. SATCHELL AND CO.,
AND SOLD BY,
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.,
LONDON.
1884.
"My Herbale booke in Folio I unfold.
I pipe of plants, I sing of somer flowers."
CUTWODE, _Caltha Poetarum_, st. 1.
TO THE READER.
"Faultes escaped in the Printing, correcte with your pennes; omitted by
my neglygence, overslippe with patience; committed by ignorance, remit
with favour."
LILY, _Euphues and his England_, Address to the
gentlemen Readers.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION 1
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 7
GARDEN-CRAFT OF SHAKESPEARE 333
APPENDIX--
I. THE DAISY 359
II. THE SEASONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 379
III. NAMES OF PLANTS 391
INDEX OF PLAYS 421
GENERAL INDEX 431
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Since the publication of the First Edition I have received many kind
criticisms both from the public critics and from private friends. For
these criticisms I am very thankful, and they have enabled me to correct
some errors and to make some additions, which I hope will make the book
more acceptable and useful.
For convenience of reference I have added the line numbers to the
passages quoted, taking both the quotations and the line numbers from
the Globe Shakespeare. In a few instances I have not kept exactly to the
text of the Globe Edition, but these are noted; and I have added the
"Two Noble Kinsmen," which is not in that Edition.
In other respects this Second Edition is substantially the same as the
First.
H. N. E.
BITTON VICARAGE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE,
_February, 1884_.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
The following Notes on the "Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare"
were published in "The Garden" from March to September, 1877.
They are now republished with additions and with such corrections as the
altered form of publication required or allowed.
As the Papers appeared from week to week, I had to thank many
correspondents (mostly complete strangers to myself) for useful
suggestions and inquiries; and I would again invite any further
suggestions or remarks, especially in the way of correction of any
mistakes or omissions that I may have made, and I should feel thankful
to any one that would kindly do me this favour.
In republishing the Papers, I have been very doubtful whether I ought
not to have rejected the cultural remarks on several of the plants,
which I had added with a special reference to the horticultural
character of "The Garden" newspaper. But I decided to retain them, on
finding that they interested some readers, by whom the literary and
Shakespearean notices were less valued.
The weekly preparation of the Papers was a very pleasant study to
myself, and introduced me to much literary and horticultural information
of which I was previously ignorant. In republishing them I hope that
some of my readers may meet with equal pleasure, and with some little
information that may be new to them.
H. N. E.
BITTON VICARAGE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE,
_May, 1878_.
INTRODUCTION.
All the commentators on Shakespeare are agreed upon one point, that he
was the most wonderfully many-sided writer that the world has yet seen.
Every art and science are more or less noticed by him, so far as they
were known in his day; every business and profession are more or less
accurately described; and so it has come to pass that, though the main
circumstances of his life are pretty well known, yet the students of
every art and science, and the members of every business and profession,
have delighted to claim him as their fellow-labourer. Books have been
written at various times by various writers, which have proved (to the
complete satisfaction of the writers) that he was a soldier,[1:1] a
sailor, a lawyer,[1:2] an astronomer, a physician,[1:3] a divine,[1:4] a
printer,[1:5] an actor, a courtier, a sportsman, an angler,[2:1] and I
know not what else besides.
I also propose to claim him as a fellow-labourer. A lover of flowers and
gardening myself, I claim Shakespeare as equally a lover of flowers and
gardening; and this I propose to prove by showing how, in all his
writings, he exhibits his strong love for flowers, and a very fair,
though not perhaps a very deep, knowledge of plants; but I do not intend
to go further. That he was a lover of plants I shall have no difficulty
in showing; but I do not, therefore, believe that he was a professed
gardener, and I am quite sure he can in no sense be claimed as a
botanist, in the scientific sense of the term. His knowledge of plants
was simply the knowledge that every man may have who goes through the
world with his eyes open to the many beauties of Nature that surround
him, and who does not content himself with simply looking, and then
passing on, but tries to find out something of the inner meaning of the
beauties he sees, and to carry away with him some of the lessons which
they were doubtless meant to teach. But Shakespeare was able to go
further than this. He had the great gift of being able to describe what
he saw in a way that few others have arrived at; he could communicate to
others the pleasure that he felt himself, not by long descriptions, but
by a few simple words, a few natural touches, and a few well-chosen
epithets, which bring the plants and flowers before us in the freshest,
and often in a most touching way.
For this reason the study of the Plant-lore of Shakespeare is a very
pleasant study, and there are other things which add to this pleasure.
One especial pleasure arises from the thoroughly English character of
his descriptions. It has often been observed that wherever the scenes of
his plays are laid, and whatever foreign characters he introduces, yet
they really are all Englishmen of the time of Elizabeth, and the scenes
are all drawn from the England of his day. This is certainly true of the
plants and flowers we meet with in the plays; they are thoroughly
English plants that (with very few exceptions) he saw in the hedgerows
and woods of Warwickshire,[2:2] or in his own or his friends' gardens.
The descriptions are thus thoroughly fresh and real; they tell of the
country and of the outdoor life he loved, and they never smell of the
study lamp. In this respect he differs largely from Milton, whose
descriptions (with very few exceptions) recall the classic and Italian
writers. He differs, too, from his contemporary Spenser, who has
certainly some very sweet descriptions of flowers, which show that he
knew and loved them, but are chiefly allusions to classical flowers,
which he names in such a way as to show that he often did not fully know
what they were, but named them because it was the right thing for a
classical poet so to do. Shakespeare never names a flower or plant
unnecessarily; they all come before us, when they do come, in the most
natural way, as if the particular flower named was the only one that
could be named on that occasion. We have nothing in his writings, for
instance, like the long list of trees described (and in the most
interesting way) in the first canto of the First Book of the "Faerie
Queene," and indeed he is curiously distinct from all his
contemporaries. Chaucer, before him, spoke much of flowers and plants,
and drew them as from the life. In the century after him Herrick may be
named as another who sung of flowers as he saw them; but the real
contemporaries of Shakespeare are, with few exceptions,[3:1] very silent
on the subject. One instance will suffice. Sir Thomas Wyatt's poems are
all professedly about the country--they abound in woods and vales,
shepherds and swains--yet in all his poems there is scarcely a single
allusion to a flower in a really natural way. And because Shakespeare
only introduces flowers in their right place, and in the most purely
natural way, there is one necessary result. I shall show that the number
of flowers he introduces is large, but the number he omits, and which he
must have known, is also very large, and well worth noting.[4:1] He has
no notice, under any name, of such common flowers as the Snowdrop, the
Forget-me-Not, the Foxglove, the Lily of the Valley,[4:2] and many
others which he must have known, but which he has not named; because
when he names a plant or flower, he does so not to show his own
knowledge, but because the particular flower or plant is wanted in the
particular place in which he uses it.
Another point of interest in the Plant-lore of Shakespeare is the wide
range of his observation. He gathers flowers for us from all sorts of
places--from the "turfy mountains" and the "flat meads;" from the "bosky
acres" and the "unshrubbed down;" from "rose-banks" and "hedges
even-pleached." But he is equally at home in the gardens of the country
gentlemen with their "pleached bowers" and "leafy orchards." Nor is he a
stranger to gardens of a much higher pretension, for he will pick us
famous Strawberries from the garden of my Lord of Ely in Holborn; he
will pick us White and Red Roses from the garden of the Temple; and he
will pick us "Apricocks" from the royal garden of Richard the Second's
sad queen. I propose to follow Shakespeare into these many pleasant
spots, and to pick each flower and note each plant which he has thought
worthy of notice. I do not propose to make a selection of his plants,
for that would not give a proper idea of the extent of his knowledge,
but to note every tree, and plant, and flower that he has noted. And as
I pick each flower, I shall let Shakespeare first tell us all he has to
say about it; in other words, I shall quote every passage in which he
names the plant or flower; for here, again, it would not do to make a
selection from the passages, my object not being to give "floral
extracts," but to let him say all he can in his own choice words. There
is not much difficulty in this, but there is difficulty in determining
how much or how little to quote. On the one hand, it often seems cruel
to cut short a noble passage in the midst of which some favourite flower
is placed; but, on the other hand, to quote at too great a length would
extend the book beyond reasonable limits. The rule, therefore, must be
to confine the quotations within as small a space as possible, only
taking care that the space is not so small as entirely to spoil the
beauty of the description. Then, having listened to all that Shakespeare
has to say on each flower, I shall follow with illustrations (few and
short) from contemporary writers; then with any observations that may
present themselves in the identification of Shakespeare's plant with
their modern representatives, finishing each with anything in the
history or modern uses or cultivation of the plant that I think will
interest readers.
For the identification of the plants, we have an excellent and
trustworthy guide in John Gerard, who was almost an exact contemporary
of Shakespeare. Gerard's life ranged from 1545 to 1612, and
Shakespeare's from 1564 to 1616. Whether they were acquainted or not we
do not know, but it is certainly not improbable that they were; I should
think it almost certain that they must have known each other's published
works.[5:1]
My subject naturally divides itself into two parts--
First, The actual plants and flowers named by Shakespeare;
Second, His knowledge of gardens and gardening.
I now go at once to the first division, naming each plant in its
alphabetical order.
FOOTNOTES:
[1:1] "Was Shakespeare ever a Soldier?" by W. J. Thoms, F.S.A., 1865,
8vo.
[1:2] "Shakespeare's legal acquirements considered in a letter to J. P.
Collier," by John, Lord Campbell, 1859, 12mo. "Shakespeare a Lawyer," by
W. L. Rushton, 1858, 12mo.
[1:3] "Remarks on the Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," by J. C.
Bucknill, 1860, 8vo.
[1:4] Eaton's "Shakespeare and the Bible," 1858, 8vo.
[1:5] "Shakespere and Typography; being an attempt to show Shakespere's
personal connection with, and technical knowledge of, the Art of
Printing," by William Blades, 1872, 8vo.
[2:1] "Was Shakespeare an Angler," by H. N. Ellacombe, 1883, 12mo.
[2:2] "The country around Stratford presents the perfection of quiet
English scenery; it is remarkable for its wealth of lovely wild flowers,
for its deep meadows on each side of the tranquil Avon, and for its
rich, sweet woodlands."--E. DOWDEN'S _Shakespeare in Literature
Primers_, 1877.
[3:1] The two chief exceptions are Ben Jonson (1574-1637) and William
Browne (1590-1645). Jonson, though born in London, and living there the
greatest part of his life, was evidently a real lover of flowers, and
frequently shows a practical knowledge of them. Browne was also a keen
observer of nature, and I have made several quotations from his
"Britannia's Pastorals."
[4:1] Perhaps the most noteworthy plant omitted is Tobacco--Shakespeare
must have been well acquainted with it, not only as every one in his day
knew of it, but as a friend and companion of Ben Jonson, he must often
have been in the company of smokers. Ben Jonson has frequent allusions
to it, and almost all the sixteenth-century writers have something to
say about it; but Shakespeare never names the herb, or alludes to it in
any way whatever.
[4:2] It seems probable that the Lily of the Valley was not recognized
as a British plant in Shakespeare's time, and was very little grown even
in gardens. Turner says, "Ephemer[=u] is called in duch meyblumle, in
french Muguet. It groweth plentuously in Germany, but not in England
that ever I coulde see, savinge in my Lordes gardine at Syon. The
Poticaries in Germany do name it Lilium C[=o]vallium, it may be called
in englishe May Lilies."--_Names of Herbes_, 1548. Coghan in 1596 says
much the same: "I say nothing of them because they are not usuall in
gardens."--_Haven of Health._
[5:1] I may mention the following works as more or less illustrating the
Plant-lore of Shakespeare:--
1.--"Shakspere's Garden," by Sidney Beisly, 1864. I have to
thank this author for information on a few points, but on the
whole it is not a satisfactory account of the plants of
Shakespeare, and I have not found it of much use.
2.--"Flowers from Stratford-on-Avon," and
3.--"Girard's Flowers of Shakespeare and of Milton," 2 vols.
These two works are pretty drawing-room books, and do not
profess to be more.
4.--"Natural History of Shakespeare, being Selections of
Flowers, Fruits, and Animals," arranged by Bessie Mayou, 1877.
This gives the greater number of the passages in which flowers
are named, without any note or comment.
5.--"Shakespeare's Bouquet--the Flowers and Plants of
Shakespeare," Paisley, 1872. This is only a small pamphlet.
6.--"The Rural Life of Shakespeare, as illustrated by his
Works," by J. C. Roach Smith, 8vo, London, 1870. A pleasant
but short pamphlet.
7.--"A Brief Guide to the Gardens of Shakespeare," 1863, 12mo,
12 pages, and
8.--"Shakespeare's Home and Rural Life," by James Walter, with
Illustrations. 1874, folio. These two works are rather
topographical guides than accounts of the flowers of
Shakespeare.
9.--"The Flowers of Shakespeare," depicted by Viola, coloured
plates, 4to, 1882. A drawing-room book of little merit.
10.--"The Shakspere Flora," by Leo H. Grindon, 12mo, 1883. A
collection of very pleasant essays on the poetry of
Shakespeare, and his knowledge of flowers.
PART I.
_THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE._
_Perdita._ Here's flowers for you.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4.
_Duke._ Away before me to sweet beds of flowers.
_Twelfth Night_, act i, sc. 1.
ACONITUM.
_K. Henry._
The united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion--
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in--
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As Aconitum or rash gunpowder.
_2nd King Henry IV_, act iv, sc. 4 (44).
There is another place in which it is probable that Shakespeare alludes
to the Aconite; he does not name it, but he compares the effects of the
poison to gunpowder, as in the passage above.
_Romeo._
Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead
And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently as hasty powder fired
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act v, sc. 1 (59).
The plant here named as being as powerful in its action as gunpowder is
the Aconitum Napellus (the Wolf's bane or Monk's-hood). It is a member
of a large family, all of which are more or less poisonous, and the
common Monk's-hood as much so as any. Two species are found in America,
but, for the most part, the family is confined to the northern portion
of the Eastern Hemisphere, ranging from the Himalaya through Europe to
Great Britain. It is now found wild in a few parts of England, but it is
certainly not indigenous; it was, however, very early introduced into
England, being found in all the English vocabularies of plants from the
tenth century downwards, and frequently mentioned in the early English
medical recipes.
Its names are all interesting. In the Anglo-Saxon Vocabularies it is
called _thung_, which, however, seems to have been a general name for
any very poisonous plant;[10:1] it was then called Aconite, as the
English form of its Greek and Latin name, but this name is now seldom
used, being, by a curious perversion, solely given to the pretty little
early-flowering Winter Aconite (_Eranthis hyemalis_), which is not a
true Aconite, though closely allied; it then got the name of
Wolf's-bane, as the direct translation of the Greek _lycoctonum_, a name
which it had from the idea that arrows tipped with the juice, or baits
anointed with it, would kill wolves and other vermin; and, lastly, it
got the expressive names of Monk's-hood[10:2] and the Helmet-flower,
from the curious shape of the upper sepal overtopping the rest of the
flower.
As to its poisonous qualities, all authors agree that every species of
the family is very poisonous, the A. ferox of the Himalaya being
probably the most so. Every part of the plant, from the root to the
pollen dust, seems to be equally powerful, and it has the special bad
quality of being, to inexperienced eyes, so like some harmless plant,
that the poison has been often taken by mistake with deadly results.
This charge against the plant is of long standing, dating certainly from
the time of Virgil--_miseros fallunt aconita legentes_--and, no doubt,
from much before his time. As it was a common belief that poisons were
antidotes against other poisons, the Aconite was supposed to be an
antidote against the most deadly one--
"I have heard that Aconite
Being timely taken hath a healing might
Against the scorpion's stroke."
BEN JONSON, _Sejanus_, act iii, sc. 3.
Yet, in spite of its poisonous qualities, the plant has always held, and
deservedly, a place among the ornamental plants of our gardens; its
stately habit and its handsome leaves and flowers make it a favourite.
Nearly all the species are worth growing, the best, perhaps, being A.
Napellus, both white and blue, A. paniculatum, A. japonicum, and A.
autumnale. All the species grow well in shade and under trees. In
Shakespeare's time Gerard grew in his London garden four species--A.
lycoctonum, A. variegatum, A. Napellus, and A. Pyrenaicum.
FOOTNOTES:
[10:1] "_Aconita_, thung." Ælfric's "Vocabulary," 10th century.
"_Aconitum_, thung." Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary, 11th century.
"_Aconita_, thung." "Durham Glossary of the names of Worts," 11th
century.
The ancient Vocabularies and Glossaries, to which I shall frequently
refer, are printed in
I. Wright's "Volume of Vocabularies," 1857.
II. "Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England," by Rev. O.
Cockayne, published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, 3
vols., 1866.
III. "Promptorium Parvulorum," edited by Albert Way, and published by
the Camden Society, 3 vols., 1843-65.
IV. "Catholicon Anglicum," edited by S. J. Hertage, and published by the
Early English Text Society, 1881, and by the Camden Society, 1882.
[10:2] This was certainly its name in Shakespeare's time--
"And with the Flower Monk's-hood makes a coole."
CUTWODE, _Caltha Poetarum_, 1599 (st. 117).
ACORN, _see_ OAK.
ALMOND.
_Thersites._
The parrot will not do more for an Almond.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act v, sc. 2 (193).
"An Almond for a parrot" seems to have been a proverb for the greatest
temptation that could be put before a man. The Almond tree is a native
of Asia and North Africa, but it was very early introduced into England,
probably by the Romans. It occurs in the Anglo-Saxon lists of plants,
and in the "Durham Glossary" (11th century) it has the name of the
"Easterne nutte-beam." The tree was always a favourite both for the
beauty of its flowers, which come very early in the year, and for its
Biblical associations, so that in Shakespeare's time the trees were "in
our London gardens and orchards in great plenty" (Gerard). Before
Shakespeare's time, Spenser had sung its praises thus--
"Like to an Almond tree ymounted hye
On top of greene Selinis all alone
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily;
Whose tender locks do tremble every one
At everie little breath that under Heaven is blowne."
_F. Q._, i. 7, 32.
The older English name seems to have been Almande--
"And Almandres gret plente,"
_Romaunt of the Rose_;
"Noyz de l'almande, nux Phyllidis,"
ALEXANDER NECKAM;
and both this old name and its more modern form of Almond came to us
through the French _amande_ (Provençal, _amondala_), from the Greek and
Latin _amygdalus_. What this word meant is not very clear, but the
native Hebrew name of the plant (_shaked_) is most expressive. The word
signifies "awakening," and so is a most fitting name for a tree whose
beautiful flowers, appearing in Palestine in January, show the wakening
up of Creation. The fruit also has always been a special favourite, and
though it is strongly imbued with prussic acid, it is considered a
wholesome fruit. By the old writers many wonderful virtues were
attributed to the fruit, but I am afraid it was chiefly valued for its
supposed virtue, that "five or six being taken fasting do keepe a man
from being drunke" (Gerard).[12:1] This popular error is not yet
extinct.
As an ornamental tree the Almond should be in every shrubbery, and, as
in Gerard's time, it may still be planted in town gardens with
advantage. There are several varieties of the common Almond, differing
slightly in the colour and size of the flowers; and there is one little
shrub (Amygdalus nana) of the family that is very pretty in the front
row of a shrubbery. All the species are deciduous.
FOOTNOTES:
[12:1] "Plutarch mentions a great drinker of wine who, by the use of
bitter almonds, used to escape being intoxicated."--_Flora Domestica_,
p. 6.
ALOES.
And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
The Aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.
_A Lover's Complaint_, st. 39.
Aloes have the peculiarity that they are the emblems of the most intense
bitterness and of the richest and most costly fragrance. In the Bible
Aloes are mentioned five times, and always with reference to their
excellence and costliness.[13:1] Juvenal speaks of it only as a bitter--
"Animo corrupta superbo
Plus Aloes quam mellis habet" (vi. 180).
Pliny describes it very minutely, and says, "Strong it is to smell unto,
and bitter to taste" (xxvii. 4, Holland's translation). Our old English
writers spoke of it under both aspects. It occurs in several recipes of
the Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, as a strong and bitter purgative. Chaucer
notices its bitterness only--
"The woful teres that they leten falle
As bittre weren, out of teres kynde,
For peyne, as is ligne Aloes or galle."
_Troilus and Cryseide_, st. 159.
But the author of the "Remedie of Love," formerly attributed to Chaucer,
says--
"My chambre is strowed with myrrhe and incense
With sote savouring Aloes and sinnamone,
Breathing an aromaticke redolence."
Shakespeare only mentions the bitter quality.
The two qualities are derived from two very different plants. The
fragrant ointment is the product of an Indian shrub, Aquilaria
agallochum; and the bitter purgative is from the true Aloes, A.
Socotrina, A. vulgaris, and others. These plants were well known in
Shakespeare's time, and were grown in England. Turner and Gerard
describe them as the Sea Houseleek; and Gerard tells us that they were
grown as vegetable curiosities, for "the herbe is alwaies greene, and
likewise sendeth forth branches, though it remaine out of the earth,
especially if the root be covered with lome, and now and then watered;
for so being hanged on the seelings and upper posts of dining-roomes, it
will not onely continue a long time greene, but it also groweth and
bringeth forth new leaves."[14:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[13:1] Numbers xxiv. 6; Psalms xlv. 8; Proverbs vii. 17; Canticles iv.
14; John xix. 39.
[14:1] In the emblems of Camerarius (No. 92) is a picture of a room with
an Aloe suspended.
ANEMONE.
By this, the boy that by her side lay kill'd
Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
And in his blood that on the ground lay spill'd,
A purple flower sprung up chequer'd with white.
Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.
_Venus and Adonis_ (1165).
Shakespeare does not actually name the Anemone, and I place this passage
under that name with some doubt, but I do not know any other flower to
which he could be referring.
The original legend of the Anemone as given by Bion was that it sprung
from the tears of Venus, while the Rose sprung from Adonis' blood--
+aima rodon tiktei, ta de dakrya tan anemônan.+
_Bion Idyll_, i, 66.
"Wide as her lover's torrent blood appears
So copious flowed the fountain of her tears;
The Rose starts blushing from the sanguine dyes,
And from her tears Anemones arise."
POLWHELE'S _Translation_, 1786.
But this legend was not followed by the other classical writers, who
made the Anemone to be the flower of Adonis. Theocritus compares the
Dog-rose (so called also in his day, +kynosbatos+) and the Anemone with
the Rose, and the Scholia comment on the passage thus--"Anemone, a
scentless flower, which they report to have sprung from the blood of
Adonis; and again Nicander says that the Anemone sprung from the blood
of Adonis."
The storehouse of our ancestors' pagan mythology was in Ovid, and his
well-known lines are--
"Cum flos e sanguine concolor ortus
Qualem, quæ; lento celant sub cortice granum
Punica ferre solent; brevis est tamen usus in illis,
Namque male hærentem, et nimiâ brevitate caducum
Excutiunt idem qui præstant nomina, venti,"--
Thus translated by Golding in 1567, from whom it is very probable that
Shakespeare obtained his information--
"Of all one colour with the bloud, a flower she there did find,
Even like the flower of that same tree, whose fruit in tender rind
Have pleasant graines enclosede--howbeit the use of them is short,
For why, the leaves do hang so loose through lightnesse in such
sort,
As that the windes that all things pierce[15:1] with everie little
blast
Do shake them off and shed them so as long they cannot last."[15:2]
I feel sure that Shakespeare had some particular flower in view. Spenser
only speaks of it as a flower, and gives no description--
"In which with cunning hand was pourtrahed
The love of Venus and her Paramoure,
The fayre Adonis, turned to a flowre."
_F. Q._, iii, 1, 34.
"When she saw no help might him restore
Him to a dainty flowre she did transmew."
_F. Q._, iii, 1, 38.
Ben Jonson similarly speaks of it as "Adonis' flower" (Pan's
Anniversary), but with Shakespeare it is different; he describes the
flower minutely, and as if it were a well-known flower, "purple
chequered with white," and considering that in his day Anemone was
supposed to be Adonis' flower (as it was described in 1647 by Alexander
Ross in his "Mystagogus Poeticus," who says that Adonis "was by Venus
turned into a red flower called Anemone"), and as I wish, if possible,
to link the description to some special flower, I conclude that the
evidence is in favour of the Anemone. Gerard's Anemone was certainly the
same as ours, and the "purple" colour is no objection, for "purple" in
Shakespeare's time had a very wide signification, meaning almost any
bright colour, just as _purpureus_ had in Latin,[16:1] which had so wide
a range that it was used on the one hand as the epithet of the blood and
the poppy, and on the other as the epithet of the swan ("purpureis ales
oloribus," Horace) and of a woman's white arms ("brachia purpurea
candidiora nive," Albinovanus). Nor was "chequered" confined to square
divisions, as it usually is now, but included spots of any size or
shape.
We have transferred the Greek name of Anemone to the English language,
and we have further kept the Greek idea in the English form of
"wind-flower." The name is explained by Pliny: "The flower hath the
propertie to open but when the wind doth blow, wherefore it took the
name Anemone in Greeke" ("Nat. Hist." xxi. 11, Holland's translation).
This, however, is not the character of the Anemone as grown in English
gardens; and so it is probable that the name has been transferred to a
different plant than the classical one, and I think no suggestion more
probable than Dr. Prior's that the classical Anemone was the Cistus, a
shrub that is very abundant in the South of Europe; that certainly opens
its flowers at other times than when the wind blows, and so will not
well answer to Pliny's description, but of which the flowers are
bright-coloured and most fugacious, and so will answer to Ovid's
description. This fugacious character of the Anemone is perpetuated in
Sir William Jones' lines ("Poet. Works," i, 254, ed. 1810)--
"Youth, like a thin Anemone, displays
His silken leaf, and in a morn decays;"
but the lines, though classical, are not true of the Anemone, though
they would well apply to the Cistus.[17:1]
Our English Anemones belong to a large family inhabiting cold and
temperate regions, and numbering seventy species, of which three are
British.[17:2] These are A. Nemorosa, the common wood Anemone, the
brightest spring ornament of our woods; A. Apennina, abundant in the
South of Europe, and a doubtful British plant; and A. pulsatilla, the
Passe, or Pasque flower, _i.e._, the flower of Easter, one of the most
beautiful of our British flowers, but only to be found on the chalk
formation.
FOOTNOTES:
[15:1] Golding evidently adopted the reading "qui perflant omnia,"
instead of the reading now generally received, "qui præstant nomina."
[15:2] Gerard thought that Ovid's Anemone was the Venice
Mallow--_Hibiscus trionum_--a handsome annual from the South of Europe.
[16:1] In the "Nineteenth Century" for October, 1877, is an interesting
article by Mr. Gladstone on the "colour-sense" in Homer, proving that
Homer, and all nations in the earlier stages of their existence, have a
very limited perception of colour, and a very limited and loosely
applied nomenclature of colours. The same remark would certainly apply
to the early English writers, not excluding Shakespeare.
[17:1] Mr. Leo Grindon also identifies the classical Anemone with the
Cistus. See a good account of it in "Gardener's Chronicle," June 3,
1876.
[17:2] The small yellow A. ranunculoides has been sometimes included
among the British Anemones, but is now excluded. It is a rare plant, and
an alien.
APPLE.
(1) _Sebastian._
I think he will carry this island home and give it his son for
an Apple.
_Tempest_, act ii, sc. 1 (91).
(2) _Malvolio._
Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a
Squash is before 'tis a Peascod, or a Codling when 'tis
almost an Apple.
_Twelfth Night_, act i, sc. 5 (165).
(3) _Antonio._
An Apple, cleft in two, is not more twin
Than these two creatures.
_Ibid._, act 5, sc. 1 (230).
(4) _Antonio._
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly Apple rotten at the heart.
_Merchant of Venice_, act i, sc. 3 (100).
(5) _Tranio._
He in countenance somewhat doth resemble you.
_Biondello._
As much as an Apple doth an oyster, and all one.
_Taming of the Shrew_, act iv, sc. 2 (100).
(6) _Orleans._
Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian
bear, and have their heads crushed like rotten Apples.
_Henry V_, act iii, sc. 7 (153).
(7) _Hortensio._
Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten Apples.
_Taming of the Shrew_, act i, sc. 1 (138).
(8) _Porter._
These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight
for bitten Apples.
_Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 4 (63).
(9) _Song of Winter._
When roasted Crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (935).
(10) _Puck._
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl
In very likeness of a roasted Crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (47).
(11) _Fool._
Shal't see thy other daughter will use thee kindly; for though
she's as like this as a Crab's like an Apple, yet I can tell
what I can tell.
_Lear._
Why, what can'st thou tell, my boy?
_Fool._
She will taste as like this as a Crab does to a Crab.
_King Lear_, act i, sc. 5 (14).
(12) _Caliban._
I prithee, let me bring thee where Crabs grow.
_Tempest_, act ii, sc. 2 (171).
(13) _Petruchio._
Nay, come, Kate, come, you must not look so sour.
_Katherine._
It is my fashion, when I see a Crab.
_Petruchio._
Why, here's no Crab, and therefore look not sour.
_Taming of the Shrew_, act ii, sc. 1 (229).
(14) _Menonius._
We have some old Crab-trees here at home that will not
Be grafted to your relish.
_Coriolanus_, act ii, sc. 1 (205).
(15) _Suffolk._
Noble stock
Was graft with Crab-tree slip.
_2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (213).
(16) _Porter._
Fetch me a dozen Crab-tree staves, and strong ones.
_Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 4 (7).
(17) _Falstaff._
My skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown; I am
withered like an old Apple-john.
_1st Henry IV_, act iii, sc. 3 (3).
(18) _1st Drawer._
What the devil hast thou brought there? Apple-johns? Thou
knowest Sir John cannot endure an Apple-john.
_2nd Drawer._
Mass! thou sayest true; the prince once set a dish of
Apple-johns before him, and told him there were five more
Sir Johns; and putting off his hat, said, I will now take my
leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.
_2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (1).
(19) _Shallow._
Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we will
eat a last year's Pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of
Caraways, and so forth.
* * * * *
_Davey._
There's a dish of Leather-coats for you.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 3 (1, 44).
(20) _Evans._
I pray you be gone; I will make an end of my dinner. There's
Pippins and cheese to come.
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act i, sc. 2 (11).
(21) _Holofernes._
The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_, in blood; ripe as the
Pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of
_coelo_--the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth
like a Crab on the face of _terra_--the soil, the land, the
earth.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act iv, sc. 2 (3).
(22) _Mercutio._
Thy wit is a very Bitter Sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.
_Romeo._
And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 4 (83).
(23) _Petruchio._
What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.
What! up and down, carved like an Apple-tart?
_Taming of the Shrew_, act iv, sc. 3 (88).
(24)
How like Eve's Apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!
_Sonnet_ xciii.
Here Shakespeare names the Apple, the Crab, the Pippin, the Pomewater,
the Apple-john, the Codling, the Caraway, the Leathercoat, and the
Bitter-Sweeting. Of the Apple generally I need say nothing, except to
notice that the name was not originally confined to the fruit now so
called, but was a generic name applied to any fruit, as we still speak
of the Love-apple, the Pine-apple,[20:1] &c. The Anglo-Saxon name for
the Blackberry was the Bramble-apple; and Sir John Mandeville, in
describing the Cedars of Lebanon, says: "And upon the hills growen Trees
of Cedre, that ben fulle hye, and they beren longe Apples, and als grete
as a man's heved"[20:2] (cap. ix.). In the English Bible it is the same.
The Apple is mentioned in a few places, but it is almost certain that it
never means the Pyrus malus, but is either the Orange, Citron, or
Quince, or is a general name for a tree fruit. So that when Shakespeare
(24) and the other old writers speak of Eve's Apple, they do not
necessarily assert that the fruit of the temptation was our Apple, but
simply that it was some fruit that grew in Eden. The Apple (_pomum_) has
left its mark in the language in the word "pomatum," which, originally
an ointment made of Apples, is now an ointment in which Apples have no
part.
The Crab was held in far more esteem in the sixteenth century than it is
with us. The roasted fruit served with hot ale (9 and 10) was a
favourite Christmas dish, and even without ale the roasted Crab was a
favourite, and this not for want of better fruit, for Gerard tells us
that in his time "the stocke or kindred of Apples was infinite," but
because they were considered pleasant food.[20:3] Another curious use of
Crabs is told in the description of Crab-wake, or "Crabbing the Parson,"
at Halesowen, Salop, on St. Kenelm's Day (July 17), in Brand's "Popular
Antiquities" (vol. i. p. 342, Bohn's edition). Nor may we now despise
the Crab tree, though we do not eat its fruit. Among our native trees
there is none more beautiful than the Crab tree, both in flower and in
fruit. An old Crab tree in full flower is a sight that will delight any
artist, nor is it altogether useless; its wood is very hard and very
lasting, and from its fruit verjuice is made, not, however, much in
England, as I believe nearly all the verjuice now used is made in
France.
The Pippin, from being originally a general name for any Apple raised
from pips and not from grafts, is now, and probably was in Shakespeare's
time, confined to the bright-coloured, long-keeping Apples (Justice
Shallow's was "last year's Pippin"), of which the Golden Pippin ("the
Pippin burnished o'er with gold," Phillips) is the type.
The Bitter-Sweeting (22) was an old and apparently a favourite Apple. It
is frequently mentioned in the old writers, as by Gower, "Conf. Aman."
viii. 174--
"For all such time of love is lore,
And like unto the Bitter-swete,[21:1]
For though it think a man fyrst swete
He shall well felen at laste
That it is sower."
By Chaucer--
"Yet of that art they conne nought wexe sadde,
For unto hem it is a Bitter Swete."
_Prologue of the Chanoune's Yeman._
And by Ben Jonson--
"That love's a Bitter-sweet I ne'er conceive
Till the sour minute comes of taking leave,
And then I taste it."[21:2]
_Underwoods._
Parkinson names it in his list of Apples, but soon dismisses it--"Twenty
sorts of Sweetings, and none good." The name is now given to an Apple of
no great value as a table fruit, but good as a cider apple, and for use
in silk dyeing.
It is not easy to identify the Pomewater (21). It was highly esteemed
both by Shakespeare ("it hangeth like a jewel in the ear of _coelo_")
and many other writers. In Gerard's figure it looks like a Codling, and
its Latin name is _Malus carbonaria_, which probably refers to its good
qualities as a roasting Apple. The name Pomewater (or Water Apple) makes
us expect a juicy but not a rich Apple, and with this agrees Parkinson's
description: "The Pomewater is an excellent, good, and great whitish
Apple, full of sap or moisture, somewhat pleasant sharp, but a little
bitter withall; it will not last long, the winter frosts soon causing it
to rot and perish." It must have been very like the modern Lord Suffield
Apple, and though Parkinson says it will not last long, yet it is
mentioned as lasting till the New Year in a tract entitled "Vox
Graculi," 1623. Speaking of New Year's Day, the author says: "This day
shall be given many more gifts than shall be asked for; and apples,
egges, and oranges shall be lifted to a lofty rate; when a Pomewater
bestuck with a few rotten cloves shall be worth more than the honesty of
a hypocrite" (quoted by Brand, vol. i. 17, Bohn's edition).
We have no such difficulty with the "dish of Apple-johns" (17 and 18).
Hakluyt recommends "the Apple John that dureth two years to make show of
our fruit" to be carried by voyagers.[22:1] "The Deusan (_deux ans_) or
Apple-john," says Parkinson, "is a delicate fine fruit, well rellished
when it beginneth to be fit to be eaten, and endureth good longer than
any other Apple." With this description there is no difficulty in
identifying the Apple-john with an Apple that goes under many names, and
is figured by Maund as the Easter Pippin. When first picked it is of a
deep green colour, and very hard. In this state it remains all the
winter, and in April or May it becomes yellow and highly perfumed, and
remains good either for cooking or dessert for many months.
The Codling (2) is not the Apple now so called, but is the general name
of a young unripe Apple.
The "Leathercoats" (19) are the Brown Russets; and though the "dish of
Caraways" in the same passage may refer to the Caraway or Caraway-russet
Apple, an excellent little apple, that seems to be a variety of the
Nonpareil, and has long been cultivated in England, yet it is almost
certain that it means a dish of Caraway Seeds. (_See_ CARRAWAYS.)
FOOTNOTES:
[20:1] See PINE, p. 208.
[20:2] "A peche appulle." "The appulys of a peche tre."--_Porkington
MSS. in Early English Miscellany._ (Published by Warton Club.)
[20:3] "As for Wildings and Crabs . . . their tast is well enough liked,
and they carrie with them a quicke and a sharp smell; howbeit this gift
they have for their harsh sournesse, that they have many a foule word
and shrewd curse given them."--PHILEMON HOLLAND'S _Pliny_, book xv. c.
14.
[21:1] "Amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus."--PLAUTUS.
[21:2] Juliet describes leave-taking in almost the same words--"Parting
is such _sweet sorrow_."
[22:1] "Voyages," 1580, p. 466.
APRICOTS.
(1) _Titania._
Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with Apricocks and Dewberries,
With purple Grapes, green Figs, and Mulberries.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (167).
(2) _Gardener._
Go, bind thou up yon dangling Apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.
_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 4 (29).
(3) _Palamon._
Would I were,
For all the fortunes of my life hereafter,
Yon little tree, yon blooming Apricocke;
How I would spread and fling my wanton armes
In at her window! I would bring her fruit
Fit for the gods to feed on.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act ii, sc. 2 (291).
Shakespeare's spelling of the word "Apricocks" takes us at once to its
derivation. It is derived undoubtedly from the Latin _præcox or
præcoquus_, under which name it is referred to by Pliny and Martial;
but, before it became the English Apricot it was much changed by
Italians, Spaniards, French, and Arabians. The history of the name is
very curious and interesting, but too long to give fully here; a very
good account of it may be found in Miller and in "Notes and Queries,"
vol. ii. p. 420 (1850). It will be sufficient to say here that it
acquired its name of "the precocious tree," because it flowered and
fruited earlier than the Peach, as explained in Lyte's "Herbal," 1578:
"There be two kinds of Peaches, whereof the one kinde is late ripe,
. . . the other kinds are soner ripe, wherefore they be called Abrecox
or Aprecox." Of its introduction into England we have no very certain
account. It was certainly grown in England before Turner's time (1548),
though he says, "We have very few of these trees as yet;"[23:1] but the
only account of its introduction is by Hakluyt, who states that it was
brought from Italy by one Wolf, gardener to King Henry the Eighth. If
that be its true history, Shakespeare was in error in putting it into
the garden of the queen of Richard the Second, nearly a hundred years
before its introduction.[24:1]
In Shakespeare's time the Apricot seems to have been grown as a
standard; I gather this from the description in Nos. 2 (see the entire
passage s.v. "Pruning" in Part II.) and 3, and from the following in
Browne's "Britannia's Pastorals"--
"Or if from where he is[24:2] he do espy
Some Apricot upon a bough thereby
Which overhangs the tree on which he stands,
Climbs up, and strives to take them with his hands."
Book ii. Song 4.
FOOTNOTES:
[23:1] "Names of Herbes," s.v. Malus Armeniaca.
[24:1] The Apricot has usually been supposed to have come from Armenia,
but there is now little doubt that its original country is the Himalaya
(M. Lavaillee).
[24:2] On a Cherry tree in an orchard.
ASH.
_Aufidius._
Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
My grained Ash an hundred times hath broke,
And starr'd the moon with splinters.
_Coriolanus_, act iv, sc. 5 (112).
Warwickshire is more celebrated for its Oaks and Elms than for its Ash
trees. Yet considering how common a tree the Ash is, and in what high
estimation it was held by our ancestors, it is strange that it is only
mentioned in this one passage. Spenser spoke of it as "the Ash for
nothing ill;" it was "the husbandman's tree," from which he got the wood
for his agricultural implements; and there was connected with it a great
amount of mystic folk-lore, which was carried to its extreme limit in
the Yggdrasil, or legendary Ash of Scandinavia, which was almost looked
upon as the parent of Creation: a full account of this may be found in
Mallet's "Northern Antiquities" and other works on Scandinavia. It is an
English native tree,[24:3] and it adds much to the beauty of any
English landscape in which it is allowed to grow. It gives its name to
many places, especially in the South, as Ashdown, Ashstead, Ashford,
&c.; but to see it in its full beauty it must be seen in our northern
counties, though the finest in England is said to be at Woburn.
"The Oak, the Ash, and the Ivy tree,
O, they flourished best at hame, in the north countrie."
_Old Ballad._
In the dales of Yorkshire it is especially beautiful, and any one who
sees the fine old trees in Wharfdale and Wensleydale will confess that,
though it may not have the rich luxuriance of the Oaks and Elms of the
southern and midland counties, yet it has a grace and beauty that are
all its own, so that we scarcely wonder that Gilpin called it "the Venus
of the woods."
FOOTNOTES:
[24:3] It is called in the "Promptorium Parvulorum" "Esche," and the
seed vessels "Esche key."
ASPEN.
(1) _Marcus._
O, had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble, like Aspen leaves, upon a lute.
_Titus Andronicus_, act 2, sc. 4 (44).
(2) _Hostess._
Feel, masters, how I shake. . . . . Yea, in very truth do I an
'twere an Aspen leaf.
_2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (114).
The Aspen or Aspe[25:1] (_Populus tremula_) is one of our three native
Poplars, and has ever been the emblem of enforced restlessness, on
account of which it had in Anglo-Saxon times the expressive name of
quick-beam. How this perpetual motion in the "light quivering Aspen" is
produced has not been quite satisfactorily explained; and the mediæval
legend that it supplied the wood of the Cross, and has never since
ceased to tremble, is still told as a sufficient reason both in Scotland
and England.
"Oh! a cause more deep,
More solemn far the rustic doth assign,
To the strange restlessness of those wan leaves;
The cross, he deems, the blessed cross, whereon
The meek Redeemer bowed His head to death,
Was formed of Aspen wood; and since that hour
Through all its race the pale tree hath sent down
A thrilling consciousness, a secret awe,
Making them tremulous, when not a breeze
Disturbs the airy thistle-down, or shakes
The light lines of the shining gossamer."
MRS. HEMANS.
The Aspen has an interesting botanical history, as being undoubtedly,
like the Scotch fir, one of the primæval trees of Europe; while its grey
bark and leaves and its pleasant rustling sound make the tree acceptable
in our hedgerows, but otherwise it is not a tree of much use. In
Spenser's time it was considered "good for staves;" and before his time
the tree must have been more valued than it is now, for in the reign of
Henry V. an Act of Parliament was passed (4 Henry V. c. 3) to prevent
the consumption of Aspe, otherwise than for the making of arrows, with a
penalty of an Hundred Shillings if used for making pattens or clogs.
This Act remained in force till the reign of James I., when it was
repealed. In our own time the wood is valued for internal panelling of
rooms, and is used in the manufacture of gunpowder.
By the older writers the Aspen was the favourite simile for female
loquacity. The rude libel is given at full length in "The Schoole-house
of Women" (511-545), concluding thus--
"The Aspin lefe hanging where it be,
With little winde or none it shaketh;
A woman's tung in like wise taketh
Little ease and little rest;
For if it should the hart would brest."
HAZLITT'S _Popular English Poetry_, vol. iv, p. 126.
And to the same effect Gerard concludes his account of the tree thus:
"In English Aspe and Aspen tree, and may also be called Tremble, after
the French name, considering it is the matter whereof women's tongues
were made (as the poets and some others report), which seldom cease
wagging."
FOOTNOTES:
[25:1] "Espe" in "Promptorium Parvulorum." "Aspen" is the case-ending of
"Aspe."
BACHELOR'S BUTTON.
_Hostess._
What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he
has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he
smells April and May; he will carry't, he will carry't; 'tis
in his Buttons; he will carry't.
_Merry Wives_, act iii, sc. 2 (67).
"Though the Bachelor's Button is not exactly named by Shakespeare, it is
believed to be alluded to in this passage; and the supposed allusion is
to a rustic divination by means of the flowers, carried in the pocket by
men and under the apron by women, as it was supposed to retain or lose
its freshness according to the good or bad success of the bearer's
amatory prospects."[27:1]
The true Bachelor's Button of the present day is the double Ranunculus
acris, but the name is applied very loosely to almost any small double
globular flowers. In Shakespeare's time it was probably applied still
more loosely to any flowers in bud (according to the derivation from the
French _bouton_). Button is frequently so applied by the old writers--
"The more desire had I to goo
Unto the roser where that grewe
The freshe Bothum so bright of hewe.
* * * * *
But o thing lyked me right welle;
I was so nygh, I myght fele
Of the Bothom the swote odour
And also see the fresshe colour;
And that right gretly liked me."
_Romaunt of the Rose._
And by Shakespeare--
The canker galls the infants of the Spring
Too oft before their Buttons be disclosed.
_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 3 (54).
FOOTNOTES:
[27:1] Mr. J. Fitchett Marsh, of Hardwicke House, Chepstow, in "The
Garden." I have to thank Mr. Marsh for much information kindly given
both in "The Garden" and by letter.
BALM, BALSAM, OR BALSAMUM.
(1) _K. Richard._
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the Balm from an anointed king.
_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 2 (54).
(2) _K. Richard._
With mine own tears I wash away my Balm.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (207).
(3) _K. Henry._
'Tis not the Balm, the sceptre, and the ball.
_Henry V_, act iv, sc. 1 (277).
(4) _K. Henry._
Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,
Thy Balm wash'd off, wherewith thou wast anointed.
_3rd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 1 (16).
(5) _K. Henry._
My pity hath been Balm to heal their wounds.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 8 (41).
(6) _Lady Anne._
I pour the helpless Balm of my poor eyes.
_Richard III_, act i, sc. 2 (13).
(7) _Troilus._
But, saying thus, instead of oil and Balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act i, sc. 1 (61).
(8) _1st Senator._
We sent to thee, to give thy rages Balm.
_Timon of Athens_, act v, sc. 4 (16).
(9) _France._
Balm of your age,
Most best, most dearest.
_King Lear_, act i, sc. 1 (218).
(10) _K. Henry._
Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
Be drops of Balm to sanctify thy head.
_2nd Henry IV_, act iv, sc. 5 (114).
(11) _Mowbray._
I am disgraced, impeach'd, and baffled here:
Pierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear;
The which no Balm can cure, but his heart-blood
Which breathed this poison.
_Richard II_, act i, sc. 1 (170).
(12) _Dromio of Syracuse._
Our fraughtage, Sir,
I have conveyed aboard, and I have bought
The oil, the Balsamum, and aqua vitæ.
_Comedy of Errors_, act iv, sc. 1 (187).
(13) _Alcibiades._
Is this the Balsam that the usuring Senate
Pours into captains' wounds?
_Timon of Athens_, act iii, sc. 5 (110).
(14) _Macbeth._
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
_Macbeth_, act ii, sc. 2 (37).
(15) _Quickly._
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of Balm and every precious flower.
_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (65).
(16) _Cleopatra._
As sweet as Balm, as soft as air, as gentle.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act v, sc. 2 (314).
(17)
And trembling in her passion, calls it Balm,
Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good.
_Venus and Adonis_ (27).
(18)
And drop sweet Balm in Priam's painted wound.
_Lucrece_ (1466).
(19)
With the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh.
_Sonnet_ cvii.
In all these passages, except the two last, the reference is to the Balm
or Balsam which was imported from the East, from very early times, and
was highly valued for its curative properties. The origin of Balsam was
for a long time a secret, but it is now known to have been the produce
of several gum-bearing trees, especially the Pistacia lentiscus and the
Balsamodendron Gileadense; and now, as then, the name is not strictly
confined to the produce of any one plant. But in Nos. 15 and 16 the
reference is no doubt to the Sweet Balm of the English gardens (_Melissa
officinalis_), a plant highly prized by our ancestors for its medicinal
qualities (now known to be of little value), and still valued for its
pleasant scent and its high value as a bee plant, which is shown by its
old Greek and Latin names, Melissa, Mellissophyllum, and Apiastrum. The
Bastard Balm (_Melittis melissophyllum_) is a handsome native plant,
found sparingly in Devonshire, Hampshire, and a few other places, and is
well worth growing wherever it can be induced to grow; but it is a very
capricious plant, and is apparently not fond of garden cultivation.
"Très jolie plante, mais d'une culture difficile" (Vilmorin). It
probably would thrive best in the shade, as it is found in copses.
BARLEY.
(1) _Iris._
Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of Wheat, Rye, Barley, Vetches, Oats, and Pease.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (60).
(2) _Constable._
Can sodden water,
A drench for surrein'd jades, their Barley broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
_Henry V_, act iii, sc. 5 (18).[30:1]
These two passages require little note. The Barley (_Hordeum vulgare_)
of Shakespeare's time and our own is the same. We may note, however,
that the Barley broth (2) of which the French Constable spoke so
contemptuously as the food of English soldiers was probably beer, which
long before the time of Henry V. was so celebrated that it gave its name
to the plant (Barley being simply the Beer-plant), and in Shakespeare's
time, "though strangers never heard of such a word or such a thing, by
reason it is not everyewhere made," yet "our London Beere-Brewers would
scorne to learne to make beere of either French or Dutch" (Gerard).
FOOTNOTES:
[30:1] "Vires ordea prestant."--_Modus Cenandi_, 176. ("Babee's Book.")
BARNACLES.
_Caliban._
We shall lose our time
And all be turn'd to Barnacles.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (248).
It may seem absurd to include Barnacles among plants; but in the time of
Shakespeare the Barnacle tree was firmly believed in, and Gerard gives a
plate of "the Goose tree, Barnacle tree, or the tree bearing Geese," and
says that he declares "what our eies have seene, and our hands have
touched."
A full account of the fable will be found in Harting's "Ornithology of
Shakespeare," p. 247, and an excellent account in Lee's "Sea Fables
Explained" (Fisheries Exhibition handbooks), p. 98. But neither of these
writers have quoted the testimony of Sir John Mandeville, which is,
however, well worth notice. When he was told in "Caldilhe" of a tree
that bore "a lytylle Best in Flessche in Bon and Blode as though it were
a lytylle Lomb, withouten Wolle," he did not refuse to believe them, for
he says, "I tolde hem of als gret a marveylle to hem that is amonges us;
and that was of the Bernakes. For I tolde hem, that in our Contree weren
Trees, that beren a Fruyt, that becomen Briddes fleeynge; and tho that
fallen in the Water lyven, and thei that fallen on the Erthe dyen anon;
and thei ben right gode to mannes mete. And here of had thei als gret
marvaylle that sume of hem trowed, it were an impossible thing to be"
("Voiage and Travaille," c. xxvi.).
BAY TREES.
(1) _Captain._
'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.
The Bay-trees in our country are all wither'd.
_Richard II_, act ii, sc. 4 (7).
(2) _Bawd._
Marry come up, my dish of chastity with Rosemary and Bays!
_Pericles_, act iv, sc. 6 (159).
(3)
_The Vision_--Enter, solemnly tripping one after another,
six personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their
heads garlands of Bays, and golden vizards on their faces,
branches of Bays or Palms in their hands.
_Henry VIII_, act iv, sc. 2
It is not easy to determine what tree is meant in these passages. In the
first there is little doubt that Shakespeare copied from some Italian
source the superstition that the Bay trees in a country withered and
died when any great calamity was approaching. We have no proof that such
an idea ever prevailed in England. In the second passage reference is
made to the decking of the chief dish at high feasts with garlands of
flowers and evergreens. But the Bay tree had been too recently
introduced from the South of Europe in Shakespeare's time to be so used
to any great extent, though the tree was known long before, for it is
mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Vocabularies by the name of Beay-beam,
that is, the Coronet tree;[32:1] but whether the Beay-beam meant our Bay
tree is very uncertain. We are not much helped in the inquiry by the
notice of the "flourishing green Bay tree" in the Psalms, for it seems
very certain that the Bay tree there mentioned is either the Oleander or
the Cedar, certainly not the Laurus nobilis.
The true Bay is probably mentioned by Spenser in the following lines--
"The Bay, quoth she, is of the victours born,
Yielded them by the vanquisht as theyr meeds,
And they therewith doe Poetes heads adorne
To sing the glory of their famous deeds."
_Amoretti_--Sonnet xxix.
And in the following passage (written in the lifetime of Shakespeare)
the Laurel and the Bay are both named as the same tree--
"And when from Daphne's tree he plucks more Baies
His shepherd's pipe may chant more heavenly lays."
_Christopher Brooke_--_Introd. verses
to_ BROWNE'S _Pastorals._
In the present day no garden of shrubs can be considered complete
without the Bay tree, both the common one and especially the Californian
Bay (_Oreodaphne Californica_), which, with its bright green lanceolate
foliage and powerful aromatic scent (to some too pungent), deserves a
place everywhere, and it is not so liable to be cut by the spring winds
as the European Bay.[32:2] Parkinson's high praise of the Bay tree
(forty years after Shakespeare's death) is too long for insertion, but
two short sentences may be quoted: "The Bay leaves are of as necessary
use as any other in the garden or orchard, for they serve both for
pleasure and profit, both for ornament and for use, both for honest
civil uses and for physic, yea, both for the sick and for the sound,
both for the living and for the dead; . . . so that from the cradle to
the grave we have still use of it, we have still need of it."
The Bay tree gives us a curious instance of the capriciousness of
English plant names. Though a true Laurel it does not bear the
name, which yet is given to two trees, the common (and Portugal)
Laurel, and the Laurestinus, neither of which are Laurels--the one
being a Cherry or Plum (_Prunus_ or _Cerasus_), the other a Guelder Rose
(_Viburnum_).[33:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[32:1] "The Anglo-Saxon Beay was not a ring only, or an armlet: it was
also a coronet or diadem. . . . The Bays, then, of our Poets and the Bay
tree were in reality the Coronet and the Coronet tree."--COCKAYNE,
_Spoon and Sparrow_, p. 21.
[32:2] The Californian Bay has not been established in England long
enough to form a timber tree, but in America it is highly prized as one
of the very best trees for cabinet work, especially for the ornamental
parts of pianos.
[33:1] For an interesting account of the Bay and the Laurels, giving the
history of the names, &c., see two papers by Mr. H. Evershed in
"Gardener's Chronicle," September, 1876.
BEANS.
(1) _Puck._
When I a fat and Bean-fed horse beguile.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (45).
(2) _Carrier._
Peas and Beans are as dank here as a dog; and that is the next
way to give poor jades the bots.
_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 1 (9).
The Bean (_Faba vulgaris_), though an Eastern plant, was very early
introduced into England as an article of food both for men and horses.
As an article of human food opinions were divided, as now. By some it
was highly esteemed--
"Corpus alit Faba; stringit cum cortice ventrem,
Desiccat fleuma, stomacum lumenque relidit"--
is the description of the Bean in the "Modus Cenandi," l. 182 ("Babee's
Book," ii, 48). While H. Vaughan describes it as--
"The Bean
By curious pallats never sought;"
and it was very generally used as a proverb of contempt--
"None other lif, sayd he, is worth a Bene."[34:1]
"But natheles I reche not a Bene."[34:2]
It is not apparently a romantic plant, and yet there is no plant round
which so much curious folk lore has gathered. This may be seen at full
length in Phillips' "History of Cultivated Vegetables." It will be
enough here to say that the Bean was considered as a sacred plant both
by the Greeks and Romans, while by the Egyptian priests it was
considered too unclean to be even looked upon; that it was used both for
its convenient shape and for its sacred associations in all elections by
ballot; that this custom lasted in England and in most Europeans
countries to a very recent date in the election of the kings and queens
at Twelfth Night and other feasts; and that it was of great repute in
all popular divinations and love charms. I find in Miller another use of
Beans, which we are thankful to note among the obsolete uses: "They are
bought up in great quantities at Bristol for Guinea ships, as food for
the negroes on their passage from Africa to the West Indies."
As an ornamental garden plant the Bean has never received the attention
it seems to deserve. A plant of Broad Beans grown singly is quite a
stately plant, and the rich scent is an additional attraction to many,
though to many others it is too strong, and it has a bad
character--"Sleep in a Bean-field all night if you want to have awful
dreams or go crazy," is a Leicestershire proverb:[34:3] and the Scarlet
Runner (which is also a Bean) is one of the most beautiful climbers we
have. In England we seldom grow it for ornament, but in France I have
seen it used with excellent effect to cover a trellis-screen, mixed with
the large blue Convolvulus major.
FOOTNOTES:
[34:1] Chaucer, "The Marchandes Tale," 19.
[34:2] Ibid., "The Man of Lawes Tale," prologue.
[34:3] Copied from the mediæval proverb: "Cum faba florescit, stultorum
copia crescit."
BILBERRY.
_Pistol._
Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as Bilberry--
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.
_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (48).
The Bilberry is a common British shrub found on all mossy heaths, and
very pretty both in flower and in fruit. Its older English name was
Heathberry, and its botanical name is Vaccinium myrtillus. We have in
Britain four species of Vaccinium: the Whortleberry or Bilberry (_V.
myrtillus_), the Large Bilberry (_V. uliginosum_), the Crowberry (_V.
vitis idæa_), and the Cranberry (_V. oxycoccos_). These British species,
as well as the North American species (of which there are several), are
all beautiful little shrubs in cultivation, but they are very difficult
to grow; they require a heathy soil, moisture, and partial shade.
BIRCH.
_Duke._
Fond fathers,
Having bound up the threatening twigs of Birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight
For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mock'd than fear'd.
_Measure for Measure_, act i, sc. 3 (23).
Shakespeare only mentions this one unpleasant use of the Birch tree, the
manufacture of Birch rods; and for such it seems to have been chiefly
valued in his day. "I have not red of any vertue it hath in physick,"
says Turner; "howbeit, it serveth for many good uses, and for none
better than for betynge of stubborn boys, that either lye or will not
learn." Yet the Birch is not without interest. The word "Birch" is the
same as "bark," meaning first the rind of a tree and then a barque or
boat (from which we also get our word "barge"), and so the very name
carries us to those early times when the Birch was considered one of
the most useful of trees, as it still is in most northern countries,
where it grows at a higher degree of latitude than any other tree. Its
bark was especially useful, being useful for cordage, and matting, and
roofing, while the tree itself formed the early British canoes, as it
still forms the canoes of the North American Indians, for which it is
well suited, from its lightness and ease in working.
In Northern Europe it is the most universal and the most useful of
trees. It is "the superlative tree in respect of the ground it covers,
and in the variety of purposes to which it is converted in Lapland,
where the natives sit in birchen huts on birchen chairs, wearing birchen
boots and breeches, with caps and capes of the same material, warming
themselves by fires of birchwood charcoal, reading books bound in birch,
and eating herrings from a birchen platter, pickled in a birchen cask.
Their baskets, boats, harness, and utensils are all of Birch; in short,
from cradle to coffin, the Birch forms the peculiar environment of the
Laplander."[36:1] In England we still admire its graceful beauty,
whether it grows in our woods or our gardens, and we welcome its
pleasant odour on our Russia leather bound books; but we have ceased to
make beer from its young shoots,[36:2] and we hold it in almost as low
repute (from the utilitarian point of view) as Turner and Shakespeare
seem to have held it.
FOOTNOTES:
[36:1] "Gardener's Chronicle."
[36:2] "Although beer is now seldom made from birchen twigs, yet it is
by no means an uncommon practice in some country districts to tap the
white trunks of Birches, and collect the sweet sap which exudes from
them for wine-making purposes. In some parts of Leicestershire this sap
is collected in large quantities every spring, and birch wine, when well
made, is a wholesome and by no means an unpleasant beverage."--B. in
_The Garden_, April, 1877. "The Finlanders substitute the leaves of
Birch for those of the tea-plant; the Swedes extract a syrup from the
sap, from which they make a spirituous liquor. In London they make
champagne of it. The most virtuous uses to which it is applied are
brooms and wooden shoes."--_A Tour Round My Garden_, Letter xix.
BITTER-SWEET, _see_ APPLE (22).
BLACKBERRIES.
(1) _Falstaff._
Give you a reason on compulsion!--if reasons were as plentiful
as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon
compulsion, I.[37:1]
_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (263).
(2) _Falstaff._
Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat
Blackberries?
_Ibid._ (450).
(3) _Thersites._
That same dog-fox Ulysses is not proved worth a Blackberry.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act v, sc. 4 (12).
(4) _Rosalind._
There is a man . . . . hangs odes upon Hawthorns and elegies
on Brambles.
_As You Like it_, act iii, sc. 2 (379).
(5)
The thorny Brambles and embracing bushes,
As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.
_Venus and Adonis_ (629).
I here join together the tree and the fruit, the Bramble (_Rubus
fruticosus_) and the Blackberry. There is not much to be said for a
plant that is the proverbial type of a barren country or untidy
cultivation, yet the Bramble and the Blackberry have their charms, and
we could ill afford to lose them from our hedgerows. The name Bramble
originally meant anything thorny, and Chaucer applied it to the Dog
Rose--
"He was chaste and no lechour,
And sweet as is the Bramble flower
That bereth the red hepe."
But in Shakespeare's time it was evidently confined to the
Blackberry-bearing Bramble.
There is a quaint legend of the origin of the plant which is worth
repeating. It is thus pleasantly told by Waterton: "The cormorant was
once a wool merchant. He entered into partnership with the Bramble and
the bat, and they freighted a large ship with wool; she was wrecked, and
the firm became bankrupt. Since that disaster the bat skulks about till
midnight to avoid his creditors, the cormorant is for ever diving into
the deep to discover its foundered vessel, while the Bramble seizes
hold of every passing sheep to make up his loss by stealing the wool."
As a garden plant, the common Bramble had better be kept out of the
garden, but there are double pink and white-blossomed varieties, and
others with variegated leaves, that are handsome plants on rough
rockwork. The little Rubus saxatilis is a small British Bramble that is
pretty on rockwork, and among the foreign Brambles there are some that
should on no account be omitted where ornamental shrubs are grown. Such
are the R. leucodermis from Nepaul, with its bright silvery bark and
amber-coloured fruit; R. Nootkanus, with very handsome foliage, and pure
white rose-like flowers; R. Arcticus, an excellent rockwork plant from
Northern Europe, with very pleasant fruit, but difficult to establish;
R. Australis (from New Zealand), a most quaint plant, with leaves so
depauperated that it is apparently leafless, and hardy in the South of
England; and R. deliciosus, a very handsome plant from the Rocky
Mountains. There are several others well worth growing, but I mention
these few to show that the Bramble is not altogether such a villainous
and useless weed as it is proverbially supposed to be.
FOOTNOTES:
[37:1] _See_ RAISINS, p. 238.
BOX.
_Maria._ Get ye all three into the Box tree.
_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 5 (18).
The Box is a native British tree, and in the sixteenth century was
probably much more abundant as a wild tree than it is now. Chaucer notes
it as a dismal tree. He describes Palamon in his misery as--
"Like was he to byholde,
The Boxe tree or the Asschen deed and colde."
_The Knightes Tale._
Spenser noted it as "The Box yet mindful of his olde offence," and in
Shakespeare's time there were probably more woods of Box in England than
the two which still remain at Box Hill, in Surrey, and Boxwell, in
Gloucestershire. The name remains, though the trees are gone, in Box in
Wilts, Boxgrove, Boxley, Boxmoor, Boxted, and Boxworth.[39:1] From its
wild quarters the Box tree was very early brought into gardens, and was
especially valued, not only for its rich evergreen colour, but because,
with the Yew, it could be cut and tortured into all the ungainly shapes
which so delighted our ancestors in Shakespeare's time, though one of
the most illustrious of them, Lord Bacon, entered his protest against
such barbarisms: "I, for my part, do not like images cut out in Juniper
or other garden stuff; they be for children" ("Essay of Gardens").
The chief use of the Box now is for blocks for wood-carving, for which
its close grain makes it the most suitable of all woods.[39:2]
FOOTNOTES:
[39:1] In Boxford, and perhaps in some of the other names, the word has
no connection with the tree, but marks the presence of water or a
stream.
[39:2] In some parts of Europe almost a sacred character is given to the
Box. For a curious record of blessing the Box, and of a sermon on the
lessons taught by the Box, see "Gardener's Chronicle," April 19, 1873.
BRAMBLE, _see_ BLACKBERRIES.
BRIER.
(1) _Ariel._
So I charm'd their ears,
That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through
Tooth'd Briers, sharp Furzes, pricking Goss, and Thorns.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (178).
(2) _Fairy._
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough Bush, thorough Brier.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (2).
(3) _Thisbe._
Of colour like the red Rose on triumphant Brier.
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 1 (90).
(4) _Puck._
I'll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through Brake, through Brier.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (10).
(5) _Puck._
For Briers and Thorns at their apparel snatch.
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 2 (29).
(6) _Hermia._
Never so weary, never so in woe,
Bedabbled with the dew and torn with Briers.
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 2 (443).
(7) _Oberon._
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from Brier.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 1 (400).
(8) _Adriana._
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping Ivy, Brier, or idle Moss.
_Comedy of Errors_, act ii, sc. 2 (179).
(9) _Plantagenet._
From off this Brier pluck a white Rose with me.
_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (30).
(10) _Rosalind._
O! how full of Briers is this working-day world!
_As You Like It_, act i, sc. 3 (12).
(11) _Helena._
The time will bring on summer,
When Briers shall have leaves as well as Thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp.
_All's Well_, act iv, sc. 4 (32).
(12) _Polyxenes._
I'll have thy beauty scratched with Briers.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (436).
(13) _Timon._
The Oaks bear mast, the Briers scarlet hips.
_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (422).
(14) _Coriolanus._
Scratches with Briers,
Scars to move laughter only.
_Coriolanus_, act iii, sc. 3 (51).
(15) _Quintus._
What subtle hole is this,
Whose mouth is cover'd with rude-growing Briers?
_Titus Andronicus_, act iii, sc. 3 (198).
In Shakespeare's time the "Brier" was not restricted to the Sweet Briar,
as it usually is now; but it meant any sort of wild Rose, and even it
would seem from No. 9 that it was applied to the cultivated Rose, for
there the scene is laid in the Temple Gardens. In some of the passages
it probably does not allude to any Rose, but simply to any wild thorny
plant. That this was its common use then, we know from many examples. In
"Le Morte Arthur," the Earl of Ascolot's daughter is described--
"Hyr Rode was rede as blossom or Brere
Or floure that springith in the felde" (179).
And in "A Pleasant New Court Song," in the Roxburghe Ballads--
"I stept me close aside
Under a Hawthorn Bryer."
It bears the same meaning in our Bibles, where "Thorns," "Brambles," and
"Briers," stand for any thorny and useless plant, the soil of Palestine
being especially productive of thorny plants of many kinds. Wickliffe's
translation of Matthew vii. 16, is--"Whether men gaderen grapis of
thornes; or figis of Breris?" and Tyndale's translation is much the
same--"Do men gaddre grapes of thornes, or figges of Bryeres?"[41:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[41:1] "Brere--Carduus, tribulus, vepres, veprecula."--_Catholicon
Anglicum._
BROOM.
(1) _Iris._
And thy Broom groves,
Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
Being lass-lorn.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (66).
(2) _Puck._
I am sent with Broom before
To sweep the dust behind the door.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1 (396).
(3) _Man._
I made good my place; at length they came to the Broomstaff
with me.
_Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 4 (56).
The Broom was one of the most popular plants of the Middle Ages. Its
modern Latin name is _Cytisus scoparius_, but under its then Latin name
of _Planta genista_ it gave its name to the Plantagenet family, either
in the time of Henry II., as generally reported, or probably still
earlier. As the favourite badge of the family it appears on their
monuments and portraits, and was embroidered on their clothes and
imitated in their jewels. Nor was it only in England that the plant was
held in such high favour; it was the special flower of the Scotch, and
it was highly esteemed in many countries on the Continent, especially in
Brittany. Yet, in spite of all this, there are only these three notices
of the plant in Shakespeare, and of those three, two (2 and 3) refer to
its uses when dead; and the third (1), though it speaks of it as living,
yet has nothing to say of the remarkable beauties of this favourite
British flower. Yet it has great beauties which cannot easily be
overlooked. Its large, yellow flowers, its graceful habit of growth, and
its fragrance--
"Sweet is the Broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough"--
SPENSER, _Sonnet_ xxvi.
at once arrest the attention of the most careless observer of Nature. We
are almost driven to the conclusion that Shakespeare could not have had
much real acquaintance with the Broom, or he would not have sent his
"dismissed bachelor" to "Broom-groves."[42:1] I should very much doubt
that the Broom could ever attain to the dimensions of a grove, though
Steevens has a note on the passage that "near Gamlingay, in
Cambridgeshire, it grows high enough to conceal the tallest cattle as
they pass through it; and in places where it is cultivated still
higher." Chaucer speaks of the Broom, but does not make it so much of a
tree--
"Amid the Broom he basked in the sun."
And other poets have spoken of the Broom in the same way--thus Collins--
"When Dan Sol to slope his wheels began
Amid the Broom he basked him on the ground."
_Castle of Indolence_, canto i.
And a Russian poet speaks of the Broom as a tree--
"See there upon the Broom tree's bough
The young grey eagle flapping now."
_Flora Domestica_, p. 68.
As a garden plant it is perhaps seen to best advantage when mixed with
other shrubs, as when grown quite by itself it often has an untidy look.
There is a pure white variety which is very beautiful, but it is very
liable to flower so abundantly as to flower itself to death. There are a
few other sorts, but none more beautiful than the British.
FOOTNOTES:
[42:1] Yet Bromsgrove must be a corruption of Broom-grove, and there are
other places in England named from the Broom.
BULRUSH.
_Wooer._
Her careless tresses
A wreake of Bulrush rounded.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (104).
_See_ RUSH, p. 262.
BURDOCK AND BURS.
(1) _Celia._
They are but Burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday
foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths our very
petticoats will catch them.
_Rosalind._
I could shake them off my coat; these Burs are in my heart.
_As You Like It_, act i, sc. 3 (13).
(2) _Lucio._
Nay, friar, I am a kind of Bur; I shall stick.
_Measure for Measure_, act iv, sc. 3 (149).
(3) _Lysander._
Hang oft, thou cat, thou Burr.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 2 (260).
(4) _Pandarus._
They are Burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where
they are thrown.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act iii, sc. 2 (118).
(5) _Burgundy._
And nothing teems
But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs.
_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (51).
(6) _Cordelia._
Crown'd with rank Fumiter and Furrow-weeds,
With Burdocks, Hemlock, Nettles, Cuckoo-flowers.
_King Lear_, act iv, sc. 4 (3).
The Burs are the unopened flowers of the Burdock (_Arctium lappa_), and
their clinging quality very early obtained for them expressive names,
such as _amor folia_, love leaves, and philantropium. This clinging
quality arises from the bracts of the involucrum being long and stiff,
and with hooked tips which attach themselves to every passing object.
The Burdock is a very handsome plant when seen in its native habitat by
the side of a brook, its broad leaves being most picturesque, but it is
not a plant to introduce into a garden.[44:1] There is another tribe of
plants, however, which are sufficiently ornamental to merit a place in
the garden, and whose Burs are even more clinging than those of the
Burdock. These are the Acænas; they are mostly natives of America and
New Zealand, and some of them (especially A. sarmentosa and A.
microphylla) form excellent carpet plants, but their points being
furnished with double hooks, like a double-barbed arrow, they have
double powers of clinging.
BURNET.
_Burgundy._
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and green Clover.
_Henry V._ act v, sc. 2 (48).
The Burnet (_Poterium sanguisorba_) is a native plant of no great beauty
or horticultural interest, but it was valued as a good salad plant, the
leaves tasting of Cucumber, and Lord Bacon (contemporary with
Shakespeare) seems to have been especially fond of it. He says ("Essay
of Gardens"):
"Those flowers which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by
as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three--that is,
Burnet, Wild Thyme, and Water Mints; therefore you are to set whole
alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread." Drayton
had the same affection for it--
"The Burnet shall bear up with this,
Whose leaf I greatly fancy."
_Nymphal V._
It also was, and still is, valued as a forage plant that will grow and
keep fresh all the winter in dry barren pastures, thus often giving food
for sheep when other food was scarce. It has occasionally been
cultivated, but the result has not been very satisfactory, except on
very poor land, though, according to the Woburn experiments, as reported
by Sinclair, it contains a larger amount of nutritive matter in the
spring than most of the Grasses. It has brown flowers, from which it is
supposed to derive its name (Brunetto).[45:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[44:1]
"A Clote-leef he had under his hood
For swoot, and to keep his heed from hete."
CHAUCER, _Prologue of the Chanounes Yeman_ (25).
This Clote leaf is by many considered to be the Burdock leaf, but it was
more probably the name of the Water-lily.
[45:1] "Burnet colowre, Burnetum, burnetus."--_Promptorium Parvulorum._
CABBAGE.
_Evans._
_Pauca verba_, Sir John; good worts.
_Falstaff._
Good worts! good Cabbage.
_Merry Wives_, act i, sc. 1 (123).
The history of the name is rather curious. It comes to us from the
French _Chou cabus_, which is the French corruption of _Caulis
capitatus_, the name by which Pliny described it.
The Cabbage of Shakespeare's time was essentially the same as ours, and
from the contemporary accounts it seems that the sorts cultivated were
as good and as numerous as they are now. The cultivated Cabbage is the
same specifically as the wild Cabbage of our sea-shores (_Brassica
oleracea_) improved by cultivation. Within the last few years the
Cabbage has been brought from the kitchen garden into the flower garden
on account of the beautiful variegation of its leaves. This, however, is
no novelty, for Parkinson said of the many sorts of Cabbage in his day:
"There is greater diversity in the form and colour of the leaves of
this plant than there is in any other that I know groweth on the
ground. . . . Many of them being of no use with us for the table, but
for delight to behold the wonderful variety of the works of God herein."
CAMOMILE.
_Falstaff._
Though the Camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it
grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears.
_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (443).
The low-growing Camomile, the emblem of the sweetness of humility, has
the lofty names of Camomile (_Chamæmelum_, _i.e._, Apple of the Earth)
and Anthemis nobilis. Its fine aromatic scent and bitter flavour
suggested that it must be possessed of much medicinal virtue, while its
low growth made it suitable for planting on the edges of flower-beds and
paths, its scent being brought out as it was walked upon. For this
purpose it was much used in Elizabethan gardens; "large walks, broad and
long, close and open, like the Tempe groves in Thessaly, raised with
gravel and sand, having seats and banks of Camomile; all this delights
the mind, and brings health to the body."[46:1] As a garden flower it is
now little used, though its bright starry flower and fine scent might
recommend it; but it is still to be found in herb gardens, and is still,
though not so much as formerly, used as a medicine.
Like many other low plants, the Camomile is improved by being pressed
into the earth by rolling or otherwise, and there are many allusions to
this in the old writers: thus Lily in his "Euphues" says: "The Camomile
the more it is trodden and pressed down, the more it spreadeth;" and in
the play, "The More the Merrier" (1608), we have--
"The Camomile shall teach thee patience
Which riseth best when trodden most upon."
FOOTNOTES:
[46:1] Lawson, "New Orchard," p. 54.
CARDUUS, _see_ HOLY THISTLE.
CARNATIONS.
(1) _Perdita._
The fairest flowers o' the season
Are our Carnations and streak'd Gillyvors,
Which some call Nature's bastards.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (81).
(2) _Polyxenes._
Then make your garden rich in Gillyvors,
And do not call them bastards.
_Ibid._ (98).
There are two other places in which Carnation is mentioned, but they
refer to carnation colour--_i.e._, to pure flesh colour.
(3) _Quickly._
'A could never abide Carnation; 'twas a colour he never liked.
_Henry V_, act ii, sc. 3 (35).
(4) _Costard._
Pray you, sir, how much Carnation riband may a man buy for a
remuneration?
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act iii, sc. 1 (146).
Dr. Johnson and others have supposed that the flower is so named from
the colour, but that this is a mistake is made very clear by Dr. Prior.
He quotes Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar"--
"Bring Coronations and Sops-in-Wine
Worn of Paramours."
and so it is spelled in Lyte's "Herbal," 1578, coronations or
cornations. This takes us at once to the origin of the name. The plant
was one of those used in garlands (_coronæ_), and was probably one of
the most favourite plants used for that purpose, for which it was well
suited by its shape and beauty. Pliny gives a long list of garland
flowers (_Coronamentorum genera_) used by the Romans and Athenians, and
Nicander gives similar lists of Greek garland plants (+stephanômatika
anthê+), in which the Carnation holds so high a place that it was called
by the name it still has--Dianthus, or Flower of Jove.
Its second specific name, Caryophyllus--_i.e._, Nut-leaved--seems at
first very inappropriate for a grassy leaved plant, but the name was
first given to the Indian Clove-tree, and from it transferred to the
Carnation, on account of its fine clove-like scent. Its popularity as an
English plant is shown by its many names--Pink, Carnation,
Gilliflower[48:1] (an easily-traced and well-ascertained corruption from
Caryophyllus), Clove, Picotee,[48:2] and Sops-in-Wine, from the flowers
being used to flavour wine and beer.[48:3] There is an historical
interest also in the flowers. All our Carnations, Picotees, and Cloves
come originally from the single Dianthus caryophyllus; this is not a
true British plant, but it holds a place in the English flora, being
naturalized on Rochester and other castles. It is abundant in Normandy,
and I found it (in 1874) covering the old castle of Falaise in which
William the Conqueror was born. Since that I have found that it grows on
the old castles of Dover, Deal, and Cardiff, all of them of Norman
construction, as was Rochester, which was built by Gundulf, the special
friend of William. Its occurrence on these several Norman castles make
it very possible that it was introduced by the Norman builders, perhaps
as a pleasant memory of their Norman homes, though it may have been
accidentally introduced with the Normandy (Caen) stone, of which parts
of the castles are built. How soon it became a florist's flower we do
not know, but it must have been early, as in Shakespeare's time the
sorts of Cloves, Carnations, and Pinks were so many that Gerard says: "A
great and large volume would not suffice to write of every one at large
in particular, considering how infinite they are, and how every yeare,
every clymate and countrey, bringeth forth new sorts, and such as have
not heretofore bin written of;" and so we may certainly say now--the
description of the many kinds of Carnations and Picotees, with
directions for their culture, would fill a volume.
FOOTNOTES:
[48:1] This is the more modern way of spelling it. In the first folio it
is "Gillyvor." "Chaucer writes it Gylofre, but by associating it with
the the Nutmeg and other spices, appears to mean the Clove Tree, which
is, in fact, the proper signification."--_Flora Domestica._ In the
"Digby Mysteries" (Mary Magdalene, l. 1363) the Virgin Mary is addressed
as "the Jentyll Jelopher."
[48:2] Picotee is from the French word _picoté_ marked with little
pricks round the edge, like the "picots," on lace, _picot_ being the
technical term in France for the small twirls which in England are
called "purl" or "pearl."
[48:3] Wine thus flavoured was evidently a very favourite beverage.
"Bartholemeus Peytevyn tenet duas Caracutas terræ in Stony-Aston in Com.
Somerset de Domino Rege in capite per servitium unius[48:a] Sextarii
vini Gariophilati reddendi Domino Regi per annum ad Natale Domini. Et
valet dicta terra per ann. _xl._"
[48:a] "A Sextary of July-flower wine, and a Sextary contained
about a pint and a half, sometimes more."--BLOUNT'S _Antient
Tenures_.
CARRAWAYS.
_Shallow._
Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour we will eat
a last year's Pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of
Caraways and so forth.
_2nd Henry IV_, act v, sc. 3 (1).
Carraways are the fruit of Carum carui, an umbelliferous plant of a
large geographical range, cultivated in the eastern counties, and
apparently wild in other parts of England, but not considered a true
native. In Shakespeare's time the seed was very popular, and was much
more freely used than in our day. "The seed," says Parkinson, "is much
used to be put among baked fruit, or into bread, cakes, &c., to give
them a rellish. It is also made into comfits and put into Trageas or (as
we call them in English) Dredges, that are taken for cold or wind in the
body, as also are served to the table with fruit."
Carraways are frequently mentioned in the old writers as an
accompaniment to Apples. In a very interesting bill of fare of 1626,
extracted from the account book of Sir Edward Dering, is the following--
"Carowaye and comfites, 6d.
A Warden py that the cooke
Made--we fining y{e} Wardens. 2s. 4d.
Second Course.
A cold Warden pie.
Complement.
Apples and Carrawayes."--_Notes and Queries_, i, 99.
So in Russell's "Book of Nurture:" "After mete . . . pepyns Careaway in
comfyte," line 78, and the same in line 714; and in Wynkyn de Worde's
"Boke of Kervynge" ("Babee's Book," p. 266 and 271), and in F. Seager's
"Schoole of Vertue" ("Babee's Book," p. 343)--
"Then cheese with fruite On the table set,
With Bisketes or Carowayes As you may get."
The custom of serving roast Apples with a little saucerful of Carraway
is still kept up at Trinity College, Cambridge, and, I believe, at some
of the London Livery dinners.
CARROT.
_Evans._
Remember, William, focative is _caret_,
_Quickly._
And that's a good root.
_Merry Wives_, act iv, sc. 1 (55).
Dame Quickly's pun gives us our Carrot, a plant which, originally
derived from our wild Carrot (_Daucus Carota_), was introduced as a
useful vegetable by the Flemings in the time of Elizabeth, and has
probably been very little altered or improved since the time of its
introduction. In Shakespeare's time the name was applied to the "Yellow
Carrot" or Parsnep, as well as to the Red one. The name of Carrot comes
directly from its Latin or rather Greek name, Daucus Carota, but it
once had a prettier name. The Anglo-Saxons called it "bird's-nest," and
Gerard gives us the reason, and it is a reason that shows they were more
observant of the habits of plants than we generally give them credit
for: "The whole tuft (of flowers) is drawn together when the seed is
ripe, resembling a bird's nest; whereupon it hath been named of some
Bird's-nest."
CEDAR.
(1) _Prospero._
And by the spurs pluck'd up
The Pine and Cedar.
_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (47).
(2) _Dumain._
As upright as the Cedar.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act iv, sc. 3 (89).
(3) _Warwick._
As on a mountain top the Cedar shows,
That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm.
_2nd Henry VI_, act v, sc. 1 (205).
(4) _Warwick._
Thus yields the Cedar to the axe's edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,
Whose top-branch o'erpeered Jove's spreading tree,
And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.
_3rd Henry VI_, act v, sc. 2 (11).
(5) _Cranmer._
He shall flourish,
And, like a mountain Cedar, reach his branches
To all the plains about him.
_Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 5 (215).
(6) _Posthumus._
When from a stately Cedar shall be lopped branches, which,
being dead many years, shall after revive.
_Cymbeline_, act v, sc. 4 (140); and act v, sc. 5 (457).
(7) _Soothsayer._
The lofty Cedar, royal Cymbeline,
Personates thee. Thy lopp'd branches
. . . . . are now revived,
To the majestic Cedar join'd.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 5 (453).
(8) _Gloucester._
But I was born so high,
Our aery buildeth in the Cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.
_Richard III_, act i, sc. 3 (263).
(9) _Coriolanus._
Let the mutinous winds
Strike the proud Cedars 'gainst the fiery sun.
_Coriolanus_, act v, sc. 3 (59).
(10) _Titus._
Marcus, we are but shrubs, no Cedars we.
_Titus Andronicus_, act iv, sc. 3 (45).
(11) _Daughter._
I have sent him where a Cedar,
Higher than all the rest, spreads like a Plane
Fast by a brook.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act ii, sc. 6 (4).
(12)
The sun ariseth in his majesty;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold
That Cedar-tops and hills seem burnished gold.
_Venus and Adonis_ (856).
(13)
The Cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,
But low shrubs wither at the Cedar's root.
_Lucrece_ (664).
The Cedar is the classical type of majesty and grandeur, and superiority
to everything that is petty and mean. So Shakespeare uses it, and only
in this way; for it is very certain he never saw a living specimen of
the Cedar of Lebanon. But many travellers in the East had seen it and
minutely described it, and from their descriptions he derived his
knowledge of the tree; but not only, and probably not chiefly from
travellers, for he was well acquainted with his Bible, and there he
would meet with many a passage that dwelt on the glories of the Cedar,
and told how it was the king of trees, so that "the Fir trees were not
like his boughs, and the Chestnut trees were not like his branches, nor
any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty, fair by
the multitude of his branches, so that all the trees of Eden that were
in the garden of God envied him" (Ezekiel xxxi. 8, 9). It was such
descriptions as these that supplied Shakespeare with his imagery, and
which made our ancestors try to introduce the tree into England. But
there seems to have been much difficulty in establishing it. Evelyn
tried to introduce it, but did not succeed at first, and the tree is not
mentioned in his "Sylva" of 1664. It was, however, certainly introduced
in 1676, when it appears, from the gardeners' accounts, to have been
planted at Bretby Park, Derbyshire ("Gardener's Chronicle," January,
1877). I believe this is the oldest certain record of the planting of
the Cedar in England, the next oldest being the trees in Chelsea Botanic
Gardens, which were certainly planted in 1683. Since that time the tree
has proved so suitable to the English soil that it is grown everywhere,
and everywhere asserts itself as the king of evergreen trees, whether
grown as a single tree on a lawn, or mixed in large numbers with other
trees, as at Highclere Park, in Hampshire (Lord Carnarvon's). Among
English Cedar trees there are probably none that surpass the fine
specimens at Warwick Castle, which owe, however, much of their beauty to
their position on the narrow strip of land between the Castle and the
river. I mention these to call attention to the pleasant coincidence
(for it is nothing more) that the most striking descriptions of the
Cedar are given by Shakespeare to the then owner of the princely Castle
of Warwick (Nos. 3 and 4).
The mediæval belief about the Cedar was that its wood was imperishable.
"Hæc Cedrus, A{e} sydyretre, et est talis nature quod nunquam putrescet
in aqua nec in terra" (English Vocabulary--15th cent.); but as a timber
tree the English-grown Cedar has not answered to its old reputation, so
that Dr. Lindley called it "the worthless though magnificent Cedar of
Lebanon."
CHERRY.
(1) _Helena._
So we grew together,
Like to a double Cherry, seeming parted,
But yet a union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 2 (208).
(2) _Demetrius._
O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing Cherries, tempting grow!
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 2 (139).
(3) _Constance._
And it' grandam will
Give it a Plum, a Cherry, and a Fig.
_King John_, act ii, sc. 1 (161).
(4) _Lady._
'Tis as like you
As Cherry is to Cherry.
_Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 1 (170).
(5) _Gower._
She with her neeld composes
Nature's own shape of bud, bird, branch, or berry;
That even her art sisters the natural Roses,
Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied Cherry.
_Pericles_, act v, chorus (5).
(6) _Dromio of Syracuse._
Some devils ask but the paring of one's nail,
A Rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,
A Nut, a Cherry-stone.
_Comedy of Errors_, act iv, sc. 3 (72).
(7) _Queen._
Oh, when
The twyning Cherries shall their sweetness fall
Upon thy tasteful lips.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act i, sc. 1 (198).
(8)
When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,
That some would sing, some other in their bills
Would bring him Mulberries and ripe-red Cherries.
He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.
_Venus and Adonis_ (1101).
Besides these, there is mention of "cherry lips"[54:1] and
"cherry-nose,"[54:2] and the game of "cherry-pit."[54:3] We have the
authority of Pliny that the Cherry (_Prunus Cerasus_) was introduced
into Italy from Pontus, and by the Romans was introduced into Britain.
It is not, then, a true native, but it has now become completely
naturalized in our woods and hedgerows, while the cultivated trees are
everywhere favourites for the beauty of their flowers, and their rich
and handsome fruit. In Shakespeare's time there were almost as many, and
probably as good varieties, as there are now.
FOOTNOTES:
[54:1] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1; _Richard III_, act i,
sc. 1; _Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1.
[54:2] _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1.
[54:3] _Twelfth Night_, act iii, sc. 4.
CHESTNUTS.
(1) _Witch._
A sailor's wife had Chestnuts in her lap,
And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd.
_Macbeth_, act i, sc. 3 (4).
(2) _Petruchio._
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a Chestnut in farmer's fire?
_Taming of the Shrew_, act i, sc. 2 (208).
(3) _Rosalind._
I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.
_Celia._
An excellent colour; your Chestnut was ever the only colour.
_As You Like It_, act iii, sc. 4 (11).
This is the Spanish or Sweet Chestnut, a fruit which seems to have been
held in high esteem in Shakespeare's time, for Lyte, in 1578, says of
it, "Amongst all kindes of wilde fruites the Chestnut is best and
meetest for to be eaten." The tree cannot be regarded as a true native,
but it has been so long introduced, probably by the Romans, that grand
specimens are to be found in all parts of England; the oldest known
specimen being at Tortworth, in Gloucestershire, which was spoken of as
an old tree in the time of King Stephen; while the tree that is said to
be the oldest and the largest in Europe is the Spanish Chestnut tree on
Mount Etna, the famous Castagni du Centu Cavalli, which measures near
the root 160 feet in circumference. It is one of our handsomest trees,
and very useful for timber, and at one time it was supposed that many of
our oldest buildings were roofed with Chestnut. This was the current
report of the grand roof at Westminster Hall, but it is now discovered
to be of Oak, and it is very doubtful whether the Chestnut timber is as
lasting as it has long been supposed to be.
The Horse Chestnut was probably unknown to Shakespeare. It is an Eastern
tree, and in no way related to the true Chestnut, and though the name
has probably no connection with horses or their food, yet it is curious
that the petiole has (especially when dry) a marked resemblance to a
horse's leg and foot, and that both on the parent stem and the petiole
may be found a very correct representation of a horseshoe with its
nails.[55:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[55:1] For an excellent description of the great differences between the
Spanish and Horse Chestnut, see "Gardener's Chronicle," Oct. 29, 1881.
CLOVER.
(1) _Burgundy._
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and green Clover.
_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (48).
(2) _Tamora._
I will enchant the old Andronicus
With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,
Than baits to fish, or Honey-stalks to sheep,
When, as the one is wounded with the bait,
The other rotted with delicious food.
_Titus Andronicus_, act iv, sc. 4 (89).
"Honey-stalks" are supposed to be the flower of the Clover. This seems
very probable, but I believe the name is no longer applied. Of the
Clover there are two points of interest that are worth notice. The
Clover is one of the plants that claim to be the Shamrock of St.
Patrick. This is not a settled point, and at the present day the
Woodsorrel is supposed to have the better claim to the honour. But it is
certain that the Clover is the "clubs" of the pack of cards. "Clover" is
a corruption of "Clava," a club. In England we paint the Clover on our
cards and call it "clubs," while in France they have the same figure,
but call it "trefle."
CLOVES.
_Biron._
A Lemon.
_Longaville._
Stuck with Cloves.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (633).[56:1]
As a mention of a vegetable product, I could not omit this passage, but
the reference is only to the imported spice and not to the tree from
which then, as now, the Clove was gathered. The Clove of commerce is the
unexpanded flower of the Caryophyllus aromaticus, and the history of its
discovery and cultivation by the Dutch in Amboyna, with the vain
attempts they made to keep the monopoly of the profitable spice, is
perhaps the saddest chapter in all the history of commerce. See a full
account with description and plate of the plant in "Bot. Mag.," vol. 54,
No. 2749.
FOOTNOTES:
[56:1] "But then 'tis as full of drollery as ever it can hold; 'tis like
an orange stuck with Cloves as for conceipt."--_The Rehearsal_, 1671,
act iii, sc. 1.
COCKLE.
(1) _Biron._
Allons! allons! sowed Cockle reap'd no Corn.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act iv, sc. 3 (383).
(2) _Coriolanus._
We nourish 'gainst our senate
The Cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd, and scatter'd,
By mingling them with us.
_Coriolanus_, act iii, sc. 1 (69).
In Shakespeare's time the word "Cockle" was becoming restricted to the
Corn-cockle (_Lychnis githago_), but both in his time, and certainly in
that of the writers before him, it was used generally for any noxious
weed that grew in corn-fields, and was usually connected with the Darnel
and Tares.[57:1] So Gower--
"To sowe Cockel with the Corn
So that the tilthe is nigh forlorn,
Which Crist sew first his owne hond--
Now stant the Cockel in the lond
Where stood whilom the gode greine,
For the prelats now, as men sain,
For slouthen that they shoulden tille."
_Confessio Amantis_, lib. quintus (2-190, Paulli).
Latimer has exactly the same idea: "Oh, that our prelates would bee as
diligent to sowe the corne of goode doctrine as Sathan is to sow Cockel
and Darnel." . . . "There was never such a preacher in England as he
(the devil) is. Who is able to tel his dylygent preaching? which every
daye and every houre laboreth to sowe Cockel and Darnel" (Latimer's
Fourth Sermon). And to the same effect Spenser--
"And thus of all my harvest-hope I have
Nought reaped but a weedie crop of care,
Which when I thought have thresht in swelling sheave,
Cockle for corn, and chaff for barley bare."
The Cockle or Campion is said to do mischief among the Wheat, not only,
as the Poppy and other weeds, by occupying room meant for the better
plant, but because the seed gets mixed with the corn, and then "what
hurt it doth among corne, the spoyle unto bread, as well in colour,
taste, and unwholsomness is better known than desired." So says Gerard,
but I do not know how far modern experience confirms him. It is a pity
the plant has so bad a character, for it is a very handsome weed, with a
fine blue flower, and the seeds are very curious objects under the
microscope, being described as exactly like a hedgehog rolled up.[58:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[57:1] "Cokylle--quædam aborigo, zazannia."--_Catholicon Anglicum._
[58:1] In Dorsetshire the Cockle is the bur of the Burdock. Barnes'
Glossary of Dorset.
COLOQUINTIDA.
_Iago._
The food that to him now is as luscious as Locusts, shall be
to him shortly as bitter as Coloquintida.
_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (354).
The Coloquintida, or Colocynth, is the dried fleshy part of the fruit of
the Cucumis or Citrullus colocynthis. As a drug it was imported in
Shakespeare's time and long before, but he may also have known the
plant. Gerard seems to have grown it, though from his describing it as a
native of the sandy shores of the Mediterranean, he perhaps confused it
with the Squirting Cucumber (_Momordica elaterium_). It is a native of
Turkey, but has been found also in Japan. It is also found in the East,
and we read of it in the history of Elisha: "One went out into the field
to gather herbs, and found a wild Vine, and gathered thereof wild
Gourds, his lap full."[59:1] It is not quite certain what species of
Gourd is here meant, but all the old commentators considered it to be
the Colocynth,[59:2] the word "vine" meaning any climbing plant, a
meaning that is still in common use in America.
All the tribe of Cucumbers are handsome foliaged plants, but they
require room. On the Continent they are much more frequently grown in
gardens than in England, but the hardy perennial Cucumber (_Cucumis
perennis_) makes a very handsome carpet where the space can be spared,
and the Squirting Cucumber (also hardy and perennial) is worth growing
for its curious fruit. (_See also_ PUMPION.)
FOOTNOTES:
[59:1] 2 Kings iv. 39.
[59:2] "Invenitque quasi vitem sylvestrem, et collegit ex ea
Colocynthidas agri."--_Vulgate._
COLUMBINE.
(1) _Armado._
I am that flower,
_Dumain._
That Mint.
_Longaville._
That Columbine.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (661).
(2) _Ophelia._
There's Fennel for you and Columbines.
_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 5 (189).
This brings us to one of the most favourite of our old-fashioned English
flowers. It is very doubtful whether it is a true native, but from early
times it has been "carefully nursed up in our gardens for the delight
both of its forme and colours" (Parkinson); yet it had a bad character,
as we see from two passages quoted by Steevens--
"What's that--a Columbine?
No! that thankless flower grows not in my garden."
_All Fools_, by CHAPMAN, 1605.
and again in the 15th Song of Drayton's "Polyolbion"--
"The Columbine amongst they sparingly do set."
Spenser gave it a better character. Among his "gardyn of sweet floures,
that dainty odours from them threw around," he places--
"Her neck lyke to a bounch of Cullambynes."
And, still earlier, Skelton (1463-1529) spoke of it with high praise--
"She is the Vyolet,
The Daysy delectable,
The Columbine commendable,
The Ielofer amyable."--_Phyllip Sparrow._
Both the English and the Latin names are descriptive of the plant.
Columbine, or the Dove-plant, calls our attention to the "resemblance of
its nectaries to the heads of pigeons in a ring round a dish, a
favourite device of ancient artists" (Dr. Prior); or to "the figure of a
hovering dove with expanded wings, which we obtain by pulling off a
single petal with its attached sepals" (Lady Wilkinson); though it may
also have had some reference to the colour, as the word is used by
Chaucer--
"Come forth now with thin eyghen Columbine."
_The Marchaundes Tale_ (190).
The Latin name, _Aquilegia_, is generally supposed to come from
_aquilegus_, a water-collector, alluding to the water-holding powers of
the flower; it may, however, be derived from _aquila_, an eagle, but
this seems more doubtful.
As a favourite garden flower, the Columbine found its way into heraldic
blazonry. "It occurs in the crest of the old Barons Grey of Vitten, as
may be seen in the garter coat of William Grey of Vitten" (Camden
Society 1847), and is thus described in the Painter's bill for the
ceremonial of the funeral of William Lord Grey of Vitten (MS. Coll. of
Arms, i, 13, fol. 35a): "Item, his creste with the favron, or, sette on
a leftehande glove, argent, out thereof issuyinge, caste over threade, a
braunch of Collobyns, blue, the stalk vert." Old Gwillim also enumerates
the Columbine among his "Coronary Herbs," as follows: "He beareth
argent, a chevron sable between three Columbines slipped proper, by the
name of Hall of Coventry. The Columbine is pleasing to the eye, as well
in respect of the seemly (and not vulgar) shape as in regard of the
azury colour thereof, and is holden to be very medicinable for the
dissolving of imposthumations or swellings in the throat."
As a garden plant the Columbine still holds a favourite place. Hardy,
handsome, and easy of cultivation, it commends itself to the most
ornamental as well as to the cottage garden, and there are so many
different sorts (both species and varieties) that all tastes may be
suited. Of the common species (A. vulgaris) there are double and single,
blue, white, and red; there is the beautiful dwarf A. Pyrenaica, never
exceeding six inches in height, but of a very rich deep blue; there are
the red and yellow ones (A. Skinneri and A. formosa) from North America;
and, to mention no more, there are the lovely A. coerulea and the
grand A. chrysantha from the Rocky Mountains, certainly two of the most
desirable acquisitions to our hardy flowers that we have had in late
years.
CORK.
(1) _Rosalind._
I prythee take the Cork out of thy mouth, that I may hear thy
tidings.
_As You Like It_, act iii, sc. 2 (213).
(2) _Clown._
As you'ld thrust a Cork into a hogshead.
_Winter's Tale_, act iii, sc. 3 (95).
(3) _Cornwall._
Bind fast his Corky arms.
_King Lear_, act iii, sc. 7 (28).
It is most probable that Shakespeare had no further acquaintance with
the Cork tree than his use of Corks. The living tree was not introduced
into England till the latter part of the seventeenth century, yet is
very fairly described both by Gerard and Parkinson. The Cork, however,
was largely imported, and was especially used for shoes. Not only did
"shoemakers put it in shoes and pantofles for warmness sake," but for
its lightness it was used for the high-heeled shoes of the fashionable
ladies. I suppose from the following lines that these shoes were a
distinguishing part of a bride's trousseau--
"Strip off my bride's array,
My Cork-shoes from my feet,
And, gentle mother, be not coy
To bring my winding sheet."
_The Bride's Burial_--Roxburghe Ballads.
The Cork tree is a necessary element in all botanic gardens, but as an
ornamental tree it is not sufficiently distinct from the Ilex. Though a
native of the South of Europe it is hardy in England.
CORN.
(1) _Gonzalo._
No use of metal, Corn, or wine, or oil.
_Tempest_, act ii, sc. 1 (154).
(2) _Duke._
Our Corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.
_Measure for Measure_, act iv, sc. 1 (76).
(3) _Titania._
Playing on pipes of Corn, (67)
* * * * *
The green Corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (94).
(4) _K. Edward._
What valiant foemen, like to autumn's Corn,
Have we mowed down in tops of all their pride!
_3rd Henry VI_, act v, sc. 7 (3).
(5) _Pucelle._
Talk like the vulgar sort of market men
That come to gather money for their Corn.
_1st Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (4).
Poor market folks that come to sell their Corn.
_Ibid._ (14).
Good morrow, gallants! want ye Corn for bread?
_Ibid._ (41).
_Burgundy._
I trust, ere long, to choke thee with thine own,
And make thee curse the harvest of that Corn.
_Ibid._ (46).
(6) _Duchess._
Why droops my lord like over-ripened Corn
Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?
_2nd Henry VI_, act i, sc. 2. (1).
(7) _Warwick._
His well-proportioned beard made rough and ragged
Like to the summer's Corn by tempest lodged.
_2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (175).
(8) _Mowbray._
We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind
That even our Corn shall seem as light as chaff.
_2nd Henry IV_, act iv, sc. 1 (194).
(9) _Macbeth._
Though bladed Corn be lodged and trees blown down.
_Macbeth_, act iv, sc. 1 (55).
(10) _Longaville._
He weeds the Corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act i, sc. 1 (96).
(11) _Biron._
Allons! allons! sowed Cockle reap'd no Corn.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc 3 (383).
(12) _Edgar._
Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the Corn.
_King Lear_, act iii, sc. 6 (43).
(13) _Cordelia._
All the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining Corn.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 4 (6).
(14) _Demetrius._
First thrash the Corn, then after burn the straw.
_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (123).
(15) _Marcus._
O, let me teach you how to knit again
This scattered Corn into one mutual sheaf.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 3 (70).
(16) _Pericles._
Our ships are stored with Corn to make your needy bread.
_Pericles_, act i, sc. 4 (95).
(17) _Cleon._
Your grace that fed my country with your Corn.
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 3 (18).
(18) _Menenius._
For Corn at their own rates.
_Coriolanus_, act i, sc. 1 (193).
_Marcus._
The gods sent not Corn for the rich men only.
_Ibid._ (211).
_Marcus._
The Volsces have much Corn.
_Ibid._ (253).
_Citizen._
We stood up about the Corn.
_Ibid._, act ii, sc. 3 (16).
_Brutus._
Corn was given them gratis.
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 1 (43).
_Coriolanus._
Tell me of Corn!
_Ibid._ (61).
The Corn of the storehouse gratis.
_Ibid._ (125).
The Corn was not our recompense.
_Ibid._ (120).
This kind of service
Did not deserve Corn gratis.
_Coriolanus_, act iii, sc. 1 (124).
(19) _Cranmer._
I am right glad to catch this good occasion
Most thoroughly to be winnow'd, where my chaff
And Corn shall fly asunder.
_Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 1 (110).
(20) _Cranmer._
Her foes shake like a field of beaten Corn
And hang their heads with sorrow.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 4 (32).
(21) _K. Richard._
We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer Corn.
_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 3 (161).
(22) _Arcite._
And run
Swifter then winde upon a field of Corne
(Curling the wealthy eares) never flew.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act ii, sc. 3 (91).
(23)
As Corn o'ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear
Is almost choked by unresisted lust.
_Lucrece_ (281).
I have made these quotations as short as possible. They could not be
omitted, but they require no comment.
COWSLIP.
(1) _Burgundy._
The even mead that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and green Clover.
_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (48).
(2) _Queen._
The Violets, Cowslips, and the Primroses,
Bear to my closet.
_Cymbeline_, act i, sc. 5 (83).
(3) _Iachimo._
On her left breast
A mole, cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a Cowslip.
_Ibid._, act ii, sc. 2 (37).
(4) _Ariel._
Where the bee sucks there suck I,
In a Cowslip's bell I lie.
_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (88).
(5) _Thisbe._
Those yellow Cowslip cheeks.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1 (339).
(6) _Fairy._
The Cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every Cowslip's ear.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (10).[65:1]
"Cowslips! how the children love them, and go out into the fields on the
sunny April mornings to collect them in their little baskets, and then
come home and pick the pips to make sweet unintoxicating wine,
preserving at the same time untouched a bunch of the goodliest flowers
as a harvest-sheaf of beauty! and then the white soft husks are gathered
into balls and tossed from hand to hand till they drop to pieces, to be
trodden upon and forgotten. And so at last, when each sense has had its
fill of the flower, and they are thoroughly tired of their play, the
children rest from their celebration of the Cowslip. Blessed are such
flowers that appeal to every sense." So wrote Dr. Forbes Watson in his
very pretty and Ruskinesque little work "Flowers and Gardens," and the
passage well expresses one of the chief charms of the Cowslip. It is the
most favourite wild flower with children. It must have been also a
favourite with Shakespeare, for his descriptions show that he had
studied it with affection. The minute description in (6) should be
noticed. The upright golden Cowslip is compared to one of Queen
Elizabeth's Pensioners, who were splendidly dressed, and are frequently
noticed in the literature of the day. With Mrs. Quickly they were the
_ne plus ultra_ of grandeur--"And yet there has been earls, nay, which
is more, pensioners" ("Merry Wives," act ii, sc. 2). Milton, too, sings
in its praise--
"Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowering May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip and the pale Primrose."
_Song on May Morning._
"Whilst from off the waters fleet,
Then I set my printless feet
O'er the Cowslip's velvet head
That bends not as I tread."
_Sabrina's Song in Comus._
But in "Lycidas" he associates it with more melancholy ideas--
"With Cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears."
This association of sadness with the Cowslip is copied by Mrs. Hemans,
who speaks of "Pale Cowslips, meet for maiden's early bier;" but these
are exceptions. All the other poets who have written of the Cowslip (and
they are very numerous) tell of its joyousness, and brightness, and
tender beauty, and its "bland, yet luscious, meadow-breathing scent."
The names of the plant are a puzzle; botanically it is a Primrose, but
it is never so called. It has many names, but its most common are Paigle
and Cowslip. Paigle has never been satisfactorily explained, nor has
Cowslip. Our great etymologists, Cockayne and Dr. Prior and Wedgwood,
are all at variance on the name; and Dr. Prior assures us that it has
nothing to do with either "cows" or "lips," though the derivation, if
untrue, is at least as old as Ben Jonson, who speaks of "Bright
Dayes-eyes and the lips of Cowes." But we all believe it has, and,
without inquiring too closely into the etymology, we connect the flower
with the rich pastures and meadows of which it forms so pretty a spring
ornament, while its fine scent recalls the sweet breath of the
cow--"just such a sweet, healthy odour is what we find in cows; an odour
which breathes around them as they sit at rest on the pasture, and is
believed by many, perhaps with truth, to be actually curative of
disease" (Forbes Watson).
Botanically, the Cowslip is a very interesting plant. In all essential
points the Primrose, Cowslip, and Oxlip are identical; the Primrose,
however, choosing woods and copses and the shelter of the hedgerows, the
Cowslip choosing the open meadows, while the Oxlip is found in either.
The garden "Polyanthus of unnumbered dyes" (Thomson's "Seasons:" Spring)
is only another form produced by cultivation, and is one of the most
favourite plants in cottage gardens. It may, however, well be grown in
gardens of more pretension; it is neat in growth, handsome in flower, of
endless variety, and easy cultivation. There are also many varieties of
the Cowslip, of different colours, double and single, which are very
useful in the spring garden.
FOOTNOTES:
[65:1] Drayton also allotted the Cowslip as the special
Fairies' flower--
"For the queene a fitting bower,
(Quoth he) is that tall Cowslip flower."--_Nymphidia._
CRABS, _see_ APPLE.
CROCUS, _see_ SAFFRON.
CROW-FLOWERS.
_Queen._
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of Crow-flowers, Nettles, Daisies, and Long Purples.
_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 7 (169).
The Crow-flower is now the Buttercup,[67:1] but in Shakespeare's time it
was applied to the Ragged Robin (_Lychnis flos-cuculi_), and I should
think that this was the flower that poor Ophelia wove into her garland.
Gerard says, "They are not used either in medicine or in nourishment;
but they serve for garlands and crowns, and to deck up gardens." We do
not now use the Ragged Robin for the decking of our gardens, not that we
despise it, for it is a flower that all admire in the hedgerows, but
because we have other members of the same family as easy to grow and
more handsome, such as the double variety of the wild plant, L.
Chalcedonica, L. Lagascæ, L. fulgens, L. Haagena, &c. In Shakespeare's
time the name was also given to the Wild Hyacinth, which is so named by
Turner and Lyte; but this could scarcely have been the flower of
Ophelia's garland, which was composed of the flowers of early summer,
and not of spring. (See Appendix, p. 388.)
FOOTNOTES:
[67:1] In Scotland the Wild Hyacinth is still called the Crow-flower--
"Sweet the Crow-flower's early bell
Decks Gleniffer's dewy dell,
Blooming like thy bonny sel,
My young, my artless dearie, O."
TANNAHILL, _Gloomy Winter_.
CROWN IMPERIAL.
_Perdita._
Bold Oxlips, and
The Crown Imperial.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (125).
The Crown Imperial is a Fritillary (_F. imperialis_). It is a native of
Persia, Afghanistan, and Cashmere, but it was very early introduced into
England from Constantinople, and at once became a favourite. Chapman, in
1595, spoke of it as--
"Fair Crown Imperial, Emperor of Flowers."
OVID'S _Banquet of Sense_.
Gerard had it plentifully in his garden, and Parkinson gave it the
foremost place in his "Paradisus Terrestris." "The Crown Imperial," he
says, "for its stately beautifulnesse deserveth the first place in this
our garden of delight, to be here entreated of before all other
Lillies." George Herbert evidently admired it much--
"Then went I to a garden, and did spy
A gallant flower,
The Crown Imperial."
_Peace_ (13).
And if not in Shakespeare's time, yet certainly very soon after, there
were as many varieties as there are now. The plant, as a florist's
flower, has stood still in a very remarkable way. Though it is
apparently a plant that invites the attention of the hybridizing
gardener, yet we still have but the two colours, the red and the yellow
(a pure white would be a great acquisition), with single and double
flowers, flowers in tiers, and with variegated leaves. And all these
varieties have existed for more than two hundred years.
As a stately garden plant it should be in every garden. It flowers
early, and then dies down. But it should be planted rather in the
background, as the whole plant has an evil smell, especially in
sunshine. Yet it should have a close attention, if only to study and
admire the beautiful interior of the flower. I know of no other flower
that is similarly formed, and it cannot be better described than in
Gerard's words: "In the bottome of each of the bells there is placed six
drops of most cleere shining sweet water, in taste like sugar,
resembling in shew faire Orient pearles, the which drops if you take
away, there do immediately appeare the like; notwithstanding, if they
may be suffered to stand still in the floure according to his owne
nature, they wil never fall away, no, not if you strike the plant untill
it be broken." How these drops are formed, and what service they perform
in the economy of the flower, has not been explained, as far as I am
aware; but there is a pretty German legend which tells how the flower
was originally white and erect, and grew in its full beauty in the
garden of Gethsemane, where it was often noticed and admired by our
Lord; but in the night of the agony, as our Lord passed through the
garden, all the other flowers bowed their head in sorrowful adoration,
the Crown Imperial alone remaining with its head unbowed, but not for
long--sorrow and shame took the place of pride, she bent her proud[69:1]
head, and blushes of shame, and tears of sorrow soon followed, and so
she has ever continued, with bent head, blushing colour, and
ever-flowing tears. It is a pretty legend, and may be found at full
length in "Good Words for the Young," August, 1870.
FOOTNOTES:
[69:1] The bent head of the Crown Imperial could not well escape
notice--
"The Polyanthus, and with prudent head,
The Crown Imperial, ever bent on earth,
Favouring her secret rites, and pearly sweets."--FORSTER.
CUCKOO-BUDS AND FLOWERS.
(1) _Song of Spring._
When Daisies pied, and Violets blue,
And Lady-smocks all silver-white,
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (904).
(2) _Cordelia._
He was met even now
As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;
Crown'd with rank Fumiter and Furrow-weeds,
With Burdocks, Hemlock, Nettles, Cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining Corn.
_King Lear_, act iv, sc. 4 (1).
There is a difficulty in deciding what flower Shakespeare meant by
Cuckoo-buds. We now always give the name to the Meadow Cress (_Cardamine
pratensis_), but it cannot be that in either of these passages, because
that flower is mentioned under its other name of Lady-smocks in the
previous line (No. 1), nor is it "of yellow hue;" nor does it grow among
Corn, as described in No. 2. Many plants have been suggested, and the
choice seems to me to lie between two. Mr. Swinfen Jervis[70:1] decides
without hesitation in favour of Cowslips, and the yellow hue painting
the meadows in spring time gives much force to the decision; Schmidt
gives the same interpretation; but I think the Buttercup, as suggested
by Dr. Prior, will still better meet the requirements.
FOOTNOTES:
[70:1] "Dictionary of the Language of Shakespeare," 1868.
CUPID'S FLOWER, _see_ PANSIES.
CURRANTS.
(1) _Clown._
What am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of
Sugar, five pound of Currants.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (39).
(2) _Theseus._
I stamp this kisse upon thy Currant lippe.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act i, sc. 1 (241).
The Currants of (1) are the Currants of commerce, the fruit of the Vitis
Corinthiaca, whence the fruit has derived its name of Corans, or
Currants.
The English Currants are of an entirely different family; and are
closely allied to the Gooseberry. The Currants--black, white, and
red--are natives of the northern parts of Europe, and are probably wild
in Britain. They do not seem to have been much grown as garden fruit
till the early part of the sixteenth century, and are not mentioned by
the earlier writers; but that they were known in Shakespeare's time we
have the authority of Gerard, who, speaking of Gooseberries, says: "We
have also in our London gardens another sort altogether without prickes,
whose fruit is very small, lesser by muche than the common kinde, but of
a perfect red colour." This "perfect red colour" explains the "currant
lip" of No. 2.
CYME, _see_ SENNA.
CYPRESS.[71:1]
(1) _Suffolk._
Their sweetest shade, a grove of Cypress trees!
_2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (322).
(2) _Aufidius._
I am attended at the Cypress grove.
_Coriolanus_, act i, sc. 10 (30).
(3) _Gremio._
In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns,
In Cypress chests my arras counterpoints.
_Taming of the Shrew_, act ii, sc. 1 (351).
The Cypress (_Cupressus sempervirens_), originally a native of Mount
Taurus, is found abundantly through all the South of Europe, and is said
to derive its name from the Island of Cyprus. It was introduced into
England many years before Shakespeare's time, but is always associated
in the old authors with funerals and churchyards; so that Spenser calls
it the "Cypress funereal," which epithet he may have taken from Pliny's
description of the Cypress: "Natu morosa, fructu supervacua, baccis
torva, foliis amara, odore violenta, ac ne umbrâ quidem gratiosa--Diti
sacra, et ideo funebri signo ad domos posita" ("Nat. Hist.," xvi. 32).
Sir John Mandeville mentions the Cypress in a very curious way: "The
Cristene men, that dwellen beyond the See, in Grece, seyn that the tree
of the Cros, that we callen Cypresse, was of that tree that Adam ete the
Appule of; and that fynde thei writen" ("Voiage," &c., cap. 2). And the
old poem of the "Squyr of lowe degre," gives the tree a sacred
pre-eminence--
"The tre it was of Cypresse,
The fyrst tre that Iesu chese."
RITSON'S _Ear. Eng. Met. Romances_, viii. (31).
"In the Arundel MS. 42 may be found an alphabet of plants. . . . The
author mentions his garden 'by Stebenhythe by syde London,' and relates
that he brought a bough of Cypress with its Apples from Bristol 'into
Estbritzlond,' fresh in September, to show that it might be propagated
by slips."--_Promptorium Parvulorum_, app. 67.
The Cypress is an ornamental evergreen, but stiff in its growth till it
becomes of a good age; and for garden purposes the European plant is
becoming replaced by the richer forms from Asia and North America, such
as C. Lawsoniana, macrocarpa, Lambertiana, and others.
FOOTNOTES:
[71:1] Cypress, or Cyprus (for the word is spelt differently in the
different editions), is also mentioned by Shakespeare in the following--
(1) _Clown._
In sad Cypress let me be laid.
_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 4.
(2) _Olivia._
To one of your receiving
Enough is shown; and Cyprus, not a bosom,
Hides my poor heart.
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 1.
(3) _Autolycus._
Lawn as white as driven snow,
Cyprus, black as e'er was crow.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3.
But in all these cases the Cypress is not the name of the plant, but is
the fabric which we now call crape, the "sable stole of Cypre's lawn" of
Milton's "Penseroso."
DAFFODILS.[73:1]
(1) _Autolycus._
When Daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy o'er the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (1).
(2) _Perdita._
Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 4 (118).
(3) _Wooer._
With chaplets on their heads of Daffodillies.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (94).
_See also_ NARCISSUS, p. 175.
Of all English plants there have been none in such constant favour as
the Daffodil, whether known by its classical name of Narcissus, or by
its more popular names of Daffodil, or Daffadowndilly, and Jonquil. The
name of Narcissus it gets from being supposed to be the same as the
plant so named by the Greeks first and the Romans afterwards. It is a
question whether the plants are the same, and I believe most authors
think they are not; but I have never been able to see very good reasons
for their doubts. The name Jonquil comes corrupted through the French,
from _juncifolius_ or "rush-leaf," and is properly restricted to those
species of the family which have rushy leaves. "Daffodil" is commonly
said to be a corruption of Asphodel ("Daffodil is +Asphodelon+, and has
capped itself with a letter which eight hundred years ago did not belong
to it."--COCKAYNE, _Spoon and Sparrow_, 19), with which plant it was
confused (as it is in Lyte's "Herbal"), but Lady Wilkinson says very
positively that "it is simply the old English word 'affodyle,'[73:2]
which signifies 'that which cometh early.'" "Daffadowndilly," again is
supposed to be but a playful corruption of "Daffodil," but Dr. Prior
argues (and he is a very safe authority) that it is rather a corruption
of "Saffron Lily." Daffadowndilly is not used by Shakespeare, but it is
used by his contemporaries, as by Spenser frequently, and by H.
Constable, who died in 1604--
"Diaphenia, like the Daffadowndilly,
White as the sun, fair as the Lilly,
Heigh, ho! how I do love thee!"
But however it derived its pretty names, it was the favourite flower of
our ancestors as a garden flower, and especially as the flower for
making garlands, a custom very much more common then than it is now. It
was the favourite of all English poets. Gower describes the Narcissus--
"For in the winter fresh and faire
The flowres ben, which is contraire
To kind, and so was the folie
Which fell of his surquedrie"--_i.e._, of Narcissus.
_Confes. Aman._ lib. prim. (1. 121 Paulli).
Shakespeare must have had a special affection for it, for in all his
descriptions there is none prettier or more suggestive than Perdita's
short but charming description of the Daffodil (No. 2). A small volume
might be filled with the many poetical descriptions of this "delectable
and sweet-smelling flower," but there are some which are almost
classical, and which can never be omitted, and which will bear
repetition, however well we know them. Milton says, "The Daffodillies
fill their cups with tears."[74:1] There are Herrick's well-known
lines--
"Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon,
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon;
Stay, stay,
Until the hastening day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay as you,
We have as short a spring,
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain,
Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again."
And there are Keats' and Shelley's well-known and beautiful lines which
bring down the praises of the Daffodil to our own day. Keats says--
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,
Its loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness. . . . . .
. . . . . In spite of all
Some shape of beauty moves away the pale
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are Daffodils
With the green world they live in."
Shelley is still warmer in his praise--
"Narcissus, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness."
_The Sensitive Plant_, p. 1.
Nor must Wordsworth be left out when speaking of the poetry of
Daffodils. His stanzas are well known, while his sister's prose
description of them is the most poetical of all: "They grew among the
mossy stones; . . . some rested their heads on these stones as on a
pillow, the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they
verily laughed with the wind, they looked so gay and glancing."[76:1]
But it is time to come to prose. The Daffodil of Shakespeare is the Wild
Daffodil (_Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus_) that is found in abundance in
many parts of England. This is the true English Daffodil, and there is
only one other species that is truly native--the N. biflorus, chiefly
found in Devonshire. But long before Shakespeare's time a vast number
had been introduced from different parts of Europe, so that Gerard was
able to describe twenty-four different species, and had "them all and
every of them in our London gardens in great abundance." The family, as
at present arranged by Mr. J. G. Baker, of the Kew Herbarium, consists
of twenty-one species, with several sub-species and varieties; all of
which should be grown. They are all, with the exception of the Algerian
species, which almost defy cultivation in England, most easy of
cultivation--"Magnâ curâ non indigent Narcissi." They only require after
the first planting to be let alone, and then they will give us their
graceful flowers in varied beauty from February to May. The first will
usually be the grand N. maximus, which may be called the King of
Daffodils, though some authors have given to it a still more illustrious
name. The "Rose of Sharon" was the large yellow Narcissus, common in
Palestine and the East generally, of which Mahomet said: "He that has
two cakes of bread, let him sell one of them for some flower of the
Narcissus, for bread is the food of the body, but Narcissus is the food
of the soul." From these grand leaders of the tribe we shall be led
through the Hoop-petticoats, the many-flowered Tazettas, and the sweet
Jonquils, till we end the Narcissus season with the Poets' Narcissus
(Ben Jonson's "chequ'd and purple-ringed Daffodilly"), certainly one of
the most graceful flowers that grows, and of a peculiar fragrance that
no other flower has; so beautiful is it, that even Dr. Forbes Watson's
description of it is scarcely too glowing: "In its general expression
the Poets' Narcissus seems a type of maiden purity and beauty, yet
warmed by a love-breathing fragrance; and yet what innocence in the
large soft eye, which few can rival amongst the whole tribe of flowers.
The narrow, yet vivid fringe of red, so clearly seen amidst the
whiteness, suggests again the idea of purity, gushing passion--purity
with a heart which can kindle into fire."
FOOTNOTES:
[73:1] This account of the Daffodil, and the accounts of some other
flowers, I have taken from a paper by myself on the common English names
of plants read to the Bath Field Club in 1870, and published in the
"Transactions" of the Club, and afterwards privately printed.--H. N. E.
[73:2]
"Herbe orijam and Thyme and Violette
Eke Affodyle and savery thereby sette."
_Palladius on Husbandrie_, book i, 1014.
(E. E. Text Soc.)
[74:1] "The cup in the centre of the flower is supposed to contain the
tears of Narcissus, to which Milton alludes; . . . and Virgil in the
following--
'Pars intra septa domorum
Narcissi lacrymas . . . ponunt.'"--_Flora Domestica_, 268.
[76:1] The "Quarterly Review," quoting this description, says that "few
poets ever lived who could have written a description so simple and
original, so vivid and descriptive." Yet it is an unconscious imitation
of Homer's account of the Narcissus--
"+narkisson th' . . .
thaumaston ganoônta; sebas de te pasin idesthai
athanatois te theois êde thnêtois anthrôpois;
tou kai apo rizês hekaton kara exepephykei;
kêôdei t' odmê pas t' ouranos eurys hyperthen,
gaia te pas; egelasse, kai almyron oidma thalassês.+"
_Hymn to Demeter_, 8-14.
DAISIES.
(1) _Song of Spring._
When Daisies pied, and Violets, &c.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (904).
(_See_ CUCKOO-BUDS.)
(2) _Lucius._
Let us
Find out the prettiest Daisied plot we can,
And make him with our pikes and partizans
A grave.
_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (397).
(3) _Ophelia._
There's a Daisy.
_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 5 (183).
(4) _Queen._
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of Crow-flowers, Nettles, Daisies, and Long Purples.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 7 (169).
(5)
Without the bed her other faire hand was
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Show'd like an April Daisy on the Grass.
_Lucrece_ (393).
(6)
Daisies smel-lesse, yet most quaint.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.
_See_ APPENDIX. I., p. 359.
DAMSONS, _see_ PLUMS.
DARNEL.
(1) _Cordelia._
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining Corn.
_King Lear_, act iv, sc. 4 (5).
(_See_ CUCKOO-FLOWERS.)
(2) _Burgundy._
Her fallow leas,
The Darnel, Hemlock, and rank Fumitory
Doth root upon.
_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (44).
(3) _Pucelle._
Good morrow, Gallants! want ye Corn for bread?
I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast,
Before he'll buy again at such a rate;
'Twas full of Darnel; do you like the taste?
_1st Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (41).
Virgil, in his Fifth Eclogue, says--
"Grandia sæpe quibus mandavimus hordea solcis
Infelix lolium et steriles dominantur avenæ."
Thus translated by Thomas Newton, 1587--
"Sometimes there sproutes abundant store
Of baggage, noisome weeds,
Burres, Brembles, Darnel, Cockle, Dawke,
Wild Oates, and choaking seedes."
And the same is repeated in the first Georgic, and in both places
_lolium_ is always translated Darnel, and so by common consent Darnel is
identified with the Lolium temulentum or wild Rye Grass. But in
Shakespeare's time Darnel, like Cockle (which see), was the general name
for any hurtful weed. In the old translation of the Bible, the Zizania,
which is now translated Tares, was sometime translated Cockle,[78:1] and
Newton, writing in Shakespeare's time, says--"Under the name of Cockle
and Darnel is comprehended all vicious, noisom and unprofitable graine,
encombring and hindring good corne."--_Herball to the Bible._ The Darnel
is not only injurious from choking the corn, but its seeds become mixed
with the true Wheat, and so in Dorsetshire--and perhaps in other
parts--it has the name of "Cheat" (Barnes' Glossary), from its false
likeness to Wheat. It was this false likeness that got for it its bad
character. "Darnell or Juray," says Lyte ("Herball," 1578), "is a
vitious graine that combereth or anoyeth corne, especially Wheat, and in
his knotten straw, blades, or leaves is like unto Wheate." Yet Lindley
says that "the noxious qualities of Darnel or Lolium temulentum seem to
rest upon no certain proof" ("Vegetable Kingdom," p. 116).
FOOTNOTES:
[78:1] "When men were a sleepe, his enemy came and oversowed Cockle
among the wheate, and went his way."--_Rheims Trans._, 1582. For further
early references to Cockle or Darnel see note on "Darnelle" in the
"Catholicon Anglicum," p. 90, and Britten's "English Plant Names," p.
143.
DATES.
(1) _Clown._
I must have Saffron to colour the Warden pies--Mace--Dates?
none; that's out of my note.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (48).
(2) _Nurse._
They call for Dates and Quinces in the pastry.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act iv, sc. 4 (2).
(3) _Parolles._
Your Date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your
cheek.
_All's Well that Ends Well_, act i, sc. 1 (172).
(4) _Pandarus._
Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape,
discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth,
liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a
man?
_Cressida._
Ay, a minced man; and then to be baked with no Date in the
pye; for then the man's date's out.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act i, sc. 2 (274).
The Date is the well-known fruit of the Date Palm (_Phoenix
dactylifera_), the most northern of the Palms. The Date Palm grows over
the whole of Southern Europe, North Africa, and South-eastern Asia; but
it is not probable that Shakespeare ever saw the tree, though Neckam
speaks of it in the twelfth century, and Lyte describes it, and Gerard
made many efforts to grow it; he tried to grow plants from the seed,
"the which I have planted many times in my garden, and have grown to the
height of three foot, but the first frost hath nipped them in such sort
that they perished, notwithstanding mine industrie by covering them, or
what else I could do for their succour." The fruit, however, was
imported into England in very early times, and was called by the
Anglo-Saxons Finger-Apples, a curious name, but easily explained as the
translation of the Greek name for the fruit, +daktyloi+ which was also
the origin of the word date, of which the olden form was dactylle.[80:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[80:1] "A dactylle frute dactilis."--_Catholicon Anglicum._
DEAD MEN'S FINGERS.
_Queen._
Our cold maids do Dead Men's Fingers call them.
_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 7 (172).
_See_ LONG PURPLES, p. 148.
DEWBERRIES.
_Titania._
Feed him with Apricocks and Dewberries.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (169).
The Dewberry (_Rubus cæsius_) is a handsome fruit, very like the
Blackberry, but coming earlier. It has a peculiar sub-acid flavour,
which is much admired by some, as it must have been by Titania, who
joins it with such fruits as Apricots, Grapes, Figs, and Mulberries. It
may be readily distinguished from the Blackberry by the fruit being
composed of a few larger drupes, and being covered with a glaucous
bloom.
DIAN'S BUD.
_Oberon._
Be, as thou wast wont to be
(touching her eyes with an herb),
See, as thou wast wont to see;
Dian's Bud o'er Cupid's flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (76).
The same herb is mentioned in act iii, sc. 2 (366)--
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye,
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error, with his might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
But except in these two passages I believe the herb is not mentioned by
any author. It can be nothing but Shakespeare's translation of
Artemisia, the herb of Artemis or Diana, a herb of wonderful virtue
according to the writers before Shakespeare's day. (_See_ WORMWOOD.)
DOCKS.
(1) _Burgundy._
And nothing teems
But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs.
_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (51).
(2) _Antonio._
He'd sow it with Nettle seed,
_Sebastian._
Or Docks, or Mallows.
_Tempest_, act ii, sc. 1 (145).
The Dock may be dismissed with little note or comment, merely remarking
that the name is an old one, and is variously spelled as dokke, dokar,
doken, &c. An old name for the plant was "Patience;" the "bitter
patience" of Spenser, which is supposed by Dr. Prior to be a corruption
of Passions.
DOGBERRY.
(_Dramatis personæ_ in _Much Ado About Nothing._)
The Dogberry is the fruit either of the Cornus sanguinea or of the
Euonymus Europæus. Parkinson limits the name to the Cornus, and says:
"We for the most part call it the _Dogge berry tree_, because the
berries are not fit to be eaten, or to be given to a dogge." The plant
is only named by Shakespeare as a man's name, but it could scarcely be
omitted, as I agree with Mr. Milner that it was "probable that our
dramatist had the tree in his mind when he gave a name to that fine
fellow for a 'sixth and lastly,' Constable, Dogberry of the Watch"
("Country Pleasures," p. 229).
EBONY.
(1) _King._
The Ebon-coloured ink.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act i, sc. 1 (245).
(2) _King._
By heaven, thy love is black as Ebony.
_Biron._
Is Ebony like her? O wood divine!
A wife of such wood were felicity.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 3 (247).
(3) _Clown._
The clearstores towards the south north are as lustrous as
Ebony.
_Twelfth Night_, act iv, sc. 2 (41).
(4) _Pistol._
Rouse up revenge from Ebon den.
_2nd Henry IV_, act v, sc. 5 (39).
(5) Death's Ebon dart, to strike him dead.
_Venus and Adonis_ (948).
The Ebony as a tree was unknown in England in the time of Shakespeare.
The wood was introduced, and was the typical emblem of darkness. The
timber is the produce of more than one species, but comes chiefly from
Diospyros Ebenum, Ebenaster, Melanoxylon, Mabola, &c. (Lindley), all
natives of the East.
EGLANTINE.
(1) _Oberon._
I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows,
Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious Woodbine,
With sweet Musk-Roses and with Eglantine.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (249).
(2) _Arviragus._
Thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose, nor
The azured Harebell, like thy veins, no, nor
The leaf of Eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath.
_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (220).
If Shakespeare had only written these two passages they would
sufficiently have told of his love for simple flowers. None but a dear
lover of such flowers could have written these lines. There can be no
doubt that the Eglantine in his time was the Sweet Brier--his notice of
the sweet leaf makes this certain. Gerard so calls it, but makes some
confusion--which it is not easy to explain--by saying that the flowers
are white, whereas the flowers of the true Sweet Brier are pink. In the
earlier poets the name seems to have been given to any wild Rose, and
Milton certainly did not consider the Eglantine and the Sweet Brier to
be identical. He says ("L'Allegro")--
"Through the Sweet Briar or the Vine,
Or the twisted Eglantine."
But Milton's knowledge of flowers was very limited. Herrick has some
pretty lines on the flower, in which it seems most probable that he was
referring to the Sweet Brier--
"From this bleeding hand of mine
Take this sprig of Eglantine,
Which, though sweet unto your smell,
Yet the fretful Briar will tell,
He who plucks the sweets shall prove
Many Thorns to be in love."
It was thus the emblem of pleasure mixed with pain--
"Sweet is the Eglantine, but pricketh nere."
SPENSER, _Sonnet_ xxvi.
And so its names pronounced it to be; it was either the Sweet Brier, or
it was Eglantine, the thorny plant (Fr., _aiglentier_). There was also
an older name for the plant, of which I can give no explanation. It was
called Bedagar. "Bedagar dicitur gallice aiglentier" (John de
Gerlande). "_Bedagrage_, spina alba, wit-thorn" (Harl. MS., No. 978 in
"Reliquiæ Antiquæ," i, 36).[84:1] The name still exists, though not in
common use; but only as the name of a drug made from "the excrescences
on the branches of the Rose, and particularly on those of the wild
varieties" (Parsons on the Rose).
It is a native of Britain, but not very common, being chiefly confined
to the South of England. I have found it on Maidenhead Thicket. As a
garden plant it is desirable for the extremely delicate scent of its
leaves, but the flower is not equal to others of the family. There is,
however, a double-flowered variety, which is handsome. The fruit of the
single flowered tree is large, and of a deep red colour, and is said to
be sometimes made into a preserve. In modern times this is seldom done,
but it may have been common in Shakespeare's time, for Gerard says
quaintly: "The fruit when it is ripe maketh most pleasant meats and
banqueting dishes, as tarts and such like, the making whereof I commit
to the cunning cooke, and teeth to eat them in the rich man's mouth."
And Drayton says--
"They'll fetch you conserve from the hip,
And lay it softly on your lip."
_Nymphal II._
Eglantine has a further interest in being one of the many thorny trees
from which the sacred crown of thorns was supposed to be made--"And
afterwards he was led into a garden of Cayphas, and there he was crowned
with Eglantine" (Sir John Mandeville).
FOOTNOTES:
[84:1] "Est et cynosrodos, rosa camina, ung eglantier, folia myrti
habens, sed paulo majora; recta assurgens in mediam altitudinem inter
arborem et fruticem; fert spongiolas, quibus utuntur medici, ad malefica
capitis ulcera, la malle tigne, vocatur antem vulgo in officinis
pharmacopolarum, bedegar."--_Stephani de re Hortensi Libellus_, p. 17,
1536.
ELDER.
(1) _Arviragus._
And let the stinking Elder, grief, untwine
His perishing root with the increasing Vine!
_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (59).
(2) _Host._
What says my Æsculapius? my Galen? my heart of Elder?
_Merry Wives_, act ii, sc. 3 (29).
(3) _Saturninus._
Look for thy reward
Among the Nettles at the Elder tree,
* * * * *
This is the pit and this the Elder tree.
_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (271).
(4) _Williams._
That's a perilous shot out of an Elder gun, that a poor and
private displeasure can do against a monarch.
_Henry V_, act iv, sc. 1 (200).
(5) _Holofernes._
Begin, sir, you are my Elder.
_Biron._
Well followed; Judas was hanged on an Elder.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (608).
There is, perhaps, no tree round which so much of contradictory
folk-lore has gathered as the Elder tree.[85:1] With many it was simply
"the stinking Elder," of which nothing but evil could be spoken. Biron
(No. 5) only spoke the common mediæval notion that "Judas was hanged on
an Elder;" and so firm was this belief that Sir John Mandeville was
shown the identical tree at Jerusalem, "and faste by is zit, the Tree of
Eldre that Judas henge himself upon, for despeyr that he hadde, when he
solde and betrayed oure Lord." This was enough to give the tree a bad
fame, which other things helped to confirm--the evil smell of its
leaves, the heavy narcotic smell of its flowers, its hard and heartless
wood,[85:2] and the ugly drooping black fungus that is almost
exclusively found on it (though it occurs also on the Elm), which was
vulgarly called the Ear of Judas (_Hirneola auricula Judæ_). This was
the bad character; but, on the other hand, there were many who could
tell of its many virtues, so that in 1644 appeared a book entirely
devoted to its praises. This was "The Anatomie of the Elder, translated
from the Latin of Dr. Martin Blockwich by C. de Iryngio" (_i.e._,
Christ. Irvine), a book that, in its Latin and English form, went
through several editions. And this favourable estimate of the tree is
still very common in several parts of the Continent. In the South of
Germany it is believed to drive away evil spirits, and the name
"'Holderstock' (Elder Stock) is a term of endearment given by a lover to
his beloved, and is connected with Hulda, the old goddess of love, to
whom the Elder tree was considered sacred." In Denmark and Norway it is
held in like esteem, and in the Tyrol an "Elder bush, trained into the
form of a cross, is planted on the new-made grave, and if it blossoms
the soul of the person lying beneath it is happy." And this use of the
Elder for funeral purposes was, perhaps, also an old English custom; for
Spenser, speaking of Death, says--
"The Muses that were wont greene Baies to weare,
Now bringen bittre Eldre braunches seare."
_Shepherd's Calendar--November._
Nor must we pass by the high value that was placed on the wood both by
the Jews and Greeks. It was the wood chiefly used for musical
instruments, so that the name Sambuke was applied to several very
different instruments, from the fact that they were all made of Elder
wood. The "sackbut," "dulcimer," and "pipe" of Daniel iii. are all
connected together in this manner.
As a garden plant the common Elder is not admissible, though it forms a
striking ornament in the wild hedgerows and copses, while its flowers
yield the highly perfumed Elder-flower water, and its fruits give the
Elder wine; but the tree runs into many varieties, several of which are
very ornamental, the leaves being often very finely divided and jagged,
and variegated both with golden and silver blotches. There is a handsome
species from Canada (Sambucus Canadensis), which is worth growing in
shrubberies, as it produces its pure white flowers in autumn.
FOOTNOTES:
[85:1] Called also Eldern in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
and still earlier, Eller or Ellyr ("Catholicon Anglicum"). "The Ellern
is a tree with long bowes, ful sounde and sad wythout, and ful holowe
within, and ful of certayne nesshe pyth."--_Clanvil de prop._
[85:2] From the facility with which the hard wood can be hollowed out,
the tree was from very ancient times called the Bore-tree. See
"Catholicon Anglicum," s.v. Bur-tre.
ELM.
(1) _Adriana._
Thou art an Elm, my husband, I a Vine,
Whose weakness married to thy stronger state
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
_Comedy of Errors_, act ii, sc. 2 (176).
(2) _Titania._
The female Ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (48).
(3) _Poins._
Answer, thou dead Elm, answer![87:1]
_2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc, 4 (358).
Though Vineyards were more common in England in the sixteenth century
than now, yet I can nowhere find that the Vines were ever trained, in
the Italian fashion, to Elms or Poplars. Yet Shakespeare does not stand
alone in thus speaking of the Elm in its connection with the Vine.
Spenser speaks of "the Vine-prop Elme," and Milton--
"They led the Vine
To wed her Elm; she spoused, about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with her brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves."
And Browne--
"She, whose inclination
Bent all her course to him-wards, let him know
He was the Elm, whereby her Vine did grow."
_Britannia's Pastorals_, book i, song 1.
"An Elm embraced by a Vine,
Clipping so strictly that they seemed to be
One in their growth, one shade, one fruit, one tree;
Her boughs his arms; his leaves so mixed with hers,
That with no wind he moved, but straight she stirs."
_Ibid._, ii, 4.
But I should think that neither Shakespeare, nor Browne, nor Milton ever
saw an English Vine trained to an Elm; they were simply copying from the
classical writers.
The Wych Elm is probably a true native, but the more common Elm of our
hedgerows is a tree of Southern Europe and North Africa, and is of such
modern introduction into England that in Evelyn's time it was rarely
seen north of Stamford. It was probably introduced into Southern England
by the Romans.
FOOTNOTES:
[87:1] Why Falstaff should be called a dead Elm is not very apparent;
but the Elm was associated with death as producing the wood for coffins.
Thus Chaucer speaks of it as "the piler Elme, the cofre unto careyne,"
_i.e._, carrion ("Parliament of Fowles," 177).
ERINGOES.
_Falstaff._
Let the sky rain Potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green
Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits, and snow Eringoes.
_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (20).
Gerard tells us that Eringoes are the candied roots of the Sea Holly
(_Eryngium maritimum_), and he gives the recipe for candying them. I am
not aware that the Sea Holly is ever now so used, but it is a very
handsome plant as it is seen growing on the sea shore, and its fine
foliage makes it an ornamental plant for a garden. But as used by
Falstaff I am inclined to think that the vegetable he wished for was the
Globe Artichoke, which is a near ally of the Eryngium, was a favourite
diet in Shakespeare's time, and was reputed to have certain special
virtues which are not attributed to the Sea Holly, but which would more
accord with Falstaff's character.[88:1] I cannot, however, anywhere find
that the Artichoke was called Eringoes.
FOOTNOTES:
[88:1] For these supposed virtues of the Artichoke see Bullein's "Book
of Simples."
FENNEL.
(1) _Ophelia._
There's Fennel for you and Columbines.
_Hamlet_, act iv, sc 5 (189).
(2) _Falstaff._
And a' plays at quoits well, and eats conger and Fennel.
_2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (266).
The Fennel was always a plant of high reputation. The Plain of Marathon
was so named from the abundance of Fennel (+marathron+) growing on
it.[89:1] And like all strongly scented plants, it was supposed by the
medical writers to abound in "virtues." Gower, describing the star
Pleiades, says--
"Eke his herbe in speciall
The vertuous Fenel it is."
_Conf. Aman._, lib. sept. (3, 129. Paulli.)
These virtues cannot be told more pleasantly than by Longfellow--
"Above the lowly plants it towers,
The Fennel with its yellow flowers,
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers--
Lost vision to restore.
It gave men strength and fearless mood,
And gladiators fierce and rude
Mingled it with their daily food:
And he who battled and subdued
A wreath of Fennel wore."
"Yet the virtues of Fennel, as thus enumerated by Longfellow, do not
comprise either of those attributes of the plant which illustrate the
two passages from Shakespeare. The first alludes to it as an emblem of
flattery, for which ample authority has been found by the
commentators.[89:2] Florio is quoted for the phrase 'Dare finocchio,'
_to give fennel_, as meaning _to flatter_. In the second quotation the
allusion is to the reputation of Fennel as an inflammatory herb with
much the same virtues as are attributed to Eringoes."--Mr. J. F. MARSH
in _The Garden_.
The English name was directly derived from its Latin name
_Foeniculum_, which may have been given it from its hay-like smell
(_foenum_), but this is not certain. We have another English word
derived from the Giant Fennel of the South of Europe (_ferula_); this is
the ferule, an instrument of punishment for small boys, also adopted
from the Latin, the Roman schoolmaster using the stalks of the Fennel
for the same purpose as the modern schoolmaster uses the cane.
The early poets looked on the Fennel as an emblem of the early summer--
"Hyt befell yn the month of June
When the Fenell hangeth yn toun."
_Libæus Diaconus._(1225).
As a useful plant, the chief use is as a garnishing and sauce for fish.
Large quantities of the seed are said to be imported to flavour gin, but
this can scarcely be called useful. As ornamental plants, the large
Fennels (F. Tingitana, F. campestris, F. glauca, &c.) are very desirable
where they can have the necessary room.
FOOTNOTES:
[89:1] "Fennelle or Fenkelle, feniculum maratrum."--_Catholicon
Anglicum._
[89:2]
"_Christophers._
No, my _good lord_.
_Count._
Your _good lord_! O, how this smells of Fennel."
BEN JONSON, _The Case Altered_, act ii, sc. 2.
FERN.
_Gadshill._
We have the receipt of Fern-seed--we walk invisible.
_Chamberlain._
Now, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night
than to Fern-seed for your walking invisible.
_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 1 (95).
There is a fashion in plants as in most other things, and in none is
this more curiously shown than in the estimation in which Ferns are and
have been held. Now-a-days it is the fashion to admire Ferns, and few
would be found bold enough to profess an indifference to them. But it
was not always so. Theocritus seems to have admired the Fern--
"Like Fern my tresses o'er my temples streamed."
_Idyll_ xx. (_Calverley._)
"Come here and trample dainty Fern and Poppy blossom."
_Idyll_ v. (_Calverley._)
But Virgil gives it a bad character, speaking of it as "filicem
invisam." Horace is still more severe, "neglectis urenda filix
innascitur agris." The Anglo-Saxon translation of Boethius spoke
contemptuously of the "Thorns, and the Furzes, and the Fern, and all the
weeds" (Cockayne). And so it was in Shakespeare's time. Butler spoke of
it as the--
"Fern, that vile, unuseful weed,
That grows equivocably without seed."
Cowley spoke the opinion of his day as if the plant had neither use nor
beauty--
"Nec caulem natura mihi, nec Floris honorem,
Nec mihi vel semen dura Noverca dedit--
Nec me sole fovet, nec cultis crescere in hortis
Concessum, et Foliis gratia nulla meis--
Herba invisa Deis poteram coeloque videri,
Et spurio Terræ nata puerperio."
_Plantarum_, lib. i.
And later still Gilpin, who wrote so much on the beauties of country
scenery at the close of the last century, has nothing better to say for
Ferns than that they are noxious weeds, to be classed with "Thorns and
Briers, and other ditch trumpery." The fact, no doubt, is that Ferns
were considered something "uncanny and eerie;" our ancestors could not
understand a plant which seemed to them to have neither flower nor seed,
and so they boldly asserted it had neither. "This kinde of Ferne," says
Lyte in 1587, "beareth neither flowers nor sede, except we shall take
for sede the black spots growing on the backsides of the leaves, the
whiche some do gather thinking to worke wonders, but to say the trueth
it is nothing els but trumperie and superstition." A plant so strange
must needs have strange qualities, but the peculiar power attributed to
it of making persons invisible arose thus:--It was the age in which the
doctrine of signatures was fully believed in; according to which
doctrine Nature, in giving particular shapes to leaves and flowers, had
thereby plainly taught for what diseases they were specially
useful.[91:1] Thus a heart-shaped leaf was for heart disease, a
liver-shaped for the liver, a bright-eyed flower was for the eyes, a
foot-shaped flower or leaf would certainly cure the gout, and so on; and
then when they found a plant which certainly grew and increased, but of
which the organs of fructification were invisible, it was a clear
conclusion that properly used the plant would confer the gift of
invisibility. Whether the people really believed this or not we cannot
say,[92:1] but they were quite ready to believe any wonder connected
with the plant, and so it was a constant advertisement with the quacks.
Even in Addison's time "it was impossible to walk the streets without
having an advertisement thrust into your hand of a doctor who had
arrived at the knowledge of the Green and Red Dragon, and had discovered
the female Fern-seed. Nobody ever knew what this meant" ("Tatler," No.
240). But to name all the superstitions connected with the Fern would
take too much space.
The name is expressive; it is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon _fepern_,
and so shows that some of our ancestors marked its feathery form; and
its history as a garden plant is worth a few lines. So little has it
been esteemed as a garden plant that Mr. J. Smith, the ex-Curator of the
Kew Gardens, tells us that in the year 1822 the collection of Ferns at
Kew was so extremely poor that "he could not estimate the entire Kew
collection of exotic Ferns at that period at more than forty species"
(Smith's "Ferns, British and Exotic," introduction). Since that time the
steadily increasing admiration of Ferns has caused collectors to send
them from all parts of the world, so that in 1866 Mr. Smith was enabled
to describe about a thousand species, and now the number must be much
larger; and the closer search for Ferns has further brought into notice
a very large number of most curious varieties and monstrosities, which
it is still more curious to observe are, with very few exceptions,
confined to the British species.
FOOTNOTES:
[91:1] See Brown's "Religio Medici," p. ii. 2.
[92:1] It probably was the real belief, as we find it so often mentioned
as a positive fact; thus Browne--
"Poor silly fool! thou striv'st in vain to know
If I enjoy or love where thou lov'st so;
Since my affection ever secret tried
Blooms like the Fern, and seeds still unespied."
_Poems_, p. 26 (Sir E. Brydges' edit. 1815).
FIGS.
(1) _Titania._
Feed him with Apricocks and Dewberries,
With purple Grapes, green Figs, and Mulberries.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (169).
(2) _Constance._
And its grandam will
Give it a Plum, a Cherry, and a Fig.
_King John_, act ii, sc. 1 (161).
(3) _Guard._
Here is a rural fellow
That will not be denied your Highness's presence,
He brings you Figs.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act v, sc. 2 (233).
(4) _1st Guard._
A simple countryman that brought her Figs.
_Ibid._ (342).
_Ditto._
These Fig-leaves
Have slime upon them.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 2 (354).
(5) _Pistol._
When Pistol lies, do this; and Fig me, like
The bragging Spaniard.
_2nd Henry IV_, act v, sc. 3 (123).
(6) _Pistol._
Die and be damned, and Figo for thy friendship.
_Fluellen._
It is well.
_Pistol._
The Fig of Spain.
_Henry V_, act iii, sc. 6 (60).
(7) _Pistol._
The Figo for thee, then.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (60).
(8) _Iago._
Virtue! a Fig!
_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (322).
(9) _Iago._
Blessed Fig's end!
_Ibid._, act ii, sc. 1 (256).
(10) _Horner._
I'll pledge you all, and a Fig for Peter.
_2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 3 (66).
(11) _Pistol._
"Convey," the wise it call; "steal!" foh! a Fico
for the phrase!
_Merry Wives_, act i, sc. 3 (32).
(12) _Charmian._
O excellent! I love long life better than Figs.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act i, sc. 2 (32).
In some of these passages (as 5, 6, 7, and perhaps in more) the
reference is to a grossly insulting and indecent gesture called "making
the fig." It was a most unpleasant custom, which largely prevailed
throughout Europe in Shakespeare's time, and on which I need not dwell.
It is fully described in Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," i, 492.
In some of the other quotations the reference is simply to the
proverbial likeness of a Fig to a matter of the least importance.[94:1]
But in the others the dainty fruit, the green Fig, is noticed.
The Fig tree, celebrated from the earliest times for the beauty of its
foliage and for its "sweetness and good fruit" (Judges ix. 11), is said
to have been introduced into England by the Romans; but the more
reliable accounts attribute its introduction to Cardinal Pole, who is
said to have planted the Fig tree still living at Lambeth Palace.
Botanically, the Fig is of especial interest. The Fig, as we eat it, is
neither fruit nor flower, though partaking of both, being really the
hollow, fleshy receptacle enclosing a multitude of flowers, which never
see the light, yet come to full perfection and ripen their seed. The Fig
stands alone in this peculiar arrangement of its flowers, but there are
other plants of which we eat the unopened or undeveloped flowers, as the
Artichoke, the Cauliflower, the Caper, the Clove, and the Pine Apple.
FOOTNOTES:
[94:1] This proverbial worthlessness of the Fig is of ancient date.
Theocritus speaks of +sykinoi andres+, useless men; Horace, "Olim
truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum;" and Juvenal, "Sterilis mala
robora ficus."
FILBERTS.
_Caliban._
I'll bring thee to clustering Filberds.
_Tempest_, act ii, sc. 2(174).
(_See_ HAZEL.)
FLAGS.
_Cæsar._
This common body
Like to a vagabond Flag upon the stream
Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act i, sc. 4 (44).
We now commonly call the Iris a Flag, and in Shakespeare's time the Iris
pseudoacorus was called the Water Flag, and so this passage might,
perhaps, have been placed under Flower-de-luce. But I do not think that
the Flower-de-luce proper was ever called a Flag at that time, whereas
we know that many plants, especially the Reeds and Bulrushes, were
called in a general way Flags. This is the case in the Bible, the
language of which is always a safe guide in the interpretation of
contemporary literature. The mother of Moses having placed the infant in
the ark of Bulrushes, "laid it in the Flags by the river's brink," and
the daughter of Pharaoh "saw the ark among the Flags." Job asks, "Can
the Flag grow without water?" and Isaiah draws the picture of desolation
when "the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up, and the Reeds
and the Flags shall wither." But in these passages, not only is the
original word very loosely translated, but the original word itself was
so loosely used that long ago Jerome had said it might mean any marsh
plant, _quidquid in palude virens nascitur_. And in the same way I
conclude that when Shakespeare named the Flag he meant any long-leaved
waterside plant that is swayed to and fro by the stream, and that
therefore this passage might very properly have been placed under
Rushes.
FLAX.
(1) _Ford._
What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of Flax?
_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (159).
(2) _Clifford._
Beauty that the tyrant oft reclaims
Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and Flax.
_2nd Henry VI_, act v, sc. 2 (54).
(3) _Sir Toby._
Excellent; it hangs like Flax in a distaff.
_Twelfth Night_, act i, sc. 3 (108).
(4) _3rd Servant._
Go thou: I'll fetch some Flax and white of eggs
To apply to his bleeding face.[95:1]
_King Lear_, act iii, sc. 7 (106).
(5) _Ophelia._
His beard was as white as snow,
All Flaxen was his poll.
_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 5 (195).
(6) _Leontes._
My wife deserves a name
As rank as any Flax-wench.
_Winter's Tale_, act i, sc. 2 (276).
(7) _Emilia._
It could
No more be hid in him, than fire in Flax.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act v, sc. 3 (113).
The Flax of commerce (_Linum usitatissimum_) is not a true native,
though Turner said: "I have seen flax or lynt growyng wilde in Sommerset
shyre" ("Herbal," part ii. p. 39); but it takes kindly to the soil, and
soon becomes naturalized in the neighbourhood of any Flax field or mill.
We have, however, three native Flaxes in England, of which the smallest,
the Fairy Flax (_L. catharticum_), is one of the most graceful ornaments
of our higher downs and hills.[96:1] The Flax of commerce, which is the
plant referred to by Shakespeare, is supposed to be a native of Egypt,
and we have early notice of it in the Book of Exodus; and the microscope
has shown that the cere-cloths of the most ancient Egyptian mummies are
made of linen. It was very early introduced into England, and the
spinning of Flax was the regular occupation of the women of every
household, from the mistress downwards, so that even queens are
represented in the old illuminations in the act of spinning, and "the
spinning-wheel was a necessary implement in every household, from the
palace to the cottage."--WRIGHT, _Domestic Manners_. The occupation is
now almost gone, driven out by machinery, but it has left its mark on
our language, at least on our legal language, which acknowledges as the
only designation of an unmarried woman that she is "a spinster."
A crop of Flax is one of the most beautiful, from the rich colour of the
flowers resting on their dainty stalks. But it is also most useful; from
it we get linen, linseed oil, oilcake, and linseed-meal; nor do its
virtues end there, for "Sir John Herschel tells us the surprising fact
that old linen rags will, when treated with sulphuric acid, yield more
than their own weight of sugar. It is something even to have lived in
days when our worn-out napkins may possibly reappear on our tables in
the form of sugar."--LADY WILKINSON.
As garden plants the Flaxes are all ornamental. There are about eighty
species, some herbaceous and some shrubby, and of almost all colours,
and in most of the species the colours are remarkably bright and clear.
There is no finer blue than in L. usitatissimum, no finer yellow than in
L. trigynum, or finer scarlet than in L. grandiflorum.
FOOTNOTES:
[95:1] "_Juniper._ Go get white of egg and a little Flax, and close the
breach of the head; it is the most conducible thing that can be."--BEN
JONSON, _The Case Altered_, act ii, sc. 4.
[96:1] "From the abundant harvests of this elegant weed on the upland
pastures, prepared and manufactured by supernatural skill, 'the good
people' were wont, in the olden time, to procure the necessary supplies
of linen!"--JOHNSTON.
FLOWER-DE-LUCE.
(1) _Perdita._
Lilies of all kinds,
The Flower-de-luce being one.
_Winters Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (126).
(2) _K. Henry._
What sayest thou, my fair Flower-de-luce?
_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (323).
(3) _Messenger._
Cropped are the Flower-de-luces in your arms;
Of England's coat one half is cut away.
_1st Henry VI_, act i, sc. 1 (80).
(4) _Pucelle._
I am prepared; here is my keen-edged sword
Deck'd with five Flower-de-luces on each side.
_Ibid._, act i, sc. 2 (98).
(5) _York._
A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul,
On which I'll toss the Flower-de-luce of France.
_2nd Henry VI_, act v, sc. 1 (10).
Out of these five passages four relate to the Fleur-de-luce as the
cognizance of France, and much learned ink has been spilled in the
endeavour to find out what flower, if any, was intended to be
represented, so that Mr. Planché says that "next to the origin of
heraldry itself, perhaps nothing connected with it has given rise to so
much controversy as the origin of this celebrated charge." It has been
at various times asserted to be an Iris, a Lily, a sword-hilt, a
spearhead, and a toad, or to be simply the Fleur de St. Louis. _Adhuc
sub judice lis est_--and it is never likely to be satisfactorily
settled. I need not therefore dwell on it, especially as my present
business is to settle not what the Fleur-de-luce meant in the arms of
France, but what it meant in Shakespeare's writings. But here the same
difficulty at once meets us, some writers affirming stoutly that it is a
Lily, others as stoutly that it is an Iris. For the Lily theory there
are the facts that Shakespeare calls it one of the Lilies, and that the
other way of spelling it is Fleur-de-lys. I find also a strong
confirmation of this in the writings of St. Francis de Sales
(contemporary with Shakespeare). "Charity," he says, "comprehends the
seven gifts
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/28407