Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 44

[480] "Plant-Lore of Shakespeare," p. 22.

_Barley._ The barley broth, of which the Constable, in "Henry V." (iii.

5), spoke so contemptuously as the food of English soldiers, was probably beer,[481] which long before the time of Henry was so celebrated that it gave its name to the plant (barley being simply the beer-plant):

"Can sodden water, A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley broth, Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?"

[481] Ellacombe's "Plant-Lore of Shakespeare," p. 23.

_Bay-tree._ The withering and death of this tree were reckoned a prognostic of evil, both in ancient and modern times, a notion[482] to which Shakespeare refers in "Richard II." (ii. 4):

"'Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay.

The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd"

-having obtained it probably from Holinshed, who says: "In this yeare, in a manner throughout all the realme of Englande, old baie trees withered." Lupton, in his "Syxt Booke of Notable Things," mentions this as a bad omen: "Neyther falling-sickness, neyther devyll, wyll infest or hurt one in that place whereas a bay-tree is. The Romaynes call it the plant of the good angel."[483]

[482] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 32.

[483] See also Evelyn's "Sylva," 1776, p. 396.

_Camomile._ It was formerly imagined that this plant grew the more luxuriantly for being frequently trodden or pressed down; a notion alluded to in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4) by Falstaff: "For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears." Nares[484] considers that the above was evidently written in ridicule of the following pa.s.sage, in a book very fashionable in Shakespeare's day, Lyly's "Euphues," of which it is a parody: "Though the camomile, the more it is trodden and pressed down, the more it spreadeth; yet the violet, the oftener it is handled and touched, the sooner it withereth and decayeth," etc.

[484] "Glossary," vol. i. p. 150; see Dyce's "Glossary," p. 63.

_Clover._ According to Johnson, the "honey-stalks" in the following pa.s.sage ("t.i.tus Andronicus," iv. 4) are "clover-flowers, which contain a sweet juice." It is not uncommon for cattle to overcharge themselves with clover, and die, hence the allusion by Tamora:

"I will enchant the old Andronicus With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous, Than baits to fish, or honey-stalks to sheep."

_Columbine._ This was anciently termed "a thankless flower," and was also emblematical of forsaken lovers. It is somewhat doubtful to what Ophelia alludes in "Hamlet" (iv. 5), where she seems to address the king: "There's fennel for you, and columbines." Perhaps she regarded it as symbolical of ingrat.i.tude.

_Crow-flowers._ This name, which in Shakespeare's time was applied to the "ragged robin," is now used for the b.u.t.tercup. It was one of the flowers that poor Ophelia wove into her garland ("Hamlet," iv. 7):

"There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples."

_Cuckoo-buds._ Commentators are uncertain to what flower Shakespeare refers in "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2):

"When daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight."

Mr. Miller, in his "Gardener's Dictionary," says that the flower here alluded to is the _Ranunculus bulbosus_; but Mr. Beisly, in his "Shakespeare's Garden," considers it to be the _Ranunculus ficaria_ (lesser celandine), or pile-wort, as this flower appears earlier in spring, and is in bloom at the same time as the other flowers named in the song. Mr. Swinfen Jervis, however, in his "Dictionary of the Language of Shakespeare" (1868), decides in favor of cowslips:[485] and Dr. Prior suggests the buds of the crowfoot. At the present day the nickname cuckoo-bud is a.s.signed to the meadow cress (_Cardamine pratensis_).

[485] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 212.

_Cuckoo-flowers._ By this flower, Mr. Beisly[486] says, the ragged robin is meant, a well-known meadow and marsh plant, with rose-colored flowers and deeply-cut, narrow segments. It blossoms at the time the cuckoo comes, hence one of its names. In "King Lear" (iv. 4) Cordelia narrates how

"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."

[486] "Shakespeare's Garden," p. 143.

_Cypress._ From the earliest times the cypress has had a mournful history, being a.s.sociated with funerals and churchyards, and as such is styled by Spenser "cypress funereal."

In Quarles's "Argalus and Parthenia" (1726, bk. iii.) a knight is introduced, whose

"horse was black as jet, His furniture was round about beset With branches slipt from the sad cypress tree."

Formerly coffins were frequently made of cypress wood, a practice to which Shakespeare probably alludes in "Twelfth Night" (ii. 4), where the Clown says: "In sad cypress let me be laid." Some, however, prefer[487]

understanding cypress to mean "a shroud of cyprus or cypress"-a fine, transparent stuff, similar to c.r.a.pe, either white or black, but more commonly the latter.[488] Douce[489] thinks that the expression "laid"

seems more applicable to a coffin than to a shroud, and also adds that the shroud is afterwards expressly mentioned by itself.

[487] See "Winter's Tale," iv. 4:

"Lawn as white as driven snow; Cyprus black as e'er was crow."

Its transparency is alluded to in "Twelfth Night," iii. 1:

"a cyprus, not a bosom, Hides my heart."

[488] See Dyce's "Glossary," 1872, p. 113.

[489] Douce's "Ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 56. See Mr. Gough's "Introduction to Sepulchral Monuments," p. lxvi.; also Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 221.

_Daffodil._ The daffodil of Shakespeare is the wild daffodil which grows so abundantly in many parts of England. Perdita, in "Winter's Tale" (iv.

4), mentions a little piece of weather-lore, and tells us how

"daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty."

And Autolycus, in the same play (iv. 3), sings thus:

"When daffodils begin to peer,- With, heigh! the doxy over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year."

_Darnel._ This plant, like the c.o.c.kle, was used in Shakespeare's day to denote any hurtful weed. Newton,[490] in his "Herbal to the Bible," says that "under the name of c.o.c.kle and darnel is comprehended all vicious, noisome, and unprofitable graine, encombring and hindering good corne."

Thus Cordelia, in "King Lear" (iv. 4), says:

"Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn."

[490] See Dr. Prior's "Popular Names of British Plants," 1870, p. 63.

According to Gerarde, "darnel hurteth the eyes, and maketh them dim, if it happen either in corne for breade or drinke." Hence, it is said, originated the old proverb, "lolio vict.i.tare"-applied to such as were dim-sighted. Steevens considers that Pucelle, in the following pa.s.sage from "1 Henry VI." (iii. 2), alludes to this property of the darnel-meaning to intimate that the corn she carried with her had produced the same effect on the guards of Rouen, otherwise they would have seen through her disguise and defeated her stratagem:

"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?"

_Date._ This fruit of the palm-tree was once a common ingredient in all kinds of pastry, and some other dishes, and often supplied a pun for comedy, as, for example, in "All's Well That Ends Well" (i. 1), where Parolles says: "Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than in your cheek." And in "Troilus and Cressida" (i. 2): "Ay, a minced man; and then to be baked with no date in the pie; for then the man's date's out."

_Ebony._ The wood of this tree was regarded as the typical emblem of darkness; the tree itself, however, was unknown in this country in Shakespeare's time. It is mentioned in "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 3):

"_King._ By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.

_Biron._ Is ebony like her? O wood divine!

A wife of such wood were felicity."