The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 101

_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 3 (47).

(17) _Ghost._

Leave her to Heaven, And to those Thorns that in her bosom lodge, To p.r.i.c.k and sting her.

_Ibid._, act i, sc. 5 (86).

(18) _b.a.s.t.a.r.d._

I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way Among the Thorns and dangers of this world.

_King John_, act iv, sc. 3 (40).

_See also_ ROSE, Nos. 7, 18, 22, 30, the scene in the Temple gardens; and BRIER, No. 11.

Thorns and Thistles are the typical emblems of desolation and trouble, and so Shakespeare uses them; and had he spoken of Thorns in this sense only, I should have been doubtful as to admitting them among his other plants, but as in some of the pa.s.sages they stand for the Hawthorn tree and the Rose bush, I could not pa.s.s them by altogether. They might need no further comment beyond referring for further information about them to Hawthorn, Briar, Rose, and Bramble; but in speaking of the Bramble I mentioned the curious legend which tells why the Bramble employs itself in collecting wool from every stray sheep, and there is another very curious instance in Blount's "Antient Tenures" of a connection between Thorns and wool. The original doc.u.ment is given in Latin, and is dated 39th Henry III. It may be thus translated: "Peter de Baldwyn holds in Combes, in the county of Surrey, by the service to go a wool gathering for our Lady the Queen among the White Thorns, and if he refuses to gather it he shall pay into the Treasury of our Lord the King xxs. per annum." I should almost suspect a false reading, as the editor is inclined to do, but that many other services, equally curious and improbable, may easily be found.

THYME.

(1) _Oberon._

I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (249).

(2) _Iago._

We will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce, set Hyssop and weed up Thyme.

_Oth.e.l.lo_, act i, sc. 3 (324).

(_See_ HYSSOP.)

(3) And sweet Time true.

_Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.

It is one of the most curious of the curiosities of English plant names that the Wild Thyme--a plant so common and so widely distributed, and that makes itself so easily known by its fine aromatic, pungent scent, that it is almost impossible to pa.s.s it by without notice--has yet no English name, and seems never to have had one. Thyme is the Anglicised form of the Greek and Latin _Thymum_, which name it probably got from its use for incense in sacrifices, while its other name of _serpyllum_ pointed out its creeping habit. I do not know when the word Thyme was first introduced into the English language, for it is another curious point connected with the name, that _thymum_ does not occur in the old English vocabularies. We have in aelfric's "Vocabulary," "Pollegia, hyl-wyrt," which may perhaps be the Thyme, though it is generally supposed to be the Pennyroyal; we have in a Vocabulary of thirteenth century, "Epitime, epithimum, fordboh," which also may be the Wild Thyme; we have in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century, "Hoc sirpillum, A{ce} petergrys;" and in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the same date, "Hoc cirpillum, A{ce} a pellek" (which word is probably a misprint, for in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," c. 1440, it is "Peletyr, herbe, _serpillum piretrum_"), both of which are almost certainly the Wild Thyme; while in an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the tenth or eleventh century we have "serpulum, crop-leac," _i.e._, the Onion, which must certainly be a mistake of the compiler. So that not even in its Latin form does the name occur, except in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," where it is "Tyme, herbe, _Tima_, _Timum_--Tyme, floure, _Timus_;" and in the "Catholicon Anglic.u.m," when it is "Tyme; _timum epitimum; flos ejus est_." It is thus a puzzle how it can have got naturalized among us, for in Shakespeare's time it was completely naturalized.

I have already quoted Lord Bacon's account of it under BURNET, but I must quote it again here: "Those flowers which perfume the air most delightfully, not pa.s.sed 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;" and again in his pleasant description of the heath or wild garden, which he would have in every "prince-like garden," and "framed as much as may be to a natural wildness," he says, "I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills (such as are in wild heaths) to be set some with Wild Thyme, some with Pinks, some with Germander."

Yet the name may have been used sometimes as a general name for any wild, strong-scented plant. It can only be in this sense that Milton used it--

"Thee, shepherd! thee the woods and desert caves, With Wild Thyme and the gadding Vine o'ergrown, And all their echoes mourn."

_Lycidas._

for certainly a desert cave is almost the last place in which we should look for the true Wild Thyme.

It is as a bee-plant especially that the Thyme has always been celebrated. Spenser speaks of it as "the bees alluring Tyme," and Ovid says of it, speaking of Chloris or Flora--

"Mella meum munus; volucres ego mella daturos Ad violam et cytisos, et Thyma cana voco."

_Fasti_, v.

so that the Thyme became proverbial as the symbol of sweetness. It was the highest compliment that the shepherd could pay to his mistress--

"Nerine Galatea, Thymo mihi dulcior Hyblae."

VIRGIL, _Ecl._ vii.

And it was because of its wild Thyme that Mount Hymettus became so celebrated for its honey--"Mella Thymi redolentia flore" (Ovid). "Thyme, for the time it lasteth, yeeldeth most and best honni, and therefore in old time was accounted chief (Thymus aptissimus ad mellific.u.m--Pastus gratissimus apibus Thymum est--Plinii, 'His. Nat.')

'Dum thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadae.'

VIRGIL, _Georg._

Hymettus in Greece and Hybla in Sicily were so famous for Bees and Honni, because there grew such store of Tyme; propter hoc Siculum mel fert palmam, quod ibi Thymum bonum et frequens est."--VARRO, _The Feminine Monarchie_, 1634.

The Wild Thyme can scarcely be considered a garden plant, except in its variegated and golden varieties, which are very handsome, but if it should ever come naturally in the turf, it should be welcomed and cherished for its sweet scent. The garden Thyme (_T. vulgaris_) must of course be in every herb garden; and there are a few species which make good plants for the rockwork, such as T. lanceolatus from Greece, a very low-growing shrub, with narrow, pointed leaves; T. carnosus, which makes a pretty little shrub, and others; while the Corsican Thyme (_Mentha Requieni_) is perhaps the lowest and closest-growing of all herbs, making a dark-green covering to the soil, and having a very strong scent, though more resembling Peppermint than Thyme.

TOADSTOOLS, _see_ MUSHROOMS.

TURNIPS.

_Anne._

Alas! I had rather be set quick i' the earth And boul'd to death with Turnips.

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iii, sc. 4 (89).

The Turnips of Shakespeare's time were like ours, and probably as good, though their cultivation seems to have been chiefly confined to gardens.

It is not very certain whether the cultivated Turnip is the wild Turnip improved in England by cultivation, or whether we are indebted for it to the Romans, and that the wild one is only the degenerate form of the cultivated plant; for though the wild Turnip is admitted into the English flora, yet its right to the admission is very doubtful. But if we did not get the vegetable from the Romans we got its name. The old name for it was _np_, _nep_, or _neps_, which was only the English form of the Latin _napus_, while Turnip is the corruption of _terrae napus_, but when the first syllable was added I do not know. There is a curious perversion in the name, for our Turnip is botanically Bra.s.sica rapa, while the Rape is Bra.s.sica napus, so that the English and Latin have changed places, the Napus becoming a Rape and the Rapa a Nep.

The present large field cultivation of Turnips is of comparatively a modern date, though the field Turnip and garden Turnip are only varieties of the same species, while there are also many varieties both of the field and garden Turnip. "One field proclaims the Scotch variety, while the bluer cast tells its hardy Swedish origin; the tankard proclaims a deep soil, and the lover of boiled mutton, rejoicing, sees the yellower tint of the Dutch or Stone Turnip, which he desires to meet with again in the market."--PHILLIPS.