The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 117

Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of the field.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act iv, sc. 5 (28).

(8) _Lysimachus._

O sir, a courtesy Which if we should deny, the most just G.o.ds For every graff would send a caterpillar, And so afflict our province.

_Pericles_, act v, sc. 1 (58).

(9) _Wolsey._

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hopes, to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, And then he falls, as I do.

_Henry VIII_, act iii, sc. 2 (352).

(10) _Saturninus._

These tidings nip me, and I hang the head As Flowers with frost, or Gra.s.s beat down with storms.

_t.i.tus Andronicus_, act iv, sc. 4 (70).

(11)

No man inveigh against the withered flower, But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd; Not that devour'd, but that which doth devour, Is worthy blame.

_Lucrece_ (1254).

(12)

For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter, and confounds him there; Sap check'd with frost and l.u.s.ty leaves quite gone, Beauty o'ersnow'd, and bareness everywhere; Then, were not summer's distillation left, A liquid prisoner pent in walls of gla.s.s, Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was; But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet, Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.[357:1]

_Sonnet_ v.

With this beautiful description of the winter-life of hardy perennial plants, I may well close the "Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare." The subject has stretched to a much greater extent than I at all antic.i.p.ated when I commenced it, but this only shows how large and interesting a task I undertook, for I can truly say that my difficulty has been in the necessity for condensing my matter, which I soon found might be made to cover a much larger s.p.a.ce than I have given to it; for my object was in no case to give an exhaustive account of the flowers, but only to give such an account of each plant as might ill.u.s.trate its special use by Shakespeare.

Having often quoted my favourite authority in gardening matters, old "John Parkinson, Apothecary, of London," I will again make use of him to help me to say my last words: "Herein I have spent my time, pains, and charge, which, if well accepted, I shall think well employed. And thus I have finished this work, and have furnished it with whatsoever could bring delight to those that take pleasure in those things, which how well or ill done I must abide every one's censure; the judicious and courteous I only respect; and so Farewell."

FOOTNOTES:

[357:1]

"Flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown; Where they together, All the hard weather Dead to the world, keep house unknown."

G. HERBERT, _The Flower_.

APPENDIX I.

_THE DAISY:_

_ITS HISTORY, POETRY, AND BOTANY._

There's a Daisy.--_Ophelia._

Daisies smel-lesse, yet most quaint.

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

The following Paper on the Daisy was written for the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, and read at their meeting, January 14th, 1874. It was then published in "The Garden," and a few copies were reprinted for private circulation. I now publish it as an Appendix to the "Plant-lore of Shakespeare," with very few alterations from its original form, preferring thus to reprint it _in extenso_ than to make an abstract of it for the ill.u.s.tration of Shakespeare's Daisies.

THE DAISY.

I almost feel that I ought to apologize to the Field Club for asking them to listen to a paper on so small a subject as the Daisy. But, indeed, I have selected that subject because I think it is one especially suited to a Naturalists' Field Club. The members of such a club, as I think, should take notice of everything. Nothing should be beneath their notice. It should be their province to note a mult.i.tude of little facts unnoticed by others; they should be "minute philosophers,"

and they might almost take as their motto the wise words which Milton put into the mouth of Adam, after he had been instructed to "be lowlie wise" (especially in the study of the endless wonders of sea, and earth, and sky that surrounded him)--

"To know That which before us lies in daily life, Is the prime wisdom."--_Paradise Lost_, viii. (192).

I do not apologize for the lowness and humbleness of my subject, but, with "no delay of preface" (Milton), I take you at once to it. In speaking of the Daisy, I mean to confine myself to the Daisy, commonly so-called, merely reminding you that there are also the Great or Ox-eye, or Moon Daisy (_Chrysanthemum leucanthemum_), the Michaelmas Daisy (_Aster_), and the Blue Daisy of the South of Europe (_Globularia_).

The name has been also given to a few other plants, but none of them are true Daisies.

I begin with its name. Of this there can be little doubt; it is the "Day's-eye," the bright little eye that only opens by day, and goes to sleep at night. This, whether the true derivation or not, is no modern fancy. It is, at least, as old as Chaucer, and probably much older. Here are Chaucer's well-known words--

"Men by reason well it calle may The Dasie, or else the Eye of Day, The Empresse and the flowre of flowres all."

And Ben Jonson boldly spoke of them as "bright Daye's-eyes."

There is, however, another derivation. Dr. Prior says: "Skinner derives it from dais or canopy, and Gavin Douglas seems to have understood it in the sense of a small canopy in the line:

"The Daisie did unbraid her crounall small.

"Had we not the A.-S. daeges-eage, we could hardly refuse to admit that this last is a far more obvious and probable explanation of the word than the pretty poetical thought conveyed in Day's-eye." This was Dr.

Prior's opinion in his first edition of his valuable "Popular Names of British Plants;" but it is withdrawn in his second edition, and he now is content with the Day's-eye derivation. Dr. Prior has kindly informed me that he rejected it because he can find no old authority for Skinner's derivation, and because it is doubtful whether the Daisy in Gavin Douglas's line does not mean a Marigold, and not what we call a Daisy. The derivation, however, seemed worth a pa.s.sing notice. Its other English names are Dog Daisy, to distinguish it from the large Ox-eyed Daisy; Banwort, "because it helpeth bones[362:1] to knit agayne"

(Turner); Bruisewort, for the same reason; Herb Margaret, from its French name; and in the North, Bairnwort, from its a.s.sociations with childhood. As to its other names, the plant seems to have been unknown to the Greeks, and has no Greek name, but is fortunate in having as pretty a name in Latin as it has in English. Its modern botanical name is Bellis, and it has had the name from the time of Pliny. Bellis must certainly come from _bellus_ (pretty), and so it is at once stamped as the pretty one even by botanists--though another derivation has been given to the name, of which I will speak soon. The French call it Marguerite, no doubt for its pearly look, or Pasquerette, to mark it as the spring flower; the German name for it is very different, and not easy to explain--Ganseblume, _i.e._, Goose-flower; the Danish name is Tusinfryd (thousand joys); and the Welsh, Sensigl (trembling star).

As Pliny is the first that mentions the plant, his account is worth quoting. "As touching a Daisy," he says (I quote from Holland's translation, 1601), "a yellow cup it hath also, and the same is crowned, as it were, with a garland, consisting of five and fifty little leaves, set round about it in manner of fine pales. These be flowers of the meadow, and most of such are of no use at all, no marvile, therefore, if they be namelesse; howbeit, some give them one tearme and some another"