The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 24

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 pa.s.sages, 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 b.u.t.tercup, 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 n.o.ble 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 p.r.i.c.kes, 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.

_Coriola.n.u.s_, 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 a.s.sociated 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 umbra 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).