The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 29

_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 pa.s.sages 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 p.r.i.c.keth nere."

SPENSER, _Sonnet_ xxvi.

And so its names p.r.o.nounced it to be; it was either the Sweet Brier, or it was Eglantine, the th.o.r.n.y 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 "Reliquiae Antiquae," 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 th.o.r.n.y 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 a.s.surgens in mediam alt.i.tudinem 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 aesculapius? 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.

_t.i.tus 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 mediaeval 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 Judae_). 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 G.o.ddess 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 pa.s.s 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: