The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 45

[128:1] It seems likely from the following pa.s.sage from Lily's "Euphues, the anatomy of wit," 1617, that the plants were not named at random by Iago, but that there was some connection between them. "Good gardeners, in their curious knots, mixe Isope with Time, as aiders the one with the others; the one being dry, the other moist." The gardeners of the sixteenth century had a firm belief in the sympathies and antipathies of plants.

INSANE ROOT.

_Banquo._

Were such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten on the Insane Root That takes the reason prisoner?

_Macbeth_, act i, sc. 3 (83).

It is very possible that Shakespeare had no particular plant in view, but simply referred to any of the many narcotic plants which, when given in excess, would "take the reason prisoner." The critics have suggested many plants--the Hemlock, the Henbane, the Belladonna, the Mandrake, &c., each one strengthening his opinion from coeval writers. In this uncertainty I should incline to the Henbane from the following description by Gerard and Lyte. "This herbe is called . . . of Apuleia-Mania" (Lyte). "Henbane is called . . . of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Apuleius, Insana" (Gerard).

IVY.

(1) _t.i.tania._

The female Ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (48).

(2) _Prospero._

That now he was The Ivy which had hid my princely trunk And suck'd my verdure out on't.

_Tempest_, act i, sc. 2 (85).

(3) _Adriana._

If ought possess thee from me, it is dross, Usurping Ivy, Brier, or idle Moss.

_Comedy of Errors_, act ii, sc. 2 (179).

(4) _Shepherd._

They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master; if anywhere I have them 'tis by the seaside browsing of Ivy.[130:1]

_Winter's Tale_, act iii, sc. 3 (66).

(5) _Perith.o.r.es._

His head's yellow, Hard hayr'd, and curl'd, thicke twin'd like Ivy tops, Not to undoe with thunder.

_Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 2 (115).

The rich evergreen of "the Ivy never sear" (Milton) recommended it to the Romans to be joined with the Bay in the chaplets of poets--

"Hanc sine tempora circ.u.m Inter victrices Hederam tibi serpere lauros."--VIRGIL.

"Seu condis amabile carmen Prima feres Hederae victricis praemia."--HORACE.

And in mediaeval times it was used with Holly for Christmas decorations, so that Bullein called it "the womens Christmas Herbe." But the old writers always a.s.sumed a curious rivalry between the two--

"Holly and Ivy made a great party Who should have the mastery In lands where they go."

And there is a well-known carol of the time of Henry VI., which tells of the contest between the two, and of the mastery of the Holly; it is in eight stanzas, of which I extract the last four--

"Holly he hath berries as red as any Rose, The foresters, the hunters, keep them from the does; Ivy she hath berries as black as any Sloe, There come the owls and eat them as they go; Holly he hath birds, a full fair flock, The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock; Good Ivy, say to us, what birds hast thou?

None but the owlet that cries 'How, how!'"

Thus the Ivy was not allowed the same honour inside the houses of our ancestors as the Holly, but it held its place outside the houses as a sign of good cheer to be had within. The custom is now extinct, but formerly an Ivy bush (called a tod of Ivy) was universally hung out in front of taverns in England, as it still is in Brittany and Normandy.

Hence arose two proverbs--"Good wine needs no bush," _i.e._, the reputation is sufficiently good without further advertis.e.m.e.nt; and "An owl in an Ivy bush," as "perhaps denoting originally the union of wisdom or prudence with conviviality, as 'Be merry and wise.'"--NARES.

The Ivy was a plant as much admired by our grandfathers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as it is now by us. Spenser was evidently fond of it--

"And nigh thereto a little chappel stoode Which being all with Yvy overspread Deckt all the roofe, and shadowing the rode Seem'd like a grove faire branched over hed."

_F. Q._, vi, v, 25.

In another place he speaks of it as--

"Wanton Yvie, flouring fayre."--_F. Q._, ii, v, 29.

And in another place--

"Amongst the rest the clambering Ivie grew Knitting his wanton armes with grasping hold, Least that the Poplar happely should rew Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold With her lythe twigs till they the top survew, And paint with pallid greene her buds of gold."

VIRGIL'S _Gnat_.

Chaucer describes it as--

"The erbe Ivie that groweth in our yard that mery is."

And in the same poem he prettily describes it as--

"The pallid Ivie building his own bowre."