The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 61

(2) _Queen._

Crow-flowers, Nettles, Daisies, and Long Purples.

_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 7 (170).

(_See_ CROW-FLOWERS.)

(3) _Antonio._

He'd sow't with Nettle-seed.

_Tempest_, act ii, sc. 1 (145).

(4) _Saturninus._

Look for thy reward Among the Nettles at the Elder Tree.

_t.i.tus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (271).

(5) _Sir Toby._

How now, my Nettle of India?

_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 5 (17).[176:1]

(6) _King Richard._

Yield stinging Nettles to my enemies.

_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 2 (18).

(7) _Hotspur._

I tell you, my lord fool, out of this Nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 3 (8).

(8) _Ely._

The Strawberry grows underneath the Nettle.

_Henry V_, act i, sc. 1 (60).

(9) _Cressida._

I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a Nettle against May.

_Troilus and Cressida_, act i, sc. 2 (190).

(10) _Menenius._

We call a Nettle but a Nettle, and The fault of fools but folly.

_Coriola.n.u.s_, act ii, sc. 1 (207).

(11) _Laertes._

Goads, Thorns, Nettles, tails of wasps.

_Winter's Tale_, act i, sc. 2 (329).

(12) _Iago._

If we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce.

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

(_See_ HYSSOP.)

(13) _Palamon._

Who do bear thy yoke As 'twer a wreath of roses, yet is heavier Than lead itselfe, stings more than Nettles.

_Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, act v, sc. 1 (101).

The Nettle needs no introduction; we are all too well acquainted with it, yet it is not altogether a weed to be despised. We have two native species (Urtica urens and U. dioica) with sufficiently strong qualities, but we have a third (U. pilulifera) very curious in its manner of bearing its female flowers in cl.u.s.ters of compact little b.a.l.l.s, which is far more virulent than either of our native species, and is said by Camden to have been introduced by the Romans to chafe their bodies when frozen by the cold of Britain. The story is probably quite apocryphal, but the plant is an alien, and only grows in a few places.

Both the Latin and English names of the plant record its qualities.

Urtica is from _uro_, to burn; and Nettle is (etymologically) the same word as needle, and the plant is so named, not for its stinging qualities, but because at one time the Nettle supplied the chief instrument of sewing; not the instrument which holds the thread, and to which we now confine the word needle, but the thread itself, and very good thread it made. The poet Campbell says in one of his letters--"I have slept in Nettle sheets, and dined off a Nettle table-cloth, and I have heard my mother say that she thought Nettle cloth more durable than any other linen." It has also been used for making paper, and for both these purposes, as well as for rope-making, the Rhea fibre of the Himalaya, which is simply a gigantic Nettle (_Urtica_ or _Bohmeria nivea_), is very largely cultivated. Nor is the Nettle to be despised as an article of food.[177:1] In many parts of England the young shoots are boiled and much relished. In 1596 Coghan wrote of it: "I will speak somewhat of the Nettle that Gardeners may understand what wrong they do in plucking it for the weede, seeing it is so profitable to many purposes. . . . Cunning cookes at the spring of the yeare, when Nettles first bud forth, can make good pottage with them, especially with red Nettles" ("Haven of Health," p. 86). In February, 1661, Pepys made the entry in his diary--"We did eat some Nettle porridge, which was made on purpose to-day for some of their coming, and was very good." Andrew Fairservice said of himself--"Nae doubt I should understand my trade of horticulture, seeing I was bred in the Parish of Dreepdaily, where they raise lang Kale under gla.s.s, and force the early Nettles for their spring Kale" ("Rob Roy," c. 7). Gipsies are said to cook it as an excellent vegetable, and M. Soyer tried hard, but almost in vain, to recommend it as a most dainty dish. Having so many uses, we are not surprised to find that it has at times been regularly cultivated as a garden crop, so that I have somewhere seen an account of t.i.the of Nettles being taken; and in the old churchwardens' account of St.

Michael's, Bath, is the entry in the year 1400, "Pro Urticis venditis ad Lawrencium Bebbe, 2d."

Nettles are much used in the neighbourhood of London to pack plums and other fruit with bloom on them, so that in some market gardens they are not only not destroyed, but encouraged, and even cultivated. And this is an old practice; Lawson's advice in 1683 was--"For the gathering of all other stone-fruit, as Nectarines, Apricots, Peaches, Pear-plums, Damsons, Bullas, and such like, . . . in the bottom of your large sives where you put them, you shall lay Nettles, and likewise in the top, for that will ripen those that are most unready" ("New Orchard," p. 96).

The "Nettle of India" (No. 5) has puzzled the commentators. It is probably not the true reading; if the true reading, it may only mean a Nettle of extra-stinging quality; but it may also mean an Eastern plant that was used to produce cowage, or cow-itch. "The hairs of the pods of Mucuna pruriens, &c., const.i.tute the substance called cow-itch, a mechanical Anthelmintic."--LINDLEY. This plant is said to have been called the Nettle of India, but I do not find it so named in Shakespeare's time.

In other points the Nettle is a most interesting plant. Microscopists find in it most beautiful objects for the microscope; entomologists value it, for it is such a favourite of b.u.t.terflies and other insects, that in Britain alone upwards of thirty insects feed solely on the Nettle plant, and it is one of those curious plants which mark the progress of civilization by following man wherever he goes.[178:1]

But as a garden plant the only advice to be given is to keep it out of the garden by every means. In good cultivated ground it becomes a sad weed if once allowed a settlement. The Himalayan Bohmerias, however, are handsome, but only for their foliage; and though we cannot, perhaps, admit our roadside Dead Nettles, which however are much handsomer than many foreign flowers which we carefully tend and prize, yet the Austrian Dead Nettle (_Lamium orvala_, "Bot. Mag.," v. 172) may be well admitted as a handsome garden plant.