The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 66

OLIVE.

(1) _Clarence._

To whom the heavens in thy nativity Adjudged an Olive branch.

_3rd Henry VI_, act iv, sc. 6 (33).

(_See_ LAUREL.)

(2) _Alcibiades._

Bring me into your city, And I will use the Olive with my sword.

_Timon of Athens_, act v, sc. 4 (81).

(3) _Caesar._

Prove this a prosperous day, the three-nook'd world Shall bear the Olive freely.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act iv, sc. 6 (5).

(4) _Rosalind._

If you will know my house 'Tis at the tuft of Olives here hard by.

_As You Like It_, act iii, sc. 5 (74).

(5) _Oliver._

Where, in the purlieus of this forest stands A sheepcote fenced about with Olive trees?

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 3 (77).

(6) _Viola._

I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage; I hold the Olive in my hand; my words are as full of peace as matter.

_Twelfth Night_, act i, sc. 5 (224).

(7) _Westmoreland._

There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd, But peace puts forth her Olive everywhere.

_2nd Henry IV_, act iv, sc. 4 (86).

(8)

And peace proclaims Olives of endless age.

_Sonnet_ cvii.

There is no certain record by which we can determine when the Olive tree was first introduced into England. Miller gives 1648 as the earliest date he could discover, at which time it was grown in the Oxford Botanic Garden. But I have no doubt it was cultivated long before that. Parkinson knew it as an English tree in 1640, for he says: "It flowereth in the beginning of summer in the warmer countries, but very late _with us_; the fruite ripeneth in autumne in Spain, &c., but seldome _with us_" ("Herball," 1640). Gerard had an Oleaster in his garden in 1596, which Mr. Jackson considers to have been the Olea Europea, and with good reason, as in his account of the Olive in the "Herbal" he gives Oleaster as one of the synonyms of Olea sylvestris, the wild Olive tree. But I think its introduction is of a still earlier date. In the Anglo-Saxon "Leech Book," of the tenth century, published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, I find this prescription: "Pound Lovage and Elder rind and Oleaster, that is, wild Olive tree, mix them with some clear ale and give to drink" (book i. c.

37, c.o.c.kayne's translation). As I have never heard that the bark of the Olive tree was imported, it is only reasonable to suppose that the leeches of the day had access to the living tree. If this be so, the tree was probably imported by the Romans, which they are very likely to have done. But it seems very certain that it was in cultivation in England in Shakespeare's time and he may have seen it growing.

But in most of the eight pa.s.sages in which he names the Olive, the reference to it is mainly as the recognized emblem of peace; and it is in that aspect, and with thoughts of its touching Biblical a.s.sociations that we must always think of the Olive. It is _the_ special plant of honour in the Bible, by "whose fatness they honour G.o.d and man," linked with the rescue of the one family in the ark, and with the rescue of the whole family of man in the Mount of Olives. Every pa.s.sage in which it is named in the Bible tells the uniform tale of its usefulness, and the emblematical lessons it was employed to teach; but I must not dwell on them. Nor need I say how it was equally honoured by Greeks and Romans.

As a plant which produced an abundant and necessary crop of fruit with little or no labour (f?te?' ??e???t?? ??t?p????, Sophocles; "non ulla est oleis cultura," Virgil), it was looked upon with special pride, as one of the most blessed gifts of the G.o.ds, and under the constant protection of Minerva, to whom it was thankfully dedicated.[186:1]

We seldom see the Olive in English gardens, yet it is a good evergreen tree to cover a south wall, and having grown it for many years, I can say that there is no plant--except, perhaps, the Christ's Thorn--which gives such universal interest to all who see it. It is quite hardy, though the winter will often destroy the young shoots; but not even the winter of 1860 did any serious mischief, and fine old trees may occasionally be seen which attest its hardiness. There is one at Hanham Hall, near Bristol, which must be of great age. It is at least 30ft.

high, against a south wall, and has a trunk of large girth; but I never saw it fruit or flower in England until this year (1877), when the Olive in my own garden flowered, but did not bear fruit. Miller records trees at Campden House, Kensington, which, in 1719, produced a good number of fruit large enough for pickling, and other instances have been recorded lately. Perhaps if more attention were paid to the grafting, fruit would follow. The Olive has the curious property that it seems to be a matter of indifference whether, as with other fruit, the cultivated sort is grafted on the wild one, or the wild on the cultivated one; the latter plan was certainly sometimes the custom among the Greeks and Romans, as we know from St. Paul (Romans xi. 16-25) and other writers, and it is sometimes the custom now. There are a great number of varieties of the cultivated Olive, as of other cultivated fruit.

One reason why the Olive is not more grown as a garden tree is that it is a tree very little admired by most travellers. Yet this is entirely a matter of taste, and some of the greatest authorities are loud in its praises as a picturesque tree. One short extract from Ruskin's account of the tree will suffice, though the whole description is well worth reading. "The Olive," he says, "is one of the most characteristic and beautiful features of all southern scenery. . . . What the Elm and the Oak are to England, the Olive is to Italy. . . . It had been well for painters to have felt and seen the Olive tree, to have loved it for Christ's sake; . . . to have loved it even to the h.o.a.ry dimness of its delicate foliage, subdued and faint of hue, as if the ashes of the Gethsemane agony had been cast upon it for ever; and to have traced line by line the gnarled writhing of its intricate branches, and the pointed fretwork of its light and narrow leaves, inlaid on the blue field of the sky, and the small, rosy-white stars of its spring blossoming, and the heads of sable fruit scattered by autumn along its topmost boughs--the right, in Israel, of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow--and, more than all, the softness of the mantle, silver-grey, and tender, like the down on a bird's breast, with which far away it veils the undulation of the mountains."--_Stones of Venice_, vol. iii. p. 176.

FOOTNOTES:

[186:1] _See_ Spenser's account of the first introduction of the Olive in "Muiopotmos."

ONIONS.

(1) _Bottom._

And, most dear actors, eat no Onions nor Garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 2 (42).

(2) _Lafeu._

Mine eyes smell Onions, I shall weep anon: Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher.

_All's Well that Ends Well_, act v, sc. 3 (321).

(3) _En.o.barbus._

Indeed the tears live in Onion that should water this Sorrow.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act i, sc. 2 (176).