The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 9

_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (60).

(2) _Constable._

Can sodden water, A drench for surrein'd jades, their Barley broth, Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?

_Henry V_, act iii, sc. 5 (18).[30:1]

These two pa.s.sages require little note. The Barley (_Hordeum vulgare_) of Shakespeare's time and our own is the same. We may note, however, that the Barley broth (2) of which the French Constable spoke so contemptuously as the food of English soldiers was probably beer, which long before the time of Henry V. was so celebrated that it gave its name to the plant (Barley being simply the Beer-plant), and in Shakespeare's time, "though strangers never heard of such a word or such a thing, by reason it is not everyewhere made," yet "our London Beere-Brewers would scorne to learne to make beere of either French or Dutch" (Gerard).

FOOTNOTES:

[30:1] "Vires ordea prestant."--_Modus Cenandi_, 176. ("Babee's Book.")

BARNACLES.

_Caliban._

We shall lose our time And all be turn'd to Barnacles.

_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (248).

It may seem absurd to include Barnacles among plants; but in the time of Shakespeare the Barnacle tree was firmly believed in, and Gerard gives a plate of "the Goose tree, Barnacle tree, or the tree bearing Geese," and says that he declares "what our eies have seene, and our hands have touched."

A full account of the fable will be found in Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 247, and an excellent account in Lee's "Sea Fables Explained" (Fisheries Exhibition handbooks), p. 98. But neither of these writers have quoted the testimony of Sir John Mandeville, which is, however, well worth notice. When he was told in "Caldilhe" of a tree that bore "a lytylle Best in Flessche in Bon and Blode as though it were a lytylle Lomb, withouten Wolle," he did not refuse to believe them, for he says, "I tolde hem of als gret a marveylle to hem that is amonges us; and that was of the Bernakes. For I tolde hem, that in our Contree weren Trees, that beren a Fruyt, that becomen Briddes fleeynge; and tho that fallen in the Water lyven, and thei that fallen on the Erthe dyen anon; and thei ben right G.o.de to mannes mete. And here of had thei als gret marvaylle that sume of hem trowed, it were an impossible thing to be"

("Voiage and Travaille," c. xxvi.).

BAY TREES.

(1) _Captain._

'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.

The Bay-trees in our country are all wither'd.

_Richard II_, act ii, sc. 4 (7).

(2) _Bawd._

Marry come up, my dish of chast.i.ty with Rosemary and Bays!

_Pericles_, act iv, sc. 6 (159).

(3)

_The Vision_--Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of Bays, and golden vizards on their faces, branches of Bays or Palms in their hands.

_Henry VIII_, act iv, sc. 2

It is not easy to determine what tree is meant in these pa.s.sages. In the first there is little doubt that Shakespeare copied from some Italian source the superst.i.tion that the Bay trees in a country withered and died when any great calamity was approaching. We have no proof that such an idea ever prevailed in England. In the second pa.s.sage reference is made to the decking of the chief dish at high feasts with garlands of flowers and evergreens. But the Bay tree had been too recently introduced from the South of Europe in Shakespeare's time to be so used to any great extent, though the tree was known long before, for it is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Vocabularies by the name of Beay-beam, that is, the Coronet tree;[32:1] but whether the Beay-beam meant our Bay tree is very uncertain. We are not much helped in the inquiry by the notice of the "flourishing green Bay tree" in the Psalms, for it seems very certain that the Bay tree there mentioned is either the Oleander or the Cedar, certainly not the Laurus n.o.bilis.

The true Bay is probably mentioned by Spenser in the following lines--

"The Bay, quoth she, is of the victours born, Yielded them by the vanquisht as theyr meeds, And they therewith doe Poetes heads adorne To sing the glory of their famous deeds."

_Amoretti_--Sonnet xxix.

And in the following pa.s.sage (written in the lifetime of Shakespeare) the Laurel and the Bay are both named as the same tree--

"And when from Daphne's tree he plucks more Baies His shepherd's pipe may chant more heavenly lays."

_Christopher Brooke_--_Introd. verses to_ BROWNE'S _Pastorals._

In the present day no garden of shrubs can be considered complete without the Bay tree, both the common one and especially the Californian Bay (_Oreodaphne Californica_), which, with its bright green lanceolate foliage and powerful aromatic scent (to some too pungent), deserves a place everywhere, and it is not so liable to be cut by the spring winds as the European Bay.[32:2] Parkinson's high praise of the Bay tree (forty years after Shakespeare's death) is too long for insertion, but two short sentences may be quoted: "The Bay leaves are of as necessary use as any other in the garden or orchard, for they serve both for pleasure and profit, both for ornament and for use, both for honest civil uses and for physic, yea, both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for the dead; . . . so that from the cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we have still need of it."

The Bay tree gives us a curious instance of the capriciousness of English plant names. Though a true Laurel it does not bear the name, which yet is given to two trees, the common (and Portugal) Laurel, and the Laurestinus, neither of which are Laurels--the one being a Cherry or Plum (_Prunus_ or _Cerasus_), the other a Guelder Rose (_Viburnum_).[33:1]

FOOTNOTES:

[32:1] "The Anglo-Saxon Beay was not a ring only, or an armlet: it was also a coronet or diadem. . . . The Bays, then, of our Poets and the Bay tree were in reality the Coronet and the Coronet tree."--c.o.c.kAYNE, _Spoon and Sparrow_, p. 21.

[32:2] The Californian Bay has not been established in England long enough to form a timber tree, but in America it is highly prized as one of the very best trees for cabinet work, especially for the ornamental parts of pianos.

[33:1] For an interesting account of the Bay and the Laurels, giving the history of the names, &c., see two papers by Mr. H. Evershed in "Gardener's Chronicle," September, 1876.

BEANS.

(1) _Puck._

When I a fat and Bean-fed horse beguile.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (45).