The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 90

_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 5 (175).

(5) _Nurse._

Doth not Rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?

_Romeo._

Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.

_Nurse._

Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for the ----.

No; I know it begins with some other letter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and Rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 4 (219).

(6) _Friar._

Dry up your tears, and stick your Rosemary On this fair corse.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 5 (79).

The Rosemary is not a native of Britain, but of the sea-coast of the South of Europe, where it is very abundant. It was very early introduced into England, and is mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon Herbarium under its Latin name of Ros marinus, and is there translated by Bothen, _i.e._ Thyme; also in an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the eleventh century, where it is translated Feld-madder and Sun-dew. In these places our present plant may or may not be meant, but there is no doubt that it is the one referred to in an ancient English poem of the fourteenth century, on the virtues of herbs, published in Wright and Halliwell's "Reliquiae Antiquae." The account of "The Gloriouse Rosemaryne" is long, but the beginning and ending are worth quoting--

"This herbe is callit Rosemaryn Of vertu that is G.o.de and fyne; But alle the vertues tell I ne cane, No I trawe no erthely man.

Of thys herbe telles Galiene That in hys contree was a quene, Gowtus and Crokyt as he hath tolde, And eke s.e.xty yere olde; Sor and febyl, where men hyr sey Scho semyth wel for to dey; Of Rosmaryn scho toke s.e.x powde, And grownde hyt wel in a stownde, And bathed hir threyes everi day, Nine mowthes, as I herde say, And afterwarde anoynitte wel hyr hede With good bame as I rede; Away fel alle that olde flessche, And yowge i-sp.r.o.ng tender and nessche; So fresshe to be scho then began Scho coveytede couplede be to man." (Vol. i, 196).

We can now scarcely understand the high favour in which Rosemary was formerly held; we are accustomed to see it neglected, or only tolerated in some corner of the kitchen garden, and not often tolerated there. But it was very different in Shakespeare's time, when it was in high favour for its evergreen leaves and fine aromatic scent, remaining a long time after picking, so long, indeed, that both leaves and scent were almost considered everlasting. This was its great charm, and so Spenser spoke of it as "the cheerful Rosemarie" and "refreshing Rosemarine," and good Sir Thomas More had a great affection for it. "As for Rosemarine," he said, "I lett it run alle over my garden walls, not onlie because my bees love it, but because tis the herb sacred to remembrance, and therefore to friendship; whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language that maketh it the chosen emblem at our funeral wakes and in our buriall grounds." And Parkinson gives a similar account of its popularity as a garden plant: "Being in every woman's garden, it were sufficient but to name it as an ornament among other sweet herbs and flowers in our gardens. In this our land, where it hath been planted in n.o.blemen's and great men's gardens against brick walls, and there continued long, it riseth up in time unto a very great height, with a great and woody stem of that compa.s.se that, being cloven out into boards, it hath served to make lutes or such like instruments, and here with us carpenters' rules and to divers others purposes." It was the favourite evergreen wherever the occasion required an emblem of constancy and perpetual remembrance, such especially as weddings and funerals, at both of which it was largely used; and so says Herrick of "The Rosemarie Branch"--

"Grow for two ends, it matters not at all, Be't for my bridall or my buriall."

Its use at funerals was very widespread, for Laurembergius records a pretty custom in use in his day, 1631, at Frankfort: "Is mos apud nos retinetur, dum cupresso humile, vel rore marino, non solum coronamus funera jamjam ducenda, sed et iis appendimus ex iisdem herbis litteras collectas, significatrices nominis ejus quae defuncta est. Nam in puellarum funeribus haec fere fieri solent" ("Horticulturae," cap. vj.).

Its use at weddings is pleasantly told in the old ballad of "The Bride's Good-morrow"--

"The house is drest and garnisht for your sake With flowers gallant and green; A solemn feast your comely cooks do ready make, Where all your friends will be seen: Young men and maids do ready stand With sweet Rosemary in their hand-- A perfect token of your virgin's life.

To wait upon you they intend Unto the church to make an end: And G.o.d make thee a joyfull wedded wife."

_Roxburghe Ballads_, vol. i.

It probably is one of the most lasting of evergreens after being gathered, though we can scarcely credit the statement recorded by Phillips that "it is the custom in France to put a branch of Rosemary in the hands of the dead when in the coffin, and we are told by Valmont Bomare, in his 'Histoire Naturelle,' that when the coffins have been opened after several years, the plant has been found to have vegetated so much that the leaves have covered the corpse." These were the general and popular uses of the Rosemary, but it was of high repute as a medicine, and still holds a place, though not so high as formerly, in the "Pharmacopia." "Rosemary," says Parkinson, "is almost of as great use as Bayes, both for inward and outward remedies, and as well for civill as physicall purposes--inwardly for the head and heart, outwardly for the sinews and joynts; for civile uses, as all do know, at weddings, funerals, &c., to bestow among friends; and the physicall are so many that you might as well be tyred in the reading as I in the writing, if I should set down all that might be said of it."

With this high character we may well leave this good, old-fashioned plant, merely noting that the name is popularly but erroneously supposed to mean the Rose of Mary. It has no connection with either Rose or Mary, but is the Ros marinus, or Ros Maris (as in Ovid--

"Ros maris, et laurus, nigraque myrtus olent;"

_De Arte Aman._, iii, 390),

the plant that delights in the sea-spray; and so the old spelling was Rosmarin. Gower says of the Star Alpheta--

"His herbe proper is Rosmarine;"

_Conf. Aman._, lib. sept.

a spelling which Shenstone adopted--

"And here trim Rosmarin that whilom crowned The daintiest garden of the proudest peer."

It was also sometimes called Guardrobe, being "put into chests and presses among clothes, to preserve them from mothes and other vermine."

FOOTNOTES:

[256:1] Grace was symbolized by the Rue, or Herb of Grace, and remembrance by the Rosemary.

RUE.

(1) _Perdita._

For you there's Rosemary and Rue.

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (74).

(_See_ ROSEMARY, No. 1.)

(2) _Gardener._

Here did she fall a tear; here in this place I'll set a bank of Rue, sour Herb of Grace: Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall beseen, In the remembrance of a weeping queen.

_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 4 (104).

(3) _Antony._

Grace grow where these drops fall.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act iv, sc. 2 (38).

(4) _Ophelia._