Folk-lore of Shakespeare, Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer [e reader comics TXT] 📗
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Gillyflower. This was the old name for the whole class of carnations, pinks, and sweet-williams, from the French girofle, which is itself corrupted from the Latin caryophyllum.[505] The streaked gillyflowers, says Mr. Beisly,[506] noticed by Perdita in “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4)—
Are our carnations and streak’d gillyvors,
Which some call nature’s bastards”—
“are produced by the flowers of one kind being impregnated by the pollen of another kind, and this art (or law) in nature Shakespeare alludes to in the delicate language used by Perdita, as well as to the practice of increasing the plants by slips.” Tusser, in his “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,” says:
Doth look to be covered in frost and in snow.”
Harebell. This flower, mentioned in “Cymbeline” (iv. 2), is no doubt another name for the wild hyacinth.
Arviragus says of Imogen:
The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins.”
Hemlock. In consequence of its bad and poisonous character, this plant was considered an appropriate ingredient for witches’ broth. In “Macbeth” (iv. 1) we read of
Its scientific name, conium, is from the Greek word meaning cone or top, whose whirling motion resembles the giddiness produced on the constitution by its poisonous juice. It is by most persons supposed to be the death-drink of the Greeks, and the one by which Socrates was put to death.
Herb of Grace or Herb Grace. A popular name in days gone by for rue. The origin of the term is uncertain. Most probably it arose from the extreme bitterness of the plant, which, as it had always borne the name rue (to be sorry for anything), was not unnaturally associated with repentance. It was, therefore, the herb of repentance,[507] “and this was soon changed into ‘herb of grace,’ repentance being the chief sign of grace.” The expression is several times used by Shakespeare. In “Richard II.” (iii. 4) the gardener narrates:
I’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.”
In “Hamlet” (iv. 5), Ophelia, when addressing the queen, says, “There’s rue for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-grace o’ Sundays: O, you must wear your rue with a difference.”[508]
Malone observes that there is no ground for supposing that rue was called “herb of grace” from its being used in exorcisms in churches on Sunday, a notion entertained by Jeremy Taylor, who says, referring to the Flagellum Dæmonum, “First, they (the Romish exorcisers) are to try the devil by holy water, incense, sulphur, rue, which from thence, as we suppose, came to be called ‘herb of grace.’”[509] Rue was also a common subject of puns, from being the same word which signified sorrow or pity (see “Richard II.,” iii. 4, cited above).
Holy Thistle. The Carduus Benedictus, called also “blessed thistle,” was so named, like other plants which bear the specific name of “blessed,” from its supposed power of counteracting the effect of poison.[510] Cogan, in his “Haven of Health,” 1595, says, “This herbe may worthily be called Benedictus, or Omnimorbia, that is, a salve for every sore, not known to physitians of old time, but lately revealed by the special providence of Almighty God.” It is alluded to in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 4):
“Margaret. Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm.
Hero. There thou prickest her with a thistle.
Beatrice. Benedictus! why Benedictus? you have some moral in this Benedictus.
Margaret. Moral? no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning. I meant, plain holy-thistle.”
Insane Root. There is much doubt as to what plant is meant by Banquo in “Macbeth” (i. 3):
That takes the reason prisoner?”
The origin of this passage is probably to be found in North’s “Plutarch,” 1579 (“Life of Antony,” p. 990), where mention is made of a plant which “made them out of their wits.” Several plants have been suggested—the hemlock, belladonna, mandrake, henbane, etc. Douce supports the last, and cites the following passage:[511] “Henbane ... is called insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth madness, or slow lykenesse of sleepe.” Nares[512] quotes from Ben Jonson (“Sejanus,” iii. 2), in support of hemlock:
And may they lay that hold upon thy senses
As thou hadst snufft up hemlock.”
Ivy. It was formerly the general custom in England, as it is still in France and the Netherlands, to hang a bush of ivy at the door of a vintner.[513] Hence the allusion in “As You Like It” (v. 4, Epilogue), where Rosalind wittily remarks: “If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.” This custom is often referred to by our old writers, as, for instance, in Nash’s “Summer’s Last Will and Testament,” 1600:
And in the “Rival Friends,” 1632:
This plant was no doubt chosen from its being sacred to Bacchus. The practice was observed at statute hirings, wakes, etc., by people who sold ale at no other time. The manner, says Mr. Singer,[514] in which they were decorated appears from a passage in Florio’s “Italian Dictionary,” in voce tremola, “Gold foile, or thin leaves of gold or silver, namely, thinne plate, as our vintners adorn their bushes with.” We may compare the old sign of “An owl in an ivy bush,” which perhaps denoted the union of wisdom or prudence with conviviality, with the phrase “be merry and wise.”
Kecksies. These are the dry, hollow stalks of hemlock. In “Henry V.” (v. 2) Burgundy makes use of the word:
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.”
It has been suggested[515] that kecksies may be a mistaken form of the plural kex; and that kex may have been formed from keck, something so dry that the eater would keck at it, or be unable to swallow it. The word is probably derived from the Welsh “cecys,” which is applied to several plants of the umbelliferous kind. Dr. Prior,[516] however, says that kecksies is from an old English word keek, or kike, retained in the northern counties in the sense of “peep” or “spy.”
Knotgrass.[517] The allusion to this plant in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 2)—
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
You bead, you acorn!”—
refers to its supposed power of hindering the growth of any child or animal, when taken in an infusion, a notion alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher (“Coxcombe,” ii. 2):
Kept under for a year with milk and knot-grass.”
In “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” (ii. 2) we read: “The child’s a fatherless child, and say they should put him into a strait pair of gaskins, ’twere worse than knot-grass; he would never grow after it.”
Lady-smocks. This plant is so called from the resemblance of its white flowers to little smocks hung out to dry (“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” v. 2), as they used to be at that season of the year especially
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.
*****
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
*****
And maidens bleach their summer smocks.”
According to another explanation, the lady-smock is a corruption of “Our Lady’s Smock,” so called from its first flowering about Lady-tide. This plant has also been called cuckoo-flower, because, as Gerarde says, “it flowers in April and May, when the cuckoo doth begin to sing her pleasant notes without stammering.”
Laurel. From the very earliest times this classical plant has been regarded as symbolical of victory, and used for crowns. In “Titus Andronicus” (i. 1) Titus says:
And in “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 3) the latter exclaims:
Sit laurelled victory.”[518]
Leek. The first of March is observed by the Welsh in honor of St. David, their patron saint, when, as a sign of their patriotism, they wear a leek. Much doubt exists as to the origin of this custom. According to the Welsh, it is because St. David ordered his Britons to place leeks in their caps, that they might be distinguished in fight from their Saxon foes. Shakespeare, in “Henry V.” (iv. 7), alludes to the custom when referring to the battle of Cressy. Fluellen says, “If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which your majesty know to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.”[519] Dr. Owen Pughe[520] supposes the custom arose from the practice of every farmer contributing his leek to the common repast when they met at the Cymmortha, an association by which they reciprocated assistance in ploughing the land. Anyhow, the subject is one involved in complete uncertainty, and the various explanations given are purely conjectural (see p. 303).
Lily. Although so many pretty legends and romantic superstitions have clustered round this sweet and favorite flower, yet they have escaped the notice of Shakespeare, who, while attaching to it the choicest epithets, has simply made it the type of elegance and beauty, and the symbol of purity and whiteness.
Long Purples. This plant, mentioned by Shakespeare in “Hamlet” (iv. 7) as forming part of the nosegay of poor Ophelia, is generally considered to be the early purple orchis (Orchis mascula), which blossoms in April or May. It grows in meadows and pastures, and is about ten inches high. Tennyson (“A Dirge”) uses the name:
Bramble roses, faint and pale,
And long purples of the dale.”
Another term applied by Shakespeare to this flower was “Dead Men’s Fingers,” from the pale color and hand-like shape of the palmate tubers:
In “Flowers from Stratford-on-Avon,” it is said, “there can be no doubt that the wild arum is the plant alluded to by Shakespeare,” but there seems no authority for this statement.
Love-in-Idleness, or, with more accuracy, Love-in-Idle,[521] is one of the many nicknames of the pansy or heart’s-ease—a term said to be still in
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