Chapter XII: Part I: The Plant-Lore of Shakespeare (9)

I can only refer very shortly to the botanical interest of the Primula, and that only to direct attention to Mr. Darwin's paper in the "Journal of the Linnæan Society," 1862, in which he records his very curious and painstaking inquiries into the dimorphism of the Primula, a peculiarity in the Primula that gardeners had long recognized in their arrangement of Primroses as "pin-eyed" and "thrum-eyed." It is perhaps owing to this dimorphism that the family is able to show a very large number of natural hybrids. These have been carefully studied by Professor Kerner, of Innspruck, and it seems not unlikely that a further study will show that all the European so-called species are natural hybrids from a very few parents.

Yet a few words on the Primrose as a garden plant. If the Primrose be taken from the hedges in November, and planted in beds thickly in the garden, they make a beautiful display of flowers and foliage from February till the beds are required for the summer flowers; and there are few of our wild flowers that run into so many varieties in their wild state. In Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire I have seen the wild Primrose of nearly all shades of colour, from the purest white to an almost bright red, and these can all be brought into the garden with a certainty of success and a certainty of rapid increase. There are also many double varieties, all of which are more often seen in cottage gardens than elsewhere; yet no gardener need despise them.

One other British Primrose, the Bird's-eye Primrose, almost defies garden cultivation, though in its native habitats in the north it grows in most ungenial places. I have seen places in the neighbourhood of the bleak hill of Ingleborough, where it almost forms the turf; yet away from its native habitat it is difficult to keep, except in a greenhouse. For the cultivation of the other non-English species, I cannot do better than refer to an excellent paper by Mr. Niven in the "The Garden" for January 29, 1876, in which he gives an exhaustive account of them.

I am not aware that Primroses are of any use in medicine or cookery, yet Tusser names the Primrose among "seeds and herbs for the kitchen," and Lyte says "the Cowslips, Primroses, and Oxlips are now used dayly amongst other pot herbes, but in physicke there is no great account made of them." They occur in heraldy. The arms of the Earls of Rosebery (Primrose) are three Primroses within a double tressure fleury counter-fleury, or.

PRUNES, _see_ PLUMS.

PUMPION.

_Mrs. Ford._

Go to, then. We'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross
watery Pumpion.

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iii, sc. 3 (42).

The old name for the Cucumber (in Ælfric's "Vocabulary") is hwer-hwette, _i.e._, wet ewer, but Pumpion, Pompion, and Pumpkin were general terms including all the Cucurbitaceæ such as Melons, Gourds, Cucumbers, and Vegetable Marrows. All were largely grown in Shakespeare's days, but I should think the reference here must be to one of the large useless Gourds, for Mrs. Ford's comparison is to Falstaff, and Gourds were grown large enough to bear out even that comparison. "The Gourd groweth into any forme or fashion you would have it, . . . being suffered to clime upon an arbour where the fruit may hang; it hath beene seene to be nine foot long." And the little value placed upon the whole tribe helped to bear out the comparison. They were chiefly good to "cure copper faces, red and shining fierce noses (as red as red Roses), with pimples, pumples, rubies, and such-like precious faces." This was Gerard's account of the Cucumber, while of the Cucumber Pompion, which was evidently our Vegetable Marrow, and of which he has described and figured the variety which we now call the Custard Marrow, he says, "it maketh a man apt and ready to fall into the disease called the colericke passion, and of some the felonie."

Mrs. Ford's comparison of a big loutish man to an overgrown Gourd has not been lost in the English language, for "bumpkin" is only another form of "Pumpkin," and Mr. Fox Talbot, in his "English Etymologies," has a very curious account of the antiquity of the nickname. "The Greeks," he says, "called a very weak and soft-headed person a Pumpion, whence the proverb +peponos malakôteros+, softer than a Pumpion; and even one of Homer's heroes, incensed at the timidity of his soldiers, exclaims +ô pepones+, you Pumpions! So also _cornichon_ (Cucumber) is a term of derision in French."

Yet the Pumpion or Gourd had its uses, moral uses. Modern critics have decided that Jonah's Gourd, "which came up in a night and perished in a night," was not a Gourd, but the Palma Christi, or Castor-oil tree. But our forefathers called it a Gourd, and believing that it was so, they used the Gourd to point many a moral and illustrate many a religious emblem. Thus viewed it was the standing emblem of the rapid growth and quick decay of evil-doers and their evil deeds. "Cito nata, cito pereunt," was the history of the evil deeds, while the doers of them could only say--

"Quasi solstitialis herba fui,
Repente exortus sum, repente occidi."

PLAUTUS.

QUINCE.

_Nurse._

They call for Dates and Quinces in the pastry.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act iv, sc. 4 (2).

Quince is also the name of one of the "homespun actors" in "Midsummer Night's Dream," and is no doubt there used as a ludicrous name. The name was anciently spelt "coynes"--

"And many homely trees ther were
That Peches, Coynes, and Apples bere,
Medlers, Plommes, Perys, Chesteyns,
Cherys, of which many oon fayne is."

_Romaunt of the Rose._

The same name occurs in the old English vocabularies, as in a Nominale of the fifteenth century, "hæc cocianus, a coventre;" in an English vocabulary of the fourteenth century, "Hoc coccinum, a quoyne," and in the treatise of Walter de Biblesworth, in the thirteenth century--

"Issi troverez en ce verger
Estang un sek Coigner (a Coyn-tre, Quince-tre)."

And there is little doubt that "Quince" is a corruption of "coynes" which again is a corruption, not difficult to trace, of Cydonia, one of the most ancient cities of Crete, where the Quince tree is indigenous, and whence it derived its name of Pyrus Cydonia, or simply Cydonia. If not indigenous elsewhere in the East, it was very soon cultivated, and especially in Palestine. It is not yet a settled point, and probably never will be, but there is a strong consensus of most of the best commentators, that the _Tappuach_ of Scripture, always translated Apple, was the Quince. It is supposed to be the fruit alluded to in the Canticles, "As the Apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons; I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste;" and in Proverbs, "A word fitly spoken is like Apples of gold in pictures of silver;" and the tree is supposed to have given its name to various places in Palestine, as Tappuach, Beth-Tappuach, and Aen-Tappuach.

By the Greeks and Romans the Quince was held in honour as the fruit especially sacred to Venus, who is often represented as holding a Quince in her right hand, the gift which she received from Paris. In other sculptures "the amorous deities pull Quinces in gardens and play with them. For persons to send Quinces in presents, to throw them at each other, to eat them together, were all tokens of love; to dream of Quinces was a sign of successful love" (Rosenmuller). The custom was handed down to mediæval times. It was at a wedding feast that "they called for Dates and Quinces in the pastry;" and Brand quotes a curious passage from the "Praise of Musicke," 1586 ("Romeo and Juliet" was published in 1596)--"I come to marriages, wherein as our ancestors did fondly, and with a kind of doting, maintaine many rites and ceremonies, some whereof were either shadowes or abodements of a pleasant life to come, as the eating of a Quince Peare to be a preparative of sweet and delightful dayes between the married persons."

To understand this high repute in which the Quince was held, we must remember that the Quince of hot countries differs somewhat from the English Quince. With us the fruit is of a fine, handsome shape, and of a rich golden colour when fully ripe, and of a strong scent, which is very agreeable to many, though too heavy and overpowering to others. But the rind is rough and woolly, and the flesh is harsh and unpalatable, and only fit to be eaten when cooked. In hotter countries the woolly rind is said to disappear, and the fruit can be eaten raw; and this is the case not only in Eastern countries, but also in the parts of Tropical America to which the tree has been introduced from Europe.

In England the Quince is probably less grown now than it was in Shakespeare's time--yet it may well be grown as an ornamental shrub even by those who do not appreciate its fruit. It forms a thick bush, with large white flowers, followed in the autumn by its handsome fruit, and requires no care. "They love shadowy, moist places;" "It delighteth to grow on plaine and even ground and somewhat moist withall." This was Lyte's and Gerard's experience, and I have never seen handsomer bushes or finer fruit than I once saw on some neglected bushes that skirted a horsepond on a farm in Kent; the trees were evidently revelling in their state of moisture and neglect. The tree has a horticultural value as giving an excellent stock for Pear-trees, on which it has a very remarkable effect, for "Cabanis asserts that when certain Pears are grafted on the Quince, their seeds yield more varieties than do the seeds of the same variety of Pear when grafted on the wild Pear."--DARWIN. Its economic value is considered to be but small, being chiefly used for Marmalade,[236:1] but in Shakespeare's time, Browne spoke of it as "the stomach's comforter, the pleasing Quince," and Parkinson speaks highly of it, for "there is no fruit growing in the land," he says, "that is of so many excellent uses as this, serving as well to make many dishes of meat for the table, as for banquets, and much more for their physical virtues, whereof to write at large is neither convenient for me nor for this work."

FOOTNOTES:

[236:1] This was a very old use for the Quince. Wynkyn de Worde, in the "Boke of Kervynge" (p. 266), speaks of "char de Quynce;" and John Russell, in the "Boke of Nurture" (l. 75), speaks of "chare de Quynces." This was Quince marmalade.

RADISH.

(1) _Falstaff._

When a' was naked, he was, for all the world, like a fork'd
Radish.

_2nd Henry IV_, act iii, sc. 2 (333).

(2) _Falstaff._

If I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of Radish.

_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (205).

There can be no doubt that the Radish was so named because it was considered by the Romans, for some reason unknown to us, _the_ root _par excellence_. It was used by them, as by us, "as a stimulus before meat, giving an appetite thereunto"--

"Acria circum
Rapula, lactucæ, Radices, qualia lassum
Pervellunt stomachum."--HORACE.

But it was cultivated, or allowed to grow, to a much larger size than we now think desirable. Pliny speaks of Radishes weighing 40lb. each, and others speak even of 60lb. and 100lb. But in Shakespeare's time the Radish was very much what it is now, a pleasant salad vegetable, but of no great value. We read, however, of Radishes being put to strange uses. Lupton, a writer of Shakespeare's day, says: "If you would kill snakes and adders strike them with a large Radish, and to handle adders and snakes without harm, wash your hands in the juice of Radishes and you may do without harm" ("Notable Things," 1586).

We read also of great attempts being made to procure oil from the seed, but to no great effect. Hakluyt, in describing the sufficiency of the English soil to produce everything necessary in the manufacture of cloth, says: "So as there wanteth, if colours might be brought in and made naturall, but onely oile; the want whereof if any man could devise to supply at the full with anything that might become naturall in this realme, he, whatsoever he were that might bring it about, might deserve immortal fame in this our Commonwealth, and such a devise was offered to Parliament and refused, because they denied to allow him a certain liberty, some others having obtained the same before that practised to work that effect by Radish seed, which onely made a trial of small quantity, and that went no further to make that oile in plenty, and now he that offered this devise was a merchant, and is dead, and withal the devise is dead with him" ("Voiages," vol. ii.).

The Radish is not a native of Britain, but was probably introduced by the Romans, and was well-known to the Anglo-Saxon gardener under its present name, but with a closer approach to the Latin, being called Rædic, or Radiolle.[237:1]

A curious testimony to the former high reputation of the Radish survives in the "Annual Radish Feast at Levens Hall, a custom dating from time immemorial, and supposed by some to be a relic of feudal times, held on May 12th at Levens Hall, the seat of the Hon. Mrs. Howard, and adjoining the high road about midway between Kendal and Milnthorpe. Tradition hath it that the Radish feast arose out of a rivalry between the families of Levens Hall and Dallam Tower, as to which should entertain the Corporation with their friends and followers, and in which Levens Hall eventually carried the palm. The feast is provided on the bowling green in front of the Hall, where several long tables are plentifully spread with Radishes and brown bread and butter, the tables being repeatedly furnished with guests" ("Gardener's Chronicle").

FOOTNOTES:

[237:1] "Catholicon Anglicum."

RAISINS.

_Clown._

Four pounds of Prunes and as many of Raisins o' the sun.

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (51).

Raisins are alluded to, if not actually named, in "1st Henry IV.," act ii, sc. 4, when Falstaff says: "If reasons were as plentiful as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I----" "It seems that a pun underlies this, the association of reasons with Blackberries springing out of the fact that _reasons_ sounded like _raisins_."--EARLE, _Philology_, &c.

Bearing in mind that Raisin is a corruption of _racemus_, a bunch of Grapes, we can understand that the word was not always applied, as it is now, to the dried fruit, but was sometimes applied to the bunch of Grapes as it hung ripe on the tree--

"For no man at the firste stroke
He may not felle down an Oke;
Nor of the Reisins have the wyne
Till Grapes be ripe and welle afyne."

_Romaunt of the Rose._

The best dried fruit were Raisins of the sun, _i.e._, dried in the sun, to distinguish them from those which were dried in ovens. They were, of course, foreign fruit, and were largely imported. The process of drying in the sun is still the method in use, at least, with "the finer kinds, such as Muscatels, which are distinguished as much by the mode of drying as by the variety and soil in which they are grown, the finest being dried on the Vines before gathering, the stalk being partly cut through when the fruits are ripe, and the leaves being removed from near the clusters, so as to allow the full effect of the sun in ripening."

The Grape thus becomes a Raisin, but it is still further transformed when it reaches the cook; it then becomes a Plum, for Plum pudding has, as we all know, Raisins for its chief ingredient and certainly no Plums; and the Christmas pie into which Jack Horner put in his thumb and pulled out a Plum must have been a mince-pie, also made of Raisins; but how a cooked Raisin came to be called a Plum is not recorded. In Devonshire and Dorsetshire it undergoes a further transformation, for there Raisins are called Figs, and a Plum pudding is called a Fig pudding.

REEDS.

(1) _2nd Servant._

I had as lief have a Reed that will do me no service, as a
partizan I could not heave.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii, sc. 7 (13).

(2) _Arviragus._

Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the Reed is as the Oak;
The sceptre, learning, physick, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (264).

(3) _Ariel._

His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of Reeds.

_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (16).

(4) _Ariel._

With hair up-staring--then like Reeds, not hair--

_Ibid._, act i, sc. 2 (213).

(5) _Hotspur._

Swift Severn's flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling Reeds.

_1st Henry IV_, act 1, sc. 3 (103).

(6) _Portia._

And speak between the change of man and boy
With a Reed voice.

_Merchant of Venice_, act iii, sc. 4 (66).

(7) _Wooer._

In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace
From the far shore thick set with Reeds and Sedges.

* * * * *

The Rushes and the Reeds
Had so encompast it.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (71, 80).

(8)

To Simois' Reedy banks the red blood ran.

_Lucrece_ (1437).

Reed is a general term for almost any water-loving, grassy plant, and so it is used by Shakespeare. In the Bible it is perhaps possible to identify some of the Reeds mentioned, with the Sugar Cane in some places, with the Papyrus in others, and in others with the Arundo donax. As a Biblical plant it has a special interest, not only as giving the emblem of the tenderest mercy that will be careful even of "the bruised Reed," but also as entering largely into the mockery of the Crucifixion: "They put a Reed in His right hand," and "they filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it upon a Reed and gave Him to drink." The Reed in these passages was probably the Arundo donax, a very elegant Reed, which was used for many purposes in Palestine, and is a most graceful plant for English gardens, being perfectly hardy, and growing every year from 12ft. to 14ft. in height, but very seldom flowering.[240:1]

But in Shakespeare, as in most writers, the Reed is simply the emblem of weakness, tossed about by and bending to a superior force, and of little or no use--"a Reed that will do me no service" (No. 1). It is also the emblem of the blessedness of submission, and of the power that lies in humility to outlast its oppressor--

"Like as in tempest great,
Where wind doth bear the stroke,
Much safer stands the bowing Reed
Then doth the stubborn Oak."

Shakespeare mentions but two uses to which the Reed was applied, the thatching of houses (No. 3), and the making of Pan or Shepherd's pipes (No. 6). Nor has he anything to say of its beauty, yet the Reeds of our river sides (_Arundo phragmites_) are most graceful plants, especially when they have their dark plumes of flowers, and this Milton seems to have felt--

"Forth flourish't thick the flustering Vine, forth crept
The swelling Gourd, up stood the Cornie Reed
Embattled in her field."

_Paradise Lost_, book vii.

FOOTNOTES:

[240:1] I have only been able to find one record of the flowering of Arundo donax in England--"Mem: Arundo donax in flower, 15th September, 1762, the first time I ever saw it, but this very hot dry summer has made many exotics flower. . . . It bears a handsome tassel of flowers."--P. COLLINSON'S _Hortus Collinsonianus_.

RHUBARB.

_Macbeth._

What Rhubarb, Cyme, or what purgative drug
Would scour these English hence?

_Macbeth_, act v, sc. 3 (55).

Andrew Boorde writing from Spayne in 1535, to Thomas Cromwell, says, "I have sent to your Mastershipp the seeds of Reuberbe the whiche come forth of Barbary in this parte ytt ys had for a grett tresure."[241:1] But the plant does not seem to have become established and Shakespeare could only have known the imported drug, for the Rheum was first grown by Parkinson, though it had been described in an uncertain way both by Lyte and Gerard. Lyte said: "Rha, as it is thought, hath great broad leaves;" and then he says: "We have found here in the gardens of certaine diligent herboristes that strange plant which is thought by some to be Rha or Rhabarbum;" but from the figure it is very certain that the plant was not a Rheum. After the time of Parkinson, it was largely grown for the sake of producing the drug, and it is still grown in England to some extent for the same purpose, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Banbury; though it is doubtful whether any of the species now grown in England are the true species that has long produced Turkey Rhubarb. The plant is now grown most extensively as a spring vegetable, though I cannot find when it first began to be so used. Parkinson evidently tried it and thought well of it. "The leaves have a fine acid taste; a syrup, therefore, made with the juice and sugar cannot but be very effectual in dejected appetites." Yet even in 1807 Professor Martyn, the editor of "Millar's Dictionary," in a long article on the Rhubarb, makes no mention of its culinary qualities, but in 1822 Phillips speaks of it as largely cultivated for spring tarts, and forced for the London markets, "medical men recommending it as one of the most cooling and wholesome tarts sent to table."

As a garden plant the Rhubarb is highly ornamental, though it is seldom seen out of the kitchen garden, but where room can be given to them, Rheum palmatum or Rheum officinale, will always be admired as some of the handsomest of foliage plants. The finest species of the family is the Himalayan Rheum nobile, but it is exceedingly difficult to grow. Botanically the Rhubarb is allied to the Dock and Sorrel, and all the species are herbaceous.

FOOTNOTES:

[241:1] Quoted in Furnival's forewords to Boorde's "Introduction to Knowledge," p. 56.

RICE.

_Clown._

Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast?
Three pound of sugar, five pound of Currants, Rice----What
will this sister of mine do with Rice?[242:1]

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (38).

Shakespeare may have had no more acquaintance with Rice than his knowledge of the imported grain, which seems to have been long ago introduced into England, for in a Nominale of the fifteenth century we have "Hoc risi, indeclinabile, Ryse." And in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," "Ryce, frute. Risia, vel risi, n. indecl. secundum quosdam, vel risium, vel risorum granum (rizi vel granum Indicum)." Turner was acquainted with it: "Ryse groweth plentuously in watery myddowes between Myllane and Pavia."[242:2] And Shakespeare may have seen the plant, for Gerard grew it in his London garden, though "the floure did not show itselfe by reason of the injurie of our unseasonable yeare 1596." It is a native of Africa, and was soon transferred to Europe as a nourishing and wholesome grain, especially for invalids--"sume hoc ptisanarium oryzæ," says the doctor to his patient in Horace, and it is mentioned both by Dioscorides and Theophrastus. It has been occasionally grown in England as a curiosity, but seldom comes to any perfection out-of-doors, as it requires a mixture of moisture and heat that we cannot easily give it. There are said to be species in the North of China growing in dry places, which would perhaps be hardy in England and easier of cultivation, but I am not aware that they have ever been introduced.

FOOTNOTES:

[242:1] In 1468 the price of rice was 3d. a pound = 3s. of our money ("Babee's Book," xxx.).

[242:2] "Names of Herbes," s.v. Oryza.

ROSES.

(1) _Titania._

Some to kill cankers in the Musk-rose buds.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 3 (3).

(2) _Titania._

And stick Musk-Roses in thy sleek, smooth head.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (3).

(3) _Julia._

The air hath starved the Roses in her cheeks.

_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act iv, sc. 4 (159).

(4) _Song._

There will we make our beds of Roses
And a thousand fragrant posies.

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iii, sc. 1 (19).

(5) _Autolycus._

Gloves as sweet as Damask Roses.

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (222).

(6) _Olivia._

Cæsario, by the Roses of the spring,
By maidhood, honour, truth, and everything,
I love thee so.

_Twelfth Night_, act iii, sc. 1 (161).

(7) _Diana._

When you have our Roses,
You barely leave us thorns to prick ourselves
And mock us with our bareness.

_All's Well that Ends Well_, act iv, sc. 2 (18).

(8) _Lord._

Let one attend him with a silver basin
Full of Rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers.

_Taming of the Shrew_, Induction, sc. 1 (55).

(9) _Petruchio._

I'll say she looks as clear
As morning Roses newly wash'd with dew.

_Ibid._, act ii, sc. 1 (173).

(10) _Tyrrell._

Their lips were four red Roses on a stalk,
Which in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.

_Richard III_, act iv, sc. 3 (12).

(11) _Friar._

The Roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act iv, sc. 1 (99).

(12) _Romeo._

Remnants of packthread and old cakes of Roses
Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.

_Ibid._, act v, sc. 1 (47).

(13) _Hamlet._

With two Provincial Roses on my razed shoes.

_Hamlet_, act iii, sc. 2 (287).

(14) _Laertes._

O Rose of May,
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 5 (157).

(15) _Duke._

For women are as Roses, whose fair flower
Being once display'd doth fall that very hour.

_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 4 (39).

(16) _Constance._

Of Nature's gifts, thou may'st with Lilies boast,
And with the half-blown Rose.

_King John_, act iii, sc. 1 (153).

(17) _Queen._

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
My fair Rose wither.

_Richard II_, act v, sc. 1 (7).

(18) _Hotspur._

To put down Richard, that sweet lovely Rose,
And plant this Thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke.

_1st Henry IV_, act i, sc. 3 (175).

(19) _Hostess._

Your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any Rose.

_2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (27).

(20) _York._

Then will I raise aloft the milk-white Rose,
With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.

_2nd Henry VI_, act i, sc. 1 (254).

(21) _Don John._

I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a Rose in his grace.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, act i, sc. 3 (27).

(22) _Theseus._

But earthlier happy is the Rose distill'd
Than that which withering on the virgin Thorn
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.[244:1]

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act i, sc. 1 (76).

(23) _Lysander._

How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the Roses there do fade so fast?

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act i, sc. 1 (128).

(24) _Titania._

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson Rose.

_Ibid._, act ii, sc. 1 (107).

(25) _Thisbe._

Of colour like the red Rose on triumphant Brier.

_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 1 (95).

(26) _Biron._

Why should I joy in any abortive mirth?
At Christmas I no more desire a Rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth,
But like of each thing that in season grows.[245:1]

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act i, sc. 1 (105).

(27) _King_ (reads).

So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
To those fresh morning drops upon the Rose.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 3 (26).

(28) _Boyet._

Blow like sweet Roses in this summer air.

_Princess._

How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.

_Boyet._

Fair ladies mask'd are Roses in their bud;
Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,
Are angels veiling clouds, or Roses blown.

_Ibid._, act v, sc. 2 (293).

(29) _Touchstone._

He that sweetest Rose will find,
Must find Love's prick and Rosalind.

_As You Like It_, act iii, sc. 2 (117).

(30) _Countess._

This Thorn
Doth to our Rose of youth rightly belong.

_All's Well that Ends Well_, act i, sc. 3 (135).

(31) _Bastard._

My face so thin,
That in mine ear I durst not stick a Rose.

_King John_, act i, sc. 1 (141).

(32) _Antony._

Tell him he wears the Rose
Of youth upon him.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act iii, sc. 13 (20).

(33) _Cleopatra._

Against the blown Rose may they stop their nose
That kneel'd unto the buds.

_Ibid._ (39).

(34) _Boult._

For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a Rose;
and she were a Rose indeed!

_Pericles_, act iv, sc. 6 (37).

(35) _Gower._

Even her art sisters the natural Roses.

_Ibid._, act v, chorus (7).
(_See_ CHERRY, No. 5.)

(36) _Juliet._

What's in a name? That which we call a Rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 2 (43).

(37) _Ophelia._

The expectancy and Rose of the fair state.

_Hamlet_, act iii, sc. 1 (160).

(38) _Hamlet._

Such an act . . . takes off the Rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there.

_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 4 (40).

(39) _Othello._

When I have pluck'd the Rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again,
It needs must wither. I'll smell it on the tree.

_Othello_, act v, sc. 2 (13).

(40) _Timon._

Rose-cheeked youth.

_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (86).

(41) _Othello._

Thou young and Rose-lipp'd cherubim.

_Othello_, act iv, sc. 2 (63).

(42)

Roses, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royall in their smells alone
But in their hue.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.

(43) _Emilia._

Of all flowres
Methinks a Rose is best.

_Woman._

Why, gentle madam?

_Emilia._

It is the very Embleme of a maide.
For when the west wind courts her gently,
How modestly she blows, and paints the Sun
With her chaste blushes? When the north winds neere her,
Rude and impatient, then, like Chastity,
Shee locks her beauties in her bud againe,
And leaves him to base Briers.

_Ibid._, act ii, sc. 2 (160).

(44) _Wooer._

With cherry lips and cheekes of Damaske Roses.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 2 (95).

(45) _See_ NETTLES, No. 13.

(46)

Roses have thorns and silver fountains mud,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

_Sonnet_ xxxv.

(47)

The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour that doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the Roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses;
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves--sweet Roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.

_Sonnet_ liv.

(48)

Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his Rose is true?

_Ibid._ lxvii.

(49)

Shame, like a canker in the fragrant Rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name.

_Ibid._ xcv.

(50)

Nor did I wonder at the Lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion of the Rose.

_Ibid._ xcviii.

(51)

The Roses fearfully in thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath.

_Ibid._ xcix.

(52)

I have seen Roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such Roses see I in her cheeks.

_Ibid._ cxxx.

(53)

More white and red than dove and Roses are.

_Venus and Adonis_ (10).

(54)

What though the Rose has prickles? yet 'tis plucked.

_Ibid._ (574).

(55)

Who, when he lived, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the Rose, smell to the Violet.

_Ibid._ (935).

(56)

Their silent war of Lilies and of Roses.

_Lucrece_ (71).

(57)

O how her fear did make her colour rise,
First red as Roses that on lawn we lay,
Then white as lawn, the Roses took away.

_Ibid._ (257).

(58)

That even for anger makes the Lily pale,
And the red Rose blush at her own disgrace.

_Ibid._ (477).

(59)

I know what Thorns the growing Rose defends.

_Ibid._ (492).

(60)

Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase.

_Venus and Adonis._ (3).

(61)

A sudden pale,
Like lawn being spread upon the blushing Rose,
Usurps her cheek.

_Ibid._ (589).

(62)

That beauty's Rose might never die.

_Sonnet_ i.

(63)

Nothing this wide universe I call
Save thou, my Rose; in it thou art my all.

_Ibid._ cix.

(64)

Rosy lips and cheeks
Within time's bending sickle's compass come.

_Ibid._ cxvi.

(65)

Sweet Rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon vaded,
Pluck'd in the bud, and vaded in the spring!

_The Passionate Pilgrim_ (131).

In addition to these many passages, there are perhaps thirty more in which the Rose is mentioned with reference to the Red and White Roses of the houses of York and Lancaster. To quote these it would be necessary to extract an entire act, which is very graphic, but too long. I must, therefore, content myself with the beginning and the end of the chief scene, and refer the reader who desires to see it _in extenso_ to "1st Henry VI.," act ii, sc. 4. The scene is in the Temple Gardens, and Plantagenet and Somerset thus begin the fatal quarrel--

_Plantagenet._

Let him that is a true-born gentleman
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this Brier pluck a White Rose with me.

_Somerset._

Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a Red Rose from off this Thorn with me.

And Warwick's wise conclusion on the whole matter is--

This brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
Shall send, between the Red Rose and the White,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

There are further allusions to the same Red and White Roses in "3rd Henry VI.," act i, sc. 1 and 2, act ii, sc. 5, and act v, sc. 1; "1st Henry VI.," act iv, sc. 1; and "Richard III.," act v, sc. 4.

There is no flower so often mentioned by Shakespeare as the Rose, and he would probably consider it the queen of flowers, for it was so deemed in his time. "The Rose doth deserve the cheefest and most principall place among all flowers whatsoever, being not onely esteemed for his beautie, vertues, and his fragrant and odoriferous smell, but also because it is the honore and ornament of our English Scepter."--GERARD. Yet the kingdom of the Rose even then was not undisputed; the Lily was always its rival (_see_ LILY), for thus sang Walter de Biblesworth in the thirteenth century--

"En ço verger troveroums les flurs
Des queus issunt les doux odours (swote smel)
Les herbes ausi pur medicine
La flur de Rose, la flur de Liz (lilie)
Liz vaut per royne, Rose pur piz."

But a little later the great Scotch poet Dunbar, who lived from 1460 to 1520, that is, a century before Shakespeare, asserted the dignity of the Rose as even superior to the Thistle of Scotland.

"Nor hold none other flower in sic dainty
As the fresh Rose of colour red and white;
For if thou dost, hurt is thine honesty,
Considering that no flower is so perfite,
So full of virtue, pleasaunce, and delight,
So full of blissful angelic beauty,
Imperial birth, honour, and dignity."

Volumes have been written, and many more may still be written, on the delights of the Rose, but my present business is only with the Roses of Shakespeare. In many of the above passages the Rose is simply the emblem of all that is loveliest and brightest and most beautiful upon earth, yet always with the underlying sentiment that even the brightest has its dark side, as the Rose has its thorns; that the worthiest objects of our earthly love are at the very best but short-lived; that the most beautiful has on it the doom of decay and death. These were the lessons which even the heathen writers learned from their favourite Roses, and which Christian writers of all ages loved to learn also, not from the heathen writers, but from the beautiful flowers themselves. "The Rose is a beautiful flower," said St. Basil, "but it always fills me with sorrow by reminding me of my sins, for which the earth was doomed to bear thorns." And it would be easy to fill a volume, and it would not be a cheerless volume, with beautiful and expressive passages from poets, preachers, and other authors, who have taken the Rose to point the moral of the fleeting nature of all earthly things. Herrick in four lines tells the whole--

"Gather ye Roses while ye may
Old time is still a-flying,
And the same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying."

But Shakespeare's notices of the Rose are not all emblematical and allegorical. He mentions these distinct sorts of Roses--the Red Rose, the White Rose, the Musk Rose, the Provençal Rose, the Damask Rose, the Variegated Rose, the Canker Rose, and the Sweet Briar.

The Canker Rose is the wild Dog Rose, and the name is sometimes applied to the common Red Poppy.

The Red Rose and the Provençal Rose (No. 13) are no doubt the same, and are what we now call R. centifolia, or the Cabbage Rose; a Rose that has been supposed to be a native of the South of Europe, but Dr. Lindley preferred "to place its native country in Asia, because it has been found wild by Bieberstein with double flowers, on the eastern side of Mount Caucasus, whither it is not likely to have escaped from a garden."[250:1] We do not know when it was introduced into England, but it was familiar to Chaucer--

"The savour of the Roses swote
Me smote right to the herté rote,
As I hadde alle embawmed be.

* * * * *

Of Roses there were grete wone,
So faire were never in Rone."

_i.e._, in Provence, at the mouth of the Rhone. For beauty in shape and exquisite fragrance, I consider this Rose to be still unrivalled; but it is not a fashionable Rose, and is usually found in cottage gardens, or perhaps in some neglected part of gardens of more pretensions. I believe it is considered too loose in shape to satisfy the floral critics of exhibition flowers, and it is only a summer Rose, and so contrasts unfavourably with the Hybrid Perpetuals. Still, it is a delightful Rose, delightful to the eye, delightful for its fragrance, and most delightful from its associations.

The White Rose of York (No. 20) has never been satisfactorily identified. It was clearly a cultivated Rose, and by some is supposed to have been only the wild White Rose (_R. arvensis_) grown in a garden. But it is very likely to have been the Rosa alba, which was a favourite in English gardens in Shakespeare's time, and was very probably introduced long before his time, for it is the double variety of the wild White Rose, and Gerard says of it: "The double White Rose doth grow wilde in many hedges of Lancashire in great abundance, even as Briers do with us in these southerly parts, especially in a place of the countrey called Leyland, and in a place called Roughford, not far from Latham." It was, therefore, not a new gardener's plant in his time, as has been often stated. I have little doubt that this is the White Rose of York; it is not the R. alba of Dr. Lindley's monograph, but the double variety of the British R. arvensis.

The White Rose has a very ancient interest for Englishmen, for "long before the brawl in the Temple Gardens, the flower had been connected with one of the most ancient names of our island. The elder Pliny, in discussing the etymology of the word Albion, suggests that the land may have been so named from the White Roses which abounded in it--'Albion insula sic dicta ab albis rupibus, quas mare alluit, vel ob rosas albas quibus abundat.' Whatever we may think of the etymological skill displayed in the suggestion . . . we look with almost a new pleasure on the Roses of our own hedgerows, when regarding them as descended in a straight line from the 'rosas albas' of those far-off summers."--_Quarterly Review_, vol. cxiv.

The Damask Rose (No. 5) remains to us under the same name, telling its own history. There can be little doubt that the Rose came from Damascus, probably introduced into Europe by the Crusaders or some of the early travellers in the East, who speak in glowing terms of the beauties of the gardens of Damascus. So Sir John Mandeville describes the city--"In that Cytee of Damasce, there is gret plentee of Welles, and with in the Cytee and with oute, ben many fayre Gardynes and of dyverse frutes. Non other Cytee is not lyche in comparison to it, of fayre Gardynes, and of fayre desportes."--_Voiage and Travaile_, cap. xi. And in our own day the author of "Eöthen" described the same gardens as he saw them: "High, high above your head, and on every side all down to the ground, the thicket is hemmed in and choked up by the interlacing boughs that droop with the weight of Roses, and load the slow air with their damask breath. There are no other flowers. The Rose trees which I saw were all of the kind we call 'damask;' they grow to an immense height and size."--_Eöthen_, ch. xxvii. It was not till long after the Crusades that the Damask Rose was introduced into England, for Hakluyt in 1582 says: "In time of memory many things have been brought in that were not here before, as the Damaske Rose by Doctour Linaker, King Henry the Seventh and King Henrie the Eight's Physician."--_Voiages_, vol. ii.[252:1]

As an ornamental Rose the Damask Rose is still a favourite, though probably the real typical Rosa Damascena is very seldom seen--but it has been the parent of a large number of hybrid Roses, which the most critical Rosarian does not reject. The whole family are very sweet-scented, so that "sweet as Damask Roses" was a proverb, and Gerard describes the common Damaske as "in other respects like the White Rose; the especiale difference consisteth in the colour and smell of the floures, for these are of a pale red colour and of a more pleasant smell, and fitter for meate or medicine."

The Musk Roses (No. 1) were great favourites with our forefathers. This Rose (_R. moschata_) is a native of the North of Africa and of Spain, and has been also found in Nepaul. Hakluyt gives the exact date of its introduction. "The turkey cockes and hennes," he says, "were brought about fifty yeres past, the Artichowe in time of King Henry the Eight, and of later times was procured out of Italy the Muske Rose plant, the Plumme called the Perdigwena, and two kindes more by the Lord Cromwell after his travel."--_Voiages_, vol. ii. It is a long straggling Rose, bearing bunches of single flowers, and is very seldom seen except against the walls of some old houses. "You remember the great bush at the corner of the south wall just by the blue drawing-room windows; that is the old Musk Rose, Shakespeare's Musk Rose, which is dying out through the kingdom now."--_My Lady Ludlow_, by Mrs. Gaskell. But wherever it is grown it is highly prized, not so much for the beauty as for the delicate scent of its flowers. The scent is unlike the scent of any other Rose, or of any other flower, but it is very pleasant, and not overpowering; and the plant has the peculiarity that, like the Sweet Briar, but unlike other Roses, it gives out its scent of its own accord and unsought, and chiefly in the evening, so that if the window of a bedroom near which this rose is trained is left open, the scent will soon be perceived in the room. This peculiarity did not escape the notice of Lord Bacon. "Because the breath of flowers," he says, "is far sweeter in the air (when it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and red, are fast flowers of their smells, so that you may walk by a whole row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness, yea, though it be in a morning's dew. Bays, likewise, yield no smell as they grow, Rosemary little, nor Sweet Marjoram; that which above all others yields the sweetest smell in the air is the Violet, especially the white double Violet which comes twice a year, about the middle of April, and about Bartholomew-tide; next to that is the Musk-rose."--_Essay of Gardens._

The Roses mentioned in Nos. 34, 51, and 52 as a mixture of red and white must have been the mottled or variegated Roses, commonly called the York and Lancaster Roses;[253:1] these are old Roses, and very probably quite as old as the sixteenth century. There are two varieties: in one each petal is blotched with white and pink; this is the R. versicolor of Parkinson, and is a variety of R. Damascena; in the other most of the petals are white, but with a mixture of pink petals; this is the Rosa mundi or Gloria mundi, and is a variety of R. Gallica.

These, with the addition of the Eglantine or Sweet Brier (_see_ EGLANTINE), are the only Roses that Shakespeare directly names, and they were the chief sorts grown in his time, but not the only sorts; and to what extent Roses were cultivated in Shakespeare's time we have a curious proof in the account of the grant of Ely Place, in Holborn, the property of the Bishops of Ely. "The tenant was Sir Christopher Hatton (Queen Elizabeth's handsome Lord Chancellor) to whom the greater portion of the house was let in 1576 for the term of twenty-one years. The rent was a Red Rose, ten loads of hay, and ten pounds per annum; Bishop Cox, on whom this hard bargain was forced by the Queen, reserving to himself and his successors the right of walking in the gardens, and gathering twenty bushels of Roses yearly."--CUNNINGHAM. We have records also of the garden cultivation of the Rose in London long before Shakespeare's time. "In the Earl of Lincoln's garden in Holborn in 24 Edw. I., the only flowers named are Roses, of which a quantity was sold, producing three shillings and twopence."--HUDSON TURNER.

My space forbids me to enter more largely into any account of these old species, or to say much of the many very interesting points in the history of the Rose, but two or three points connected with Shakespeare's Roses must not be passed over. First, its name. He says through Juliet (No. 36) that the Rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But the whole world is against him. Rose was its old Latin name corrupted from its older Greek name, and the same name, with slight and easily-traced differences, has clung to it in almost all European countries.

Shakespeare also mentions its uses in Rose-water and Rose-cakes, and it was only natural to suppose that a flower so beautiful and so sweet was meant by Nature to be of great use to man. Accordingly we find that wonderful virtues were attributed to it,[255:1] and an especial virtue was attributed to the dewdrops that settled on the full-blown Rose. Shakespeare alludes to these in Nos. 22 and 27; and from these were made cosmetics only suited to the most extravagant.

"The water that did spryng from ground
She would not touch at all,
But washt her hands with dew of Heaven
That on sweet Roses fall."

_The Lamentable Fall of Queen Ellinor._--Roxburghe Ballads.

And as with their uses, so it was also with their history. Such a flower must have a high origin, and what better origin than the pretty mediæval legend told to us by Sir John Mandeville?--"At Betheleim is the Felde _Floridus_, that is to seyne, the _Feld florisched_; for als moche as a fayre mayden was blamed with wrong and sclaundered, for whiche cause sche was demed to the Dethe, and to be brent in that place, to the whiche she was ladd; and as the Fyre began to brent about hire, sche made hire preyeres to oure Lord, that als wissely as sche was not gylty of that Synne, that He wolde helpe hire and make it to be knowen to alle men, of his mercyfulle grace. And when sche hadde thus seyd, sche entered into the Fuyr; and anon was the Fuyr quenched and oute; and the Brondes that weren brennynge becomen red Roseres, and the Brondes that weren not kyndled becomen white Roseres, full of Roses. And these weren the first Roseres and Roses, both white and rede, that evere ony man saughe."--_Voiage and Travaile_, cap. vi.

With this pretty legend I may well conclude the account of Shakespeare's Roses, commending, however, M. Biron's sensible remarks on unseasonable flowers (No. 26) to those who estimate the beauty of a flower or anything else in proportion to its being produced out of its natural season.

FOOTNOTES:

[244:1] This was a familiar idea with the old writers: "Therefore, sister Bud, grow wise by my folly, and know it is far greater happinesse to lose thy virginity in a good hand than to wither on the stalk whereon thou growest."--THOMAS FULLER, _Antheologia_, p. 32. (See also Chester's "Cantoes," No. 13, p. 137, New Shak. Soc.)

[245:1] "Non vivunt contra naturam, qui hieme concupiscunt rosas?"--SENECA, _Ep._ 122.

[250:1] We have an old record of the existence of large double Roses in Asia by Herodotus, who tells us, that in a part of Macedonia were the so-called gardens of Midas, in which grew native Roses, each one having sixty petals, and of a scent surpassing all others ("Hist.," viii. 138).

[252:1] The Damask Rose was imported into England at an earlier date but probably only as a drug. It is mentioned in a "Bill of Medicynes furnished for the use of Edward I., 1306-7: 'Item pro aqua rosata de Damasc,' lb. xl, iiii_li._"--_Archæological Journal_, vol. xiv. 271.

[253:1] The York and Lancaster Roses were a frequent subject for the epigram writers; and gave occasion for one of the happiest of English epigrams. On presenting a White Rose to a Lancastrian lady--

"If this fair Rose offend thy sight,
It in thy bosom wear;
'Twill blush to find itself less white,
And turn Lancastrian there."

[255:1] "A Rose beside his beauty is a cure."--G. HERBERT, _Providence_.

ROSEMARY.

(1) _Perdita._

Reverend Sirs,
For you there's Rosemary and Rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long;
Grace and remembrance be to you both.[256:1]

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (73).

(2) _Bawd._

Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with Rosemary and bays.

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

(3) _Edgar._

Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices
Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, and sprigs of Rosemary.

_Lear_, act ii, sc. 3 (14).

(4) _Ophelia._

There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember.

_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 "Reliquiæ Antiquæ." 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 gode and fyne;
But alle the vertues tell I ne cane,
No I trawe no erthely man.

* * * * *