Chapter XV: Part I: The Plant-Lore of Shakespeare (12)

I think the king is but a man, as I am; the
Violet smells to him as it doth to me.

_Henry V_, act iv, sc. 1 (105).

(6) _Laertes._

A Violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent; sweet, not lasting.
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.

_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 3 (7).

(7) _Ophelia._

I would give you some Violets, but they withered all when my
father died.

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 5 (184).

(8) _Laertes._

Lay her i' the earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May Violets spring!

_Ibid._, act v, sc. 1 (261).

(9) _Belarius._

They are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the Violet,
Not wagging his sweet head.

_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (171).

(10) _Duke._

That strain again! It had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of Violets,
Stealing and giving odour!

_Twelfth Night_, act i, sc. 1 (4).

(11) _Song of Spring._

When Daisies pied, and Violets blue, &c.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (904).
(_See_ CUCKOO-BUDS.)

(12) _Perdita._

Violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath.

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (120).

(13) _Duchess._

Welcome, my son; Who are the Violets now,
That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?

_Richard II_, act v, sc. 2 (46).

(14) _Marina._

The yellows, blues,
The purple Violets and Marigolds,
Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave
While summer-days do last.

_Pericles_, act iv, sc. 1 (16).

(15)

These blue-veined Violets whereon we lean
Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.

_Venus and Adonis_ (125).

(16)

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

_Ibid._ (936).

(17)

When I behold the Violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white,

* * * * *

Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow.

_Sonnet_ xii.

(18)

The forward Violet thus did I chide:
"Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly died."

_Ibid._ xcix.

There are about a hundred different species of Violets, of which there are five species in England, and a few sub-species. One of these is the Viola tricolor, from which is descended the Pansy, or Love-in-Idleness (_see_ PANSY). But in all the passages in which Shakespeare names the Violet, he alludes to the purple sweet-scented Violet, of which he was evidently very fond, and which is said to be very abundant in the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon. For all the eighteen passages tell of some point of beauty or sweetness that attracted him. And so it is with all the poets from Chaucer downwards--the Violet is noticed by all, and by all with affectation. I need only mention two of the greatest. Milton gave the Violet a chief place in the beauties of the "Blissful Bower" of our first parents in Paradise--

"Each beauteous flower,
Iris all hues, Roses, and Jessamin
Rear'd high their flourish't heads between, and wrought
Mosaic; underfoot the Violet,
Crocus and Hyacinth with rich inlay
Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone
Of costliest emblem;"

_Paradise Lost_, book iv.

and Sir Walter Scott crowns it as the queen of wild flowers--

"The Violet in her greenwood bower,
Where Birchen boughs with Hazels mingle,
May boast itself the fairest flower
In glen, in copse, or forest dingle."

Yet favourite though it ever has been, it has no English name. Violet is the diminutive form of the Latin Viola, which again is the Latin form of the Greek +ion+. In the old Vocabularies Viola frequently occurs, and with the following various translations:--"Ban-wyrt," _i.e._, Bone-wort (eleventh century Vocabulary); "Cloefre," _i.e._, Clover (eleventh century Vocabulary); "Violé, Appel-leaf" (thirteenth century Vocabulary);[310:1] "Wyolet" (fourteenth century Vocabulary); "Vyolytte" (fifteenth century Nominale); "Violetta, A{ce}, a Violet" (fifteenth century Pictorial Vocabulary); and "Viola Cleafre, Ban-vyrt" (Durham Glossary). It is also mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon translation of the Herbarium of Apuleius in the tenth century as "the Herb Viola purpurea; (1) for new wounds and eke for old; (2) for hardness of the maw" (Cockayne's translation). In this last example it is most probable that our sweet-scented Violet is the plant meant, but in some of the other cases it is quite certain that some other plant is meant, and perhaps in all. For Violet was a name given very loosely to many plants, so that Laurembergius says: "Vox Violæ distinctissimis floribus communis est. Videntur mihi antiqui suaveolentes quosque flores generatim Violas appellasse, cujuscunque etiam forent generis quasi vi oleant."--_Apparat. Plant._, 1632. This confusion seems to have arisen in a very simple way. Theophrastus described the Leucojum, which was either the Snowdrop or the spring Snowflake, as the earliest-flowering plant; Pliny literally translated Leucojum into Alba Viola. All the earlier writers on natural history were in the habit of taking Pliny for their guide, and so they translated his Viola by any early-flowering plant that most took their fancy. Even as late as 1693, Samuel Gilbert, in "The Florists' Vade Mecum," under the head of Violets, only describes "the lesser early bulbous Violet, a common flower yet not to be wasted, because when none other appears that does, though in the snow, whence called Snowflower or Snowdrop;" and I think that even later instances may be found.

When I say that there is no genuine English name for the Violet, I ought, perhaps, to mention that one name has been attributed to it, but I do not think that it is more than a clever guess. "The commentators on Shakespeare have been much puzzled by the epithet 'happy lowlie down,' applied to the man of humble station in "Henry IV.," and have proposed to read 'lowly clown,' or to divide the phrase into 'low lie down,' but the following lines from Browne clearly prove 'lowly down' to be the correct term, for he uses it in precisely the same sense--

'The humble Violet that lowly down
Salutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass.'

_Poet's Pleasaunce._"

This may prove that Browne called the Violet a Lowly-down, but it certainly does not prove that name to have been a common name for the Violet. It was, however, the character of lowliness combined with sweetness that gave the charm to the Violet in the eyes of the emblem writers: it was for them the readiest symbol of the meekness of humility. "Humilitas dat gratiam" is the motto that Camerarius places over a clump of Violets. "A true widow is, in the church, as a little March Violet shedding around an exquisite perfume by the fragrance of her devotion, and always hidden under the ample leaves of her lowliness, and by her subdued colouring showing the spirit of her mortification, she seeks untrodden and solitary places," &c.--ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. And the poets could nowhere find a fitter similitude for a modest maiden than

"A Violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye."

Violets, like Primroses, must always have had their joyful associations as coming to tell that the winter is passing away and brighter days are near, for they are among

"The first to rise
And smile beneath spring's wakening skies,
The courier of a band
Of coming flowers."

Yet it is curious to note how, like Primroses, they have been ever associated with death, especially with the death of the young. I suppose these ideas must have arisen from a sort of pity for flowers that were only allowed to see the opening year, and were cut off before the full beauty of summer had come. This was prettily expressed by H. Vaughan, the Silurist:

"So violets, so doth the primrose fall
At once the spring's pride and its funeral,
Such early sweets get off in their still prime,
And stay not here to wear the foil of time;
While coarser flowers, which none would miss, if past,
To scorching summers and cold winters last."

_Daphnis_, 1678.

It was from this association that they were looked on as apt emblems of those who enjoyed the bright springtide of life and no more. This feeling was constantly expressed, and from very ancient times. We find it in some pretty lines by Prudentius--

"Nos tecta fovebimus ossa
Violis et fronde frequente,
Titulumque et frigida saxa
Liquido spargemus odore."

Shakespeare expresses the same feeling in the collection of "purple Violets and Marigolds" which Marina carries to hang "as a carpet on the grave" (No. 14), and again in Laertes' wish that Violets may spring from the grave of Ophelia (No. 8), on which Steevens very aptly quotes from Persius Satires--

"e tumulo fortunataque favillâ.
Nascentur Violæ."

In the same spirit Milton, gathering for the grave of Lycidas--

"Every flower that sad embroidery wears,"

gathers among others "the glowing Violet;" and the same thought is repeated by many other writers.

There is a remarkable botanical curiosity in the structure of the Violet which is worth notice: it produces flowers both in spring and autumn, but the flowers are very different. In spring they are fully formed and sweet-scented, but they are mostly barren and produce no seed, while in autumn they are very small, they have no petals and, I believe, no scent, but they produce abundance of seed.[313:1]

I need say nothing to recommend the Violet in all its varieties as a garden plant. As a useful medicinal plant it was formerly in high repute--

"Vyolet an erbe cowth
Is knowyn in ilke manys mowthe,
As bokys seyn in here language,
It is good to don in potage,
In playstrys to wondrys it is comfortyf,
W{h} oyer erbys sanatyf:"

_Stockholm MS._

and it still holds a place in the Pharmacopoeia, while the chemist finds the pretty flowers one of the most delicate tests for detecting the presence of acids and alkalies; but as to the many other virtues of the Violet I cannot do better than quote Gerard's pleasant and quaint words: "The Blacke or Purple Violets, or March Violets of the garden, have a great prerogative above others, not only because the minde conceiveth a certain pleasure and recreation by smelling and handling of those most odoriferous flowres, but also for that very many by these Violets receive ornament and comely grace; for there be made of them garlands for the head, nosegaies, and poesies, which are delightfull to looke on and pleasant to smell to, speaking nothing of their appropriate vertues; yea, gardens themselves receive by these the greatest ornament of all chiefest beautie and most gallant grace, and the recreation of the minde which is taken thereby cannot but be very good and honest; for they admonish and stir up a man to that which is comely and honest, for flowres through their beautie, variety of colour, and exquisite forme, do bring to a liberall and greatte many minde the remembrance of honestie, comelinesse, and all kindes of vertues. For it would be an unseemely and filthie thing (as a certain wise man saith) for him that doth looke upon and handle faire and beautifull things, and who frequenteth and is conversant in faire and beautifull places, to have his minde not faire but filthie and deformed." With these brave words of the old gardener I might well close my account of this favourite flower, but I must add George Herbert's lines penned in the same spirit--

"Farewell, dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
And after death for cures;
I follow straight without complaint or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours."

_Poems on Life._

FOOTNOTES:

[310:1] Appel-leaf is given as the English name for Viola in two other MS. Glossaries quoted by Cockayne, vol. iii. p. 312.

[313:1] This peculiarity is not confined to the Violet. It is found in some species of Oxalis, Impatiens, Campanula, Eranthemum, Amphicarpea, Leeisia, &c. Such plants are technically called Cleistogamous, and are all self-fertilizing.

WALNUT.

(1) _Petruchio._

Why, 'tis a cockle or a Walnut-shell,
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap.

_Taming of the Shrew_, act iv, sc. 3 (66).

(2) _Ford._

Let them say of me, "As jealous as Ford that searched a hollow
Walnut for his wife's leman."

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iv, sc. 2 (170).

The Walnut is a native of Persia and China, and its foreign origin is told in all its names. The Greeks called it Persicon, _i.e._, the Persian tree, and Basilikon, _i.e._, the Royal tree; the Latins gave it a still higher rank, naming it Juglans, _i.e._, Jove's Nut. "Hæc glans, optima et maxima, ab Jove et glande juglans appellata est."--VARRO. The English names tell the same story. It was first simply called Nut, as the Nut _par excellence_. "_Juglantis vel nux_, knutu."--ÆLFRIC'S _Vocabulary_. But in the fourteenth century it had obtained the name of "Ban-nut," from its hardness. So it is named in a metrical Vocabulary of the fourteenth century--

Pomus Pirus Corulus nux Avelanaque Ficus
Appul-tre Peere-tre Hasyl Note Bannenote-tre Fygge;

and this name it still holds in the West of England. But at the same time it had also acquired the name of Walnut. "_Hec avelana_, A{ce} Walnot-tree" (Vocabulary fourteenth century). "_Hec avelana_, a Walnutte and the Nutte" (Nominate fifteenth century). This name is commonly supposed to have reference to the hard shell, but it only means that the nut is of foreign origin. "Wal" is another form of Walshe or Welch, and so Lyte says that the tree is called "in English the Walnut and Walshe Nut tree." "The word Welsh (_wilisc_, _woelisc_) meant simply a foreigner, one who was not of Teutonic race, and was (by the Saxons) applied especially to nations using the Latin language. In the Middle Ages the French language, and in fact all those derived from Latin, and called on that account _linguæ Romanæ_, were called in German _Welsch_. France was called by the mediæval German writers _daz Welsche lant_, and when they wished to express 'in the whole world,' they said, _in allen Welschen und in Tiutschen richen_, 'in all Welsh and Teutonic kingdoms.' In modern German the name _Wälsch_ is used more especially for Italian."--WRIGHT'S _Celt, Roman, and Saxon_.[315:1] This will at once explain that Walnut simply means the foreign or non-English Nut.

It must have been a well-established and common tree in Shakespeare's time, for all the writers of his day speak of it as a high and large tree, and I should think it very likely that Walnut trees were even more extensively planted in his day than in our own. There are many noble specimens to be seen in different parts of England, especially in the chalk districts, for "it delights," says Evelyn, "in a dry, sound, rich land, especially if it incline to a feeding chalk or marl; and where it may be protected from the cold (though it affects cold rather than extreme heat), as in great pits, valleys, and highway sides; also in stony ground, if loamy, and on hills, especially chalky; likewise in cornfields." The grand specimens that may be seen in the sheltered villages lying under the chalk downs of Wiltshire and Berkshire bear witness to the truth of Evelyn's remarks. But the finest English specimens can bear no comparison with the size of the Walnut trees in warmer countries, and especially where they are indigenous. There they "sometimes attain prodigious size and great age. An Italian architect mentions having seen at St. Nicholas, in Lorraine, a single plank of the wood of the Walnut, 25ft. wide, upon which the Emperor Frederick III. had given a sumptuous banquet. In the Baidar Valley, near Balaclava, in the Crimea, stands a Walnut tree at least 1000 years old. It yields annually from 80,000 to 100,000 Nuts, and belongs to five Tartar families, who share its produce equally."--_Gardener's Chronicle._

The economic uses of the Walnut are now chiefly confined to the timber, which is highly prized both for furniture and gun-stocks, and to the production of oil, which is not much used in Europe, but is highly valued in the East. "It dries much more slowly than any other distilled oil, and hence its great value, as it allows the artist as much time as he requires in order to blend his colours and finish his work. In conjunction with amber varnish it forms a vehicle which leaves nothing to be desired, and which doubtless was the vehicle of Van Eyck, and in many instances of the Venetian masters, and of Correggio."--_Arts of the Middle Ages_, preface. In mediæval times a high medicinal value was attached to the fruit, for the celebrated antidote against poison which was so firmly believed in, and which was attributed to Mithridates, King of Pontus, was chiefly composed of Walnuts. "Two Nuttes (he is speaking of Walnuts) and two Figges, and twenty Rewe leaves, stamped together with a little salt, and eaten fasting, doth defende a man from poison and pestilence that day."--BULLEIN, _Governmente of Health_, 1558.

The Walnut holds an honoured place in heraldry. Two large Walnut trees overshadow the tomb of the poet Waller in Beaconsfield churchyard, and "these are connected with a curious piece of family history. The tree was chosen as the Waller crest after Agincourt, where the head of the family took the Duke of Orleans prisoner, and took afterwards as his crest the arms of Orleans hanging by a label in a Walnut tree with this motto for the device: _Hæc fructus virtutis._"--_Gardener's Chronicle_, Aug., 1878.

Walnuts are still very popular, but not as poison antidotes; their popularity now rests on their use as pickles, their excellence as autumn and winter dessert fruits, and with pseudo-gipsies for the rich olive hue that the juice will give to the skin. These uses, together with the beauty in the landscape that is given by an old Walnut tree, will always secure for it a place among English trees; yet there can be little doubt that the Walnut is a bad neighbour to other crops, and for that reason its numbers in England have been much diminished. Phillips said there was a decided antipathy between Apples and Walnuts, and spoke of the Apple tree as--

"Uneasy, seated by funereal Yew
Or Walnut (whose malignant touch impairs
All generous fruits), or near the bitter dews
Of Cherries."

And in this he was probably right, though the mischief caused to the Apple tree more probably arises from the dense shade thrown by the Walnut tree than by any malarious exhalation emitted from it.

FOOTNOTES:

[315:1] See Earle's "Philology of the English Tongue," p. 23.

WARDEN, _see_ PEARS.

WHEAT.

(1) _Iris._

Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of Wheat, Rye, Barley, Vetches, Oats, and Pease.

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

(2) _Helena._

More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When Wheat is green, when Hawthorn-buds appear.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act i, sc. 1 (184).

(3) _Bassanio._

His reasons are as two grains of Wheat hid in two bushels of
chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when
you have them, they are not worth the search.

_Merchant of Venice_, act i, sc. 1 (114).

(4) _Hamlet._

As peace should still her Wheaten garland wear.

_Hamlet_, act v, sc. 2 (41).

(5) _Pompey._

To send measures of Wheat to Rome.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii, sc. 6 (36).

(6) _Edgar._

This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. . . . He mildews the
white Wheat, and hurts the poor creatures of earth.

_King Lear_, act iii, sc. 4 (120).

(7) _Pandarus._

He that will have a cake out of the Wheat, must needs tarry
the grinding.

_Troilus and Cressida_, act i, sc. 1 (15).

(8) _Davy._

And again, sir, shall we sow the headland with Wheat?

_Shallow._

With red Wheat, Davy.

_2nd Henry IV_, act v, sc. 1 (15).

(9) _Theseus._

Your Wheaten wreathe
Was then nor threashed nor blasted.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act i, sc. 1 (68).

I might perhaps content myself with marking these passages only, and dismiss Shakespeare's Wheat without further comment, for the Wheat of his day was identical with our own; but there are a few points in connection with English Wheat which may be interesting. Wheat is not an English plant, nor is it a European plant; its original home is in Northern Asia, whence it has spread into all civilized countries.[318:1] For the cultivation of Wheat is one of the first signs of civilized life; it marks the end of nomadic life, and implies more or less a settled habitation. When it reached England, and to what country we are indebted for it, we do not know; but we know that while we are indebted to the Romans for so many of our useful trees, and fruits, and vegetables, we are not indebted to them for the introduction of Wheat. This we might be almost sure of from the very name, which has no connection with the Latin names, _triticum_ or _frumentum_, but is a pure old English word, signifying originally _white_, and so distinguishing it as the white grain in opposition to the darker grains of Oats and Rye. But besides the etymological evidence, we have good historical evidence that Cæsar found Wheat growing in England when he first landed on the shores of Kent. He daily victualled his camp with British Wheat ("frumentum ex agris quotidie in castra conferebat"); and it was while his soldiers were reaping the Wheat in the Kentish fields that they were surrounded and successfully attacked by the British. He tells us, however, that the cultivation of Wheat was chiefly confined to Kent, and was not much known inland: "interiores plerique frumenta non serunt, sed lacte et carne vivunt."--_De Bello Gallico_, v, 14. Roman Wheat has frequently been found in graves, and strange stories have been told of the plants that have been raised from these old seeds; but a more scientific inquiry has proved that there have been mistakes or deceits, more or less intentional, for "Wheat is said to keep for seven years at the longest. The statements as to mummy Wheat are wholly devoid of authenticity, as are those of the Raspberry seeds taken from a Roman tomb."--HOOKER, "Botany" in _Science Primers_. The oft-repeated stories about the vitality of mummy Wheat were effectually disposed of when it was discovered that much of the so-called Wheat was South American Maize.

FOOTNOTES:

[318:1] Yet Homer considered it to be indigenous in Sicily--Odyss: ix, 109--and Cicero, perhaps on the authority of Homer, says the same: "Insula Cereris . . . ubi primum fruges inventæ esse dicuntur."--_In Verrem_, v, 38.

WILLOW.

(1) _Viola._

Make me a Willow cabin at your gate.

_Twelfth Night_, act i, sc. 5 (287).

(2) _Benedick._

Come, will you go with me?

_Claudio._

Whither?

_Benedick._

Even to the next Willow, about your own business.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, act ii, sc. 1 (192).

_Benedick._

I offered him my company to a Willow tree, either to make him
a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as
being worthy to be whipped.

_Ibid._ (223).

(3) _Nathaniel._

These thoughts to me were Oaks, to thee like Osiers bow'd.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act iv, sc. 2 (112).

(4) _Lorenzo._

In such a night
Stood Dido, with a Willow in her hand,
Upon the wild sea-banks.

_Merchant of Venice_, act v, sc. 1 (9).

(5) _Bona._

Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,
I'll wear the Willow garland for his sake.

_3d Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 3 (227).

_Post._

[The same words repeated.]

_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (99).

(6) _Queen._

There is a Willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke.

_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 7 (167).

(7) _Desdemona_ (singing)--

The poor soul sat sighing by a Sycamore tree.
Sing all a green Willow;
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing Willow, Willow, Willow.
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans;
Sing Willow, Willow, Willow.
Her salt tears fell from her and soften'd the stones,
Sing Willow, Willow, Willow.
Sing all a green Willow must be my garland.

_Othello_, act iv, sc. 3 (41).

(8) _Emilia._

I will play the swan,
And die in music. [_Singing_] Willow, Willow, Willow.

_Ibid._, act v, sc. 2 (247).

(9) _Wooer._

Then she sang
Nothing but Willow, Willow, Willow.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (100).

(10) _Friar._

I must up-fill this Willow cage of ours
With baleful Weeds and precious juiced Flowers.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 3 (7).

(11) _Celia._

West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom;
The rank of Osiers by the murmuring stream
Left on your right hand, brings you to the place.

_As You Like It_, act iv, sc. 3 (79).

(12)

When Cytherea all in love forlorn
A longing tarriance for Adonis made
Under an Osier growing by a brook.

_Passionate Pilgrim_ vi.

(13)

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;
Those thoughts, to me like Oaks, to thee like Osiers bow'd.

_Ibid._ v.

_See also_ PALM TREE, No. 1, p. 192.

Willow is an old English word, but the more common and perhaps the older name for the Willow is Withy, a name which is still in constant use, but more generally applied to the twigs when cut for basket-making than to the living tree. "Withe" is found in the oldest vocabularies, but we do not find "Willow" till we come to the vocabularies of the fifteenth century, when it occurs as "Hæc Salex, A{e} Wyllo-tre;" "Hæc Salix-icis, a Welogh;" "Salix, Welig." Both the names probably referred to the pliability of the tree, and there was another name for it, the Sallow, which was either a corruption of the Latin Salix, or was derived from a common root. It was also called Osier.

The Willow is a native of Britain. It belongs to a large family (_Salix_), numbering 160 species, of which we have seventeen distinct species in Great Britain, besides many sub-species and varieties. So common a plant, with the peculiar pliability of the shoots that distinguishes all the family, was sure to be made much use of. Its more common uses were for basket-making, for coracles, and huts, or "Willow-cabins" (No. 1), but it had other uses in the elegancies and even in the romance of life. The flowers of the early Willow (_S. caprea_) did duty for and were called Palms on Palm Sunday (_see_ PALM), and not only the flowers but the branches also seem to have been used in decoration, a use which is now extinct. "The Willow is called _Salix_, and hath his name _à saliendo_, for that it quicklie groweth up, and soon becommeth a tree. Heerewith do they in some countries trim up their parlours and dining roomes in sommer, and sticke fresh greene leaves thereof about their beds for coolness."--NEWTON'S _Herball for the Bible_.[321:1]

But if we only look at the poetry of the time of Shakespeare, and much of the poetry before and after him, we should almost conclude that the sole use of the Willow was to weave garlands for jilted lovers, male and female. It was probably with reference to this that Shakespeare represented poor mad Ophelia hanging her flowers on the "Willow tree aslant the brook" (No. 6), and it is more pointedly referred to in Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. The feeling was expressed in a melancholy ditty, which must have been very popular in the sixteenth century, of which Desdemona says a few of the first verses (No. 7), and which concludes thus--

"Come all you forsaken and sit down by me,
He that plaineth of his false love, mine's falser than she;
The Willow wreath weare I, since my love did fleet,
A garland for lovers forsaken most meet."

The ballad is entitled "The Complaint of a Lover Forsaken of His Love--To a Pleasant New Tune," and is printed in the "Roxburghe Ballads." This curious connection of the Willow with forsaken or disappointed lovers stood its ground for a long time. Spenser spoke of the "Willow worne of forlorne paramoures." Drayton says that--

"In love the sad forsaken wight
The Willow garland weareth"--

_Muse's Elysium._

and though we have long given up the custom of wearing garlands of any sort, yet many of us can recollect one of the most popular street songs, that was heard everywhere, and at last passed into a proverb, and which began--

"All round my hat I vears a green Willow
In token," &c.

It has been suggested by many that this melancholy association with the Willow arose from its Biblical associations; and this may be so, though all the references to the Willow that occur in the Bible are, with one notable exception, connected with joyfulness and fertility. The one exception is the plaintive wail in the 137th Psalm--

"By the streams of Babel, there we sat down,
And we wept when we remembered Zion.
On the Willows among the rivers we hung our harps."

And this one record has been sufficient to alter the emblematic character of the Willow--"this one incident has made the Willow an emblem of the deepest of sorrows, namely, sorrow for sin found out, and visited with its due punishment. From that time the Willow appears never again to have been associated with feelings of gladness. Even among heathen nations, for what reason we know not, it was a tree of evil omen, and was employed to make the torches carried at funerals. Our own poets made the Willow the symbol of despairing woe."--JOHNS. This is the more remarkable because the tree referred to in the Psalms, the Weeping Willow (_Salix Babylonica_), which by its habit of growth is to us so suggestive of crushing sorrow, was quite unknown in Europe till a very recent period. "It grows abundantly on the banks of the Euphrates, and other parts of Asia, as in Palestine, and also in North Africa;" but it is said to have been introduced into England during the last century, and then in a curious way. "Many years ago, the well-known poet, Alexander Pope, who resided at Twickenham, received a basket of Figs as a present from Turkey. The basket was made of the supple branches of the Weeping Willow, the very same species under which the captive Jews sat when they wept by the waters of Babylon. The poet valued highly the small and tender twigs associated with so much that was interesting, and he untwisted the basket, and planted one of the branches in the ground. It had some tiny buds upon it, and he hoped he might be able to rear it, as none of this species of Willow was known in England. Happily the Willow is very quick to take root and grow. The little branch soon became a tree, and drooped gracefully over the river, in the same manner that its race had done over the waters of Babylon. From that one branch all the Weeping Willows in England are descended."--KIRBY'S _Trees_.[323:1]

There is probably no tree that contributes so largely to the conveniences of English life as the Willow. Putting aside its uses in the manufacture of gunpowder and cricket bats, we may safely say that the most scantily-furnished house can boast of some article of Willow manufacture in the shape of baskets. British basket-making is, as far as we know, the oldest national manufacture; it is the manufacture in connection with which we have the earliest record of the value placed on British work. British baskets were exported to Rome, and it would almost seem as if baskets were unknown in Rome until they were introduced from Britain, for with the article of import came the name also, and the British "basket" became the Latin "bascauda." We have curious evidence of the high value attached to these baskets. Juvenal describes Catullus in fear of shipwreck throwing overboard his most precious treasures: "precipitare volens etiam pulcherrima," and among these "pulcherrima" he mentions "bascaudas." Martial bears a still higher testimony to the value set on "British baskets," reckoning them among the many rich gifts distributed at the Saturnalia--

"Barbara de pictis veni bascauda Britannis
Sed me jam vult dicere Roma suam."--Book xiv, 99.

Many of the Willows make handsome shrubs for the garden, for besides those that grow into large trees, there are many that are low shrubs, and some so low as to be fairly called carpet plants. Salix Reginæ is one of the most silvery shrubs we have, with very narrow leaves; S. lanata is almost as silvery, but with larger and woolly leaves, and makes a very pretty object when grown on rockwork near water; S. rosmarinifolia is another desirable shrub; and among the lower-growing species, the following will grow well on rockwork, and completely clothe the surface: S. alpina, S. Grahami, S. retusa, S. serpyllifolia, and S. reticulata. They are all easily cultivated and are quite hardy.

FOOTNOTES:

[321:1] In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Willow does not appear to have had any value for its medical uses. In the present day salicine and salicylic acid are produced from the bark, and have a high reputation as antiseptics and in rheumatic cases.

[323:1] This is the traditional history of the introduction of the Weeping Willow into England, but it is very doubtful.

WOODBINE, _see_ HONEYSUCKLE.

WORMWOOD.

(1) _Rosaline._

To weed this Wormwood from your fruitful brain.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (857).

(2) _Nurse._

For I had then laid Wormwood to my dug.

* * * * *

When it did taste the Wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 3 (26).

(3) _Hamlet_ (aside).

Wormwood, Wormwood.

_Hamlet_, act iii, sc. 2 (191).

(4)

Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a public fast,
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter Wormwood taste.

_Lucrece_ (890).

_See also_ DIAN'S BUD.

Wormwood is the product of many species of Artemisia, a family consisting of 180 species, of which we have four in England. The whole family is remarkable for the extreme bitterness of all parts of the plant, so that "as bitter as Wormwood" is one of the oldest proverbs. The plant was named Artemisia from Artemis, the Greek name of Diana, and for this reason: "Verily of these three Worts which we named Artemisia, it is said that Diana should find them, and delivered their powers and leechdom to Chiron the Centaur, who first from these Worts set forth a leechdom, and he named these Worts from the name of Diana, Artemis, that is, Artemisias."--_Herbarium Apulæi_, Cockayne's translation. The Wormwood was of very high reputation in medicine, and is thus recommended in the Stockholm MS.:

"Lif man or woman, more or lesse
In his head have gret sicknesse
Or gruiance or any werking
Awoyne he take wt. owte lettyng
It is called Sowthernwode also
And hony eteys et spurge stamp yer to
And late hy yis drunk, fastined drinky
And his hed werk away schall synkyn."[325:1]

But even in Shakespeare's time this high character had somewhat abated, though it was still used for all medicines in which a strong bitter was recommended. But its chief use seems to have been as a protection against insects of all kinds, who might very reasonably be supposed to avoid such a bitter food. This is Tusser's advice about the plant--

"While Wormwood hath seed get a handful or twaine
To save against March, to make flea to refraine:
Where chamber is sweeped and Wormwood is strowne,
No flea, for his life, dare abide to be knowne.
What saver is better (if physick be true),
For places infected than Wormwood and Rue?
It is as a comfort for hart and the braine,
And therefore to have it, it is not in vaine."

_July's Husbandry._

This quality was the origin of the names of Mugwort[326:1] and Wormwood. Its other name (in the Stockholm MS. referred to), Avoyne or Averoyne is a corruption of the specific name of one of the species, A. Abrotanum. Southernwood is the southern Wormwood, _i.e._, the foreign, as distinguished from the native plant. The modern name for the same species is Boy's Love, or Old Man. The last name may have come from its hoary leaves, though different explanations are given: the other name is given to it, according to Dr. Prior, "from an ointment made with its ashes being used by young men to promote the growth of a beard." There is good authority for this derivation, but I think the name may have been given for other reasons. "Boy's Love" is one of the most favourite cottage-garden plants, and it enters largely into the rustic language of flowers. No posy presented by a young man to his lass is complete without Boy's Love; and it is an emblem of fidelity, at least it was so once. It is, in fact, a Forget-me-Not, from its strong abiding smell; so St. Francis de Sales applied it: "To love in the midst of sweets, little children could do that; but to love in the bitterness of Wormwood is a sure sign of our affectionate fidelity." Not that the Wormwood was ever named Forget-me-Not, for that name was given to the Ground Pine (_Ajuga chamæpitys_) on account of its unpleasant and long-enduring smell, until it was transferred to the Myosotis (which then lost its old name of Mouse-ear), and the pretty legend was manufactured to account for the name.

In England Wormwood has almost fallen into complete disuse; but in France it is largely used in the shape of Absinthe. As a garden plant, Tarragon, which is a species of Wormwood, will claim a place in every herb garden, and there are a few, such as A. sericea, A. cana, and A. alpina, which make pretty shrubs for the rockwork.

FOOTNOTES:

[325:1] Wormwood had a still higher reputation among the ancients, as the following extract shows:

+Artemisia monoklônos.+

+Auei gar kopon audros hodoiporou, hos k'eni chersin
tên monoklônon echê; peri d' au posin herpeta panta
pheugei, hên tis echê en hodô, kai phasmata deina.+

_Anonymi Carmen de Herbis, in "Poetæ Bucolici."_

[326:1] In connection with Mugwort there is a most curious account of the formation of a plant name given in a note in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," s.v. Mugworte: "Mugwort, al on as seyn some, Modirwort; lewed folk that in manye wordes conne no rygt sownyge, but ofte shortyn wordys, and changyn lettrys and silablys, they coruptyn the _o_ in to _a_ and _d_ in to _g_, and syncopyn _i_ smytyn a-wey _i_ and _r_ and seyn mugwort."--_Arundel MS._, 42, f. 35 v.

YEW.

(1) _Song._

My shroud of white, stuck all with Yew,
Oh! prepare it.

_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 4 (56).

_(2) 3rd Witch._

Gall of goat, and slips of Yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse.

_Macbeth_, act iv, sc. 1 (27).

(3) _Scroop._

Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal Yew against thy state.

_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 2 (116).

(4) _Tamora._

But straight they told me they would bind me here
Unto the body of a dismal Yew.

_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (106).

(5) _Paris._

Under yond Yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread
(Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves)
But thou shalt hear it.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act v, sc. 3 (3).

(6) _Balthasar._

As I did sleep under this Yew tree here,[327:1]
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

_Ibid._ (137).

_See also_ HEBENON, p. 118.

The Yew, though undoubtedly an indigenous British plant, has not a British name. The name is derived from the Latin _Iva_, and "under this name we find the _Yew_ so inextricably mixed up with the _Ivy_ that, as dissimilar as are the two trees, there can be no doubt that these names are in their origin identical." So says Dr. Prior, and he proceeds to give a long and very interesting account of the origin of the name. The connection of Yew with _iva_ and _Ivy_ is still shown in the French _if_, the German _eibe_, and the Portuguese _iva_. _Yew_ seems to be quite a modern form; in the old vocabularies the word is variously spelt iw, ewe,[328:1] eugh-tre,[328:2] haw-tre, new-tre, ew, uhe, and iw.

The connection of the Yew with churchyards and funerals is noticed by Shakespeare in Nos. 1, 5, and 6, and its celebrated connection with English bow-making in No. 3, where "double-fatal" may probably refer to its noxious qualities when living and its use for deadly weapons afterwards. These noxious qualities, joined to its dismal colour, and to its constant use in churchyards, caused it to enter into the supposed charms and incantations of the quacks of the Middle Ages. Yet Gerard entirely denies its noxious qualities: "They say that the fruit thereof being eaten is not onely dangerous and deadly unto man, but if birds do eat thereof it causeth them to cast their feathers and many times to die--all which I dare boldly affirme is altogether untrue; for when I was yong and went to schoole, divers of my schoolfellowes, and likewise my selfe, did eat our fils of the berries of this tree, and have not only slept under the shadow thereof, but among the branches also, without any hurt at all, and that not at one time but many times." Browne says the same in his "Vulgar Errors:" "That Yew and the berries thereof are harmlesse, we know" (book ii. c. 7). There is no doubt that the Yew berries are almost if not quite harmless,[328:3] and I find them forming an element in an Anglo-Saxon recipe, which may be worth quoting as an example of the medicines to which our forefathers submitted. It is given in a Leech Book of the tenth century or earlier, and is thus translated by Cockayne: "If a man is in the water elf disease, then are the nails of his hand livid, and the eyes tearful, and he will look downwards. Give him this for a leechdom: Everthroat, cassuck, the netherward part of fane, a yew berry, lupin, helenium, a head of marsh mallow, fen, mint, dill, lily, attorlothe, pulegium, marrubium, dock, elder, fel terræ, wormwood, strawberry leaves, consolida; pour them over with ale, add holy water, sing this charm over them thrice [here follow some long charms which I need not extract]; these charms a man may sing over a wound" ("Leech Book," iii. 63).

I need say little of the uses of the Yew wood in furniture, nor of the many grand specimens of the tree which are scattered throughout the churchyards of England, except to say that "the origin of planting Yew trees in churchyards is still a subject of considerable perplexity. As the Yew was of such great importance in war and field sports before the use of gunpowder was known, perhaps the parsons of parishes were required to see that the churchyard was capable of supplying bows to the males of each parish of proper age; but in this case we should scarcely have been left without some evidence on the matter. Others again state that the trees in question were intended solely to furnish branches for use on Palm Sunday"[329:1] (_see_ PALM, p. 195), "while many suppose that the Yew was naturally selected for planting around churches on account of its emblematic character, as expressive of the solemnity of death, while, from its perennial verdure and long duration, it might be regarded as a pattern of immortality."--_Penny Magazine_, 1843.

A good list of the largest and oldest Yews in England will be found in Loudon's "Arboretum."

* * * * *

The "dismal Yew" concludes the list of Shakespeare's plants and the first part of my proposed subject; and while I hope that those readers who may have gone with me so far have met with some things to interest them, I hope also they will agree with me that gardening and the love of flowers is not altogether the modern accomplishment that many of our gardeners now fancy it to be. Here are two hundred names of plants in one writer, and that writer not at all writing on horticulture, but only mentioning plants and flowers in the most incidental manner as they happened naturally to fall in his way. I should doubt if there is any similar instance in any modern English writer, and feel very sure that there is no such instance in any modern English dramatist. It shows how familiar gardens and flowers were to Shakespeare, and that he must have had frequent opportunities for observing his favourites (for most surely he was fond of flowers), not only in their wild and native homes, but in the gardens of farmhouses and parsonages, country houses, and noblemen's stately pleasaunces. The quotations that I have been able to make from the early writers in the ninth and tenth centuries, down to gossiping old Gerard, the learned Lord Chancellor Bacon, and that excellent old gardiner Parkinson, all show the same thing, that the love of flowers is no new thing in England, still less a foreign fashion, but that it is innate in us, a real instinct, that showed itself as strongly in our forefathers as in ourselves; and when we find that such men as Shakespeare and Lord Bacon (to mention no others) were almost proud to show their knowledge of plants and love of flowers, we can say that such love and knowledge is thoroughly manly and English.

In the inquiry into Shakespeare's plants I have entered somewhat largely into the etymological history of the names. I have been tempted into this by the personal interest I feel in the history of plant names, and I hope it may not have been uninteresting to my readers; but I do not think this part of the subject could have been passed by, for I agree with Johnston: "That there is more interest and as much utility in settling the nomenclature of our pastoral bards as that of all herbalists and dry-as-dust botanists" ("Botany of the Eastern Border"). I have also at times entered into the botany and physiology of the plants; this may have seemed needless to some, but I have thought that such notices were often necessary to the right understanding of the plants named, and again I shelter myself under the authority of a favourite old author: "Consider (gentle readers) what shiftes he shall be put unto, and how rawe he must needs be in explanation of metaphors, resemblances, and comparisons, that is ignorant of the nature of herbs and plants from whence their similitudes be taken, for the inlightening and garnishing of sentences."--NEWTON'S _Herball for the Bible_.

I have said that my subject naturally divides itself into two parts, first, The Plants and Flowers named by Shakespeare; second, His Knowledge of Gardens and Gardening. The first part is now concluded, and I go to the second part, which will be very much shorter, and which may be entitled "The Garden-craft of Shakespeare."

FOOTNOTES:

[327:1] The reading of the folio is "young tree," for "Yew tree."

[328:1]

"An Eu tre (Ewetre); taxus, taximus."--_Catholicon Anglicum._

[328:2]

"The eugh obedient to the bender's will."--SPENSER, _F. Q._, i. 9.

"So far as eughen bow a shaft may send."--_F. Q._, ii. 11-19.

[328:3] There are, however, well-recorded instances of death from Yew berries. The poisonous quality, such as it is, resides in the hard seed, and not in the red mucilaginous skin, which is the part eaten by children. (_See_ HEBENON.)

[329:1] "For eucheson we have non Olyfe that bereth grene leves we takon in stede of hit Hew and Palmes wyth, and beroth abowte in procession and so this day we callyn palme sonnenday."--_Sermon for "Dominica in ramis palmarum," Cotton MSS._