Kitabı oku: «Folk-lore of Shakespeare», sayfa 12

Rabbit. In “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 2) this animal is used as a term of reproach, a sense in which it was known in Shakespeare’s day. The phrase “cony-catch,” which occurs in “Taming of the Shrew” (v. 1) – “Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched in this business” – implied the act of deceiving or cheating a simple person – the cony or rabbit being considered a foolish animal.⁴⁴³ It has been shown, from Dekker’s “English Villanies,” that the system of cheating was carried to a great length in the early part of the seventeenth century, that a collective society of sharpers was called “a warren,” and their dupes “rabbit-suckers,” i. e., young rabbit or conies.⁴⁴⁴ Shakespeare has once used the term to express harmless roguery, in the “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 1). When Grumio will not answer his fellow-servants, except in a jesting way, Curtis says to him: “Come, you are so full of cony-catching.”

Rat. The fanciful idea that rats were commonly rhymed to death, in Ireland, is said to have arisen from some metrical charm or incantation, used there for that purpose, to which there are constant allusions in old writers. In the “Merchant of Venice” (iv. 1) Shylock says:

 
“What if my house be troubled with a rat,
And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats
To have it baned?”
 

And in “As You Like It” (iii. 2), Rosalind says: “I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras’ time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.” We find it mentioned by Ben Jonson in the “Poetaster” (v. 1):

 
“Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats,
In drumming tunes.”
 

“The reference, however, is generally referred, in Ireland,” says Mr. Mackay, “to the supposed potency of the verses pronounced by the professional rhymers of Ireland, which, according to popular superstition, could not only drive rats to destruction, but could absolutely turn a man’s face to the back of his head.”⁴⁴⁵

Sir W. Temple, in his “Essay on Poetry,” seems to derive the idea from the Runic incantations, for, after speaking of them in various ways, he adds, “and the proverb of rhyming rats to death, came, I suppose, from the same root.”

According to a superstitious notion of considerable antiquity, rats leaving a ship are considered indicative of misfortune to a vessel, probably from the same idea that crows will not build upon trees that are likely to fall. This idea is noticed by Shakespeare in “The Tempest” (i. 2), where Prospero, describing the vessel in which himself and daughter had been placed, with the view to their certain destruction at sea, says:

 
“they hurried us aboard a bark,
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg’d,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively have quit it.”
 

The Shipping Gazette of April, 1869, contained a communication entitled, “A Sailor’s Notion about Rats,” in which the following passage occurs: “It is a well-authenticated fact that rats have often been known to leave ships in the harbor previous to their being lost at sea. Some of those wiseacres who want to convince us against the evidence of our senses will call this superstition. As neither I have time, nor you space, to cavil with such at present, I shall leave them alone in their glory.” The fact, however, as Mr. Hardwick has pointed out in his “Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore” (1872, p. 251), that rats do sometimes migrate from one ship to another, or from one barn or corn-stack to another, from various causes, ought to be quite sufficient to explain such a superstition. Indeed, a story is told of a cunning Welsh captain who wanted to get rid of rats that infested his ship, then lying in the Mersey, at Liverpool. Having found out that there was a vessel laden with cheese in the basin, and getting alongside of her about dusk, he left all his hatches open, and waited till all the rats were in his neighbor’s ship, and then moved off.

Snail. A common amusement among children consists in charming snails, in order to induce them to put out their horns – a couplet, such as the following, being repeated on the occasion:

 
“Peer out, peer out, peer out of your hole,
Or else I’ll beat you as black as a coal.”
 

In Scotland, it is regarded as a token of fine weather if the snail obey the command and put out its horn:⁴⁴⁶

 
“Snailie, snailie, shoot out your horn,
And tell us if it will be a bonnie day the morn.”
 

Shakespeare alludes to snail-charming in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 2), where Mrs. Page says of Mrs. Ford’s husband, he “so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, Peer out! peer out! that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility, and patience, to this his distemper he is in now.” In “Comedy of Errors” (ii. 2), the snail is used to denote a lazy person.

Tiger. It was an ancient belief that this animal roared and raged most furiously in stormy and high winds – a piece of folk-lore alluded to in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 3), by Nestor, who says:

 
“The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why then, the thing of courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize.”
 

Unicorn. In “Julius Cæsar” (ii. 1) Decius tells how “unicorns may be betray’d with trees,” alluding to their traditionary mode of capture. They are reported to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the animal till he was despatched by the hunter.⁴⁴⁷ In Topsell’s “History of Beasts” (1658, p. 557), we read of the unicorn: “He is an enemy to the lions, wherefore, as soon as ever a lion seeth a unicorn, he runneth to a tree for succour, that so when the unicorn maketh force at him, he may not only avoid his horn, but also destroy him; for the unicorn, in the swiftness of his course, runneth against the tree, wherein his sharp horn sticketh fast, that when the lion seeth the unicorn fastened by the horn, without all danger he falleth upon him and killeth him.” With this passage we may compare the following from Spenser’s “Fairy Queen” (bk. ii. canto 5):

 
“Like as a lyon, whose imperiall power
A prowd rebellious unicorn defyes,
T’ avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre
Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,
And when him ronning in full course he spyes,
He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast
His precious horne, sought of his enimyes
Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast,
But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast.”
 

Weasel. To meet a weasel was formerly considered a bad omen.⁴⁴⁸ That may be a tacit allusion to this superstition in “Lucrece” (l. 307):

 
“Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there;
They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.”
 

It appears that weasels were kept in houses, instead of cats, for the purpose of killing vermin. Phædrus notices this their feline office in the first and fourth fables of his fourth book. The supposed quarrelsomeness of this animal is spoken of by Pisanio in “Cymbeline” (iii. 4), who tells Imogen that she must be “as quarrelous as the weasel;” and in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 3), Lady Percy says to Hotspur:

 
“A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen
As you are toss’d with.”
 

This character of the weasel is not, however, generally mentioned by naturalists.

CHAPTER VIII
PLANTS

That Shakespeare possessed an extensive knowledge of the history and superstitions associated with flowers is evident, from even only a slight perusal of his plays. Apart from the extensive use which he has made of these lovely objects of nature for the purpose of embellishing, or adding pathos to, passages here and there, he has also, with a master hand, interwoven many a little legend or superstition, thereby infusing an additional force into his writings. Thus we know with what effect he has made use of the willow in “Othello,” in that touching passage where Desdemona (iv. 3), anticipating her death, relates how her mother had a maid called Barbara:

 
“She was in love; and he she lov’d prov’d mad,
And did forsake her; she had a song of willow,
An old thing ’twas, but it expressed her fortune,
And she died singing it: that song, to-night,
Will not go from my mind.”
 

In a similar manner Shakespeare has frequently introduced flowers with a wonderful aptness, as in the case of poor Ophelia. Those, however, desirous of gaining a good insight into Shakespeare’s knowledge of flowers, as illustrated by his plays, would do well to consult Mr. Ellacombe’s exhaustive work on the “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” a book to which we are much indebted in the following pages, as also to Mr. Beisly’s “Shakespeare’s Garden.”

Aconite. ⁴⁴⁹ This plant, from the deadly virulence of its juice, which, Mr. Turner says, “is of all poysones the most hastie poysone,” is compared by Shakespeare to gunpowder, as in “2 Henry IV.” (iv. 4):

 
“the united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion,
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in,
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As aconitum, or rash gunpowder.”
 

It is, too, probably alluded to in the following passage in “Romeo and Juliet” (v. 1), where Romeo says:

 
“let me have
A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead;
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently, as hasty powder fir’d
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.”
 

According to Ovid, it derived its name from growing upon rock (Metamorphoses, bk. vii. l. 418):

 
“Quæ, quia nascuntur, dura vivacia caute,
Agrestes aconita vocant.”
 

It is probably derived from the Greek ἀκόνιτος, “without a struggle,” in allusion to the intensity of its poisonous qualities. Vergil⁴⁵⁰ speaks of it, and tells us how the aconite deceives the wretched gatherers, because often mistaken for some harmless plant.⁴⁵¹ The ancients fabled it as the invention of Hecate,⁴⁵² who caused the plant to spring from the foam of Cerberus, when Hercules dragged him from the gloomy regions of Pluto. Ovid pictures the stepdame as preparing a deadly potion of aconite (Metamorphoses, bk. i. l. 147):

 
“Lurida terribiles miscent aconita novercæ.”
 

In hunting, the ancients poisoned their arrows with this venomous plant, as “also when following their mortal brutal trade of slaughtering their fellow-creatures.”⁴⁵³ Numerous instances are on record of fatal results through persons eating this plant. In the “Philosophical Transactions” (1732, vol. xxxvii.) we read of a man who was poisoned in that year, by eating some of it in a salad, instead of celery. Dr. Turner mentions the case of some Frenchmen at Antwerp, who, eating the shoots of this plant for masterwort, all died, with the exception of two, in forty-eight hours. The aconitum is equally pernicious to animals.

Anemone. This favorite flower of early spring is probably alluded to in the following passage of “Venus and Adonis:”

 
“By this, the boy that by her side lay kill’d
Was melted like a vapour from her sight;
And in his blood, that on the ground lay spill’d,
A purple flower sprung up, chequer’d with white,
Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.”
 

According to Bion, it is said to have sprung from the tears that Venus wept over the body of Adonis:

 
“Alas, the Paphian! fair Adonis slain!
Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain,
But gentle flowers are born, and bloom around;
From every drop that falls upon the ground
Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose,
And where a tear has dropp’d a wind-flower blows.”
 

Other classical writers make the anemone to be the flower of Adonis. Mr. Ellacombe⁴⁵⁴ says that although Shakespeare does not actually name the anemone, yet the evidence is in favor of this plant. The “purple color,” he adds, is no objection, for purple in Shakespeare’s time had a very wide signification, meaning almost any bright color, just as “purpureus” had in Latin.⁴⁵⁵

Apple. Although Shakespeare has so frequently introduced the apple into his plays, yet he has abstained from alluding to the extensive folk-lore associated with this favorite fruit. Indeed, beyond mentioning some of the popular nicknames by which the apple was known in his day, little is said about it. The term apple was not originally confined to the fruit now so called, but was a generic name applied to any fruit, as we still speak of the love-apple, pine-apple, etc.⁴⁵⁶ So when Shakespeare (Sonnet xciii.) makes mention of Eve’s apple, he simply means that it was some fruit that grew in Eden:

 
“How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.”
 

(a) The “apple-John,” called in France deux-années or deux-ans, because it will keep two years, and considered to be in perfection when shrivelled and withered,⁴⁵⁷ is evidently spoken of in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3), where Falstaff says: “My skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown; I am withered like an old apple-John.” In “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) there is a further allusion:

“1st Drawer. What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-Johns? thou know’st Sir John cannot endure an apple-John.

2d Drawer. Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish of apple-Johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said, ‘I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.’”

This apple, too, is well described by Phillips (“Cider,” bk. i.):

 
“Nor John Apple, whose wither’d rind, entrench’d
By many a furrow, aptly represents
Decrepit age.”
 

In Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair” (i. 1), where Littlewit encourages Quarlus to kiss his wife, he says: “she may call you an apple-John if you use this.” Here apple-John⁴⁵⁸ evidently means a procuring John, besides the allusion to the fruit so called.⁴⁵⁹

(b) The “bitter-sweet, or sweeting,” to which Mercutio alludes in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4): “Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce;” was apparently a favorite apple, which furnished many allusions to poets. Gower, in his “Confessio Amantis” (1554, fol. 174), speaks of it:

 
“For all such time of love is lore
And like unto the bitter swete,
For though it thinke a man first sweete,
He shall well felen atte laste
That it is sower, and maie not laste.”
 

The name is “now given to an apple of no great value as a table fruit, but good as a cider apple, and for use in silk dyeing.”⁴⁶⁰

(c) The “crab,” roasted before the fire and put into ale, was a very favorite indulgence, especially at Christmas, in days gone by, and is referred to in the song of winter in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):

 
“When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl
Then nightly sings the staring owl.”
 

The beverage thus formed was called “Lambs-wool,” and generally consisted of ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs, or apples. It formed the ingredient of the wassail-bowl;⁴⁶¹ and also of the gossip’s bowl⁴⁶² alluded to in “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), where Puck says:

 
“And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale.”
 

In Peele’s “Old Wives’ Tale,” it is said:

 
“Lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb’s wool.”⁴⁶³
 

And in Herrick’s “Poems:”

 
“Now crowne the bowle
With gentle lamb’s wooll,
Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger.”
 

(d) The “codling,” spoken of by Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” (i. 5) – “Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before ’tis a peascod, or a codling when ’tis almost an apple” – is not the variety now so called, but was the popular term for an immature apple, such as would require cooking to be eaten, being derived from “coddle,” to stew or boil lightly – hence it denoted a boiling apple, an apple for coddling or boiling.⁴⁶⁴ Mr. Gifford⁴⁶⁵ says that codling was used by our old writers for that early state of vegetation when the fruit, after shaking off the blossom, began to assume a globular and determinate form.

(e) The “leather-coat” was the apple generally known as “the golden russeting.”⁴⁶⁶ Davy, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3), says: “There is a dish of leather-coats for you.”

(f) The “pippin” was formerly a common term for an apple, to which reference is made in “Hudibras Redivivus” (1705):

 
“A goldsmith telling o’er his cash,
A pipping-monger selling trash.”
 

In Taylor’s “Workes”⁴⁶⁷ (1630) we read:

 
“Lord, who would take him for a pippin squire,
That’s so bedaub’d with lace and rich attire?”
 

Mr. Ellacombe⁴⁶⁸ says the word “pippin” denoted an apple raised from pips and not from grafts, and “is now, and probably was in Shakespeare’s time, confined to the bright-colored long-keeping apples of which the golden pippin is the type.” Justice Shallow, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3), says: “Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year’s pippin of my own graffing.”

(g) The “pomewater” was a species of apple evidently of a juicy nature, and hence of high esteem in Shakespeare’s time; for in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 2) Holofernes says: “The deer was, as you know, sanguis– in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo– the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra– the soil, the land, the earth.”

Parkinson⁴⁶⁹ tells us the “pomewater” is an excellent, good, and great whitish apple, full of sap or moisture, somewhat pleasant, sharp, but a little bitter withal; it will not last long, the winter’s frost soon causing it to rot and perish.

It appears that apples and caraways were formerly always eaten together; and it is said that they are still served up on particular days at Trinity College, Cambridge. This practice is probably alluded to by Justice Shallow, in the much-disputed passage in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3), when he speaks of eating “a last year’s pippin, … with a dish of carraways.” The phrase, too, seems further explained by the following quotations from Cogan’s “Haven of Health” (1599). After stating the virtues of the seed, and some of its uses, he says: “For the same purpose careway seeds are used to be made in comfits, and to be eaten with apples, and surely very good for that purpose, for all such things as breed wind would be eaten with other things that break wind.” Again, in his chapter on Apples, he says: “Howbeit wee are wont to eat carrawaies or biskets, or some other kind of comfits, or seeds together with apples, thereby to breake winde ingendred by them, and surely this is a verie good way for students.” Mr. Ellacombe,⁴⁷⁰ however, considers that in “the dish of carraways,” mentioned by Justice Shallow, neither caraway seeds, nor cakes made of caraways, are meant, but the caraway or caraway-russet apple. Most of the commentators are in favor of one of the former explanations. Mr. Dyce⁴⁷¹ reads caraways in the sense of comfits or confections made with caraway-seeds, and quotes from Shadwell’s “Woman-Captain” the following: “The fruit, crab-apples, sweetings, and horse-plumbs; and for confections, a few carraways in a small sawcer, as if his worship’s house had been a lousie inn.”

Apricot. This word, which is spelled by Shakespeare “apricock,” occurs in “Richard II.” (iii. 4), where the gardener says:

 
“Go, bind thou up yond dangling apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.”
 

And in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1) Titania gives directions:

 
“Be kind and courteous to this gentleman,
 

*****

 
Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries.”
 

The spelling “apricock”⁴⁷² is derived from the Latin præcox, or præcoquus; and it was called “the precocious tree,” because it flowered and fruited earlier than the peach. The term “apricock” is still in use in Northamptonshire.

Aspen. According to a mediæval legend, the perpetual motion of this tree dates from its having supplied the wood of the Cross, and that its leaves have trembled ever since at the recollection of their guilt. De Quincey, in his essay on “Modern Superstition,” says that this belief is coextensive with Christendom. The following verses,⁴⁷³ after telling how other trees were passed by in the choice of wood for the Cross, describe the hewing down of the aspen, and the dragging of it from the forest to Calvary:

 
“On the morrow stood she, trembling
At the awful weight she bore,
When the sun in midnight blackness
Darkened on Judea’s shore.
 
 
“Still, when not a breeze is stirring,
When the mist sleeps on the hill,
And all other trees are moveless,
Stands the aspen, trembling still.”
 

The Germans, says Mr. Henderson, have a theory of their own, embodied in a little poem, which may be thus translated:

 
“Once, as our Saviour walked with men below,
His path of mercy through a forest lay;
And mark how all the drooping branches show,
What homage best a silent tree may pay.
 
 
“Only the aspen stands erect and free,
Scorning to join that voiceless worship pure;
But see! He casts one look upon the tree,
Struck to the heart she trembles evermore!”
 

Another legend tells us⁴⁷⁴ that the aspen was said to have been the tree on which Judas hanged himself after the betrayal of his Master, and ever since its leaves have trembled with shame. Shakespeare twice alludes to the trembling of the aspen. In “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 4) Marcus exclaims:

 
“O, had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute;”
 

and in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) the hostess says: “Feel, masters, how I shake. Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen leaf.”

Bachelor’s Buttons. This was a name given to several flowers, and perhaps in Shakespeare’s time was more loosely applied to any flower in bud. It is now usually understood to be a double variety of ranunculus; according to others, the Lychnis sylvestris; and in some counties it is applied to the Scabiosa succisa.⁴⁷⁵ According to Gerarde, this plant was so called from the similitude of its flowers “to the jagged cloathe buttons, anciently worne in this kingdome.” It was formerly supposed, by country people, to have some magical effect upon the fortunes of lovers. Hence it was customary for young people to carry its flowers in their pockets, judging of their good or bad success in proportion as these retained or lost their freshness. It is to this sort of divination that Shakespeare probably refers in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 2), where he makes the hostess say, “What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry ’t, he will carry ’t; ’tis in his buttons; he will carry ’t.” Mr. Warter, in one of his notes in Southey’s “Commonplace Book” (1851, 4th series, p. 244), says that this practice was common in his time, in Shropshire and Staffordshire. The term “to wear bachelor’s buttons” seems to have grown into a phrase for being unmarried.⁴⁷⁶

Balm. From very early times the balm, or balsam, has been valued for its curative properties, and, as such, is alluded to in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 1):

 
“But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.”
 

In “3 Henry VI.” (iv. 8) King Henry says:⁴⁷⁷

 
“My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds.”
 

Alcibiades, in “Timon of Athens” (iii. 5), says:

 
“Is this the balsam, that the usuring senate
Pours into captains’ wounds? Banishment!”
 

Macbeth, too, in the well-known passage ii. 2, introduces it:

 
“Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”
 

As the oil of consecration⁴⁷⁸ it is spoken of by King Richard (“Richard II.,” iii. 2):

 
“Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king.”
 

And again, in “3 Henry VI.” (iii. 1), King Henry, when in disguise, speaks thus:

 
“Thy place is fill’d, thy sceptre wrung from thee,
Thy balm wash’d off wherewith thou wast anointed:
No bending knee will call thee Cæsar now.”
 

The origin of balsam, says Mr. Ellacombe,⁴⁷⁹ “was for a long time a secret, but it is now known to have been the produce of several gum-bearing trees, especially the Pistacia lentiscus and the Balsamodendron Gileadense, and now, as then, the name is not strictly confined to the produce of any one plant.”

Barley. The barley broth, of which the Constable, in “Henry V.” (iii. 5), spoke so contemptuously as the food of English soldiers, was probably beer,⁴⁸⁰ which long before the time of Henry was so celebrated that it gave its name to the plant (barley being simply the beer-plant):

 
“Can sodden water,
A drench for sur-rein’d jades, their barley broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?”
 

Bay-tree. The withering and death of this tree were reckoned a prognostic of evil, both in ancient and modern times, a notion⁴⁸¹ to which Shakespeare refers in “Richard II.” (ii. 4):

 
“’Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d”
 

– having obtained it probably from Holinshed, who says: “In this yeare, in a manner throughout all the realme of Englande, old baie trees withered.” Lupton, in his “Syxt Booke of Notable Things,” mentions this as a bad omen: “Neyther falling-sickness, neyther devyll, wyll infest or hurt one in that place whereas a bay-tree is. The Romaynes call it the plant of the good angel.”⁴⁸²

Camomile. It was formerly imagined that this plant grew the more luxuriantly for being frequently trodden or pressed down; a notion alluded to in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) by Falstaff: “For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.” Nares⁴⁸³ considers that the above was evidently written in ridicule of the following passage, in a book very fashionable in Shakespeare’s day, Lyly’s “Euphues,” of which it is a parody: “Though the camomile, the more it is trodden and pressed down, the more it spreadeth; yet the violet, the oftener it is handled and touched, the sooner it withereth and decayeth,” etc.

Clover. According to Johnson, the “honey-stalks” in the following passage (“Titus Andronicus,” iv. 4) are “clover-flowers, which contain a sweet juice.” It is not uncommon for cattle to overcharge themselves with clover, and die, hence the allusion by Tamora:

 
“I will enchant the old Andronicus
With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,
Than baits to fish, or honey-stalks to sheep.”
 

Columbine. This was anciently termed “a thankless flower,” and was also emblematical of forsaken lovers. It is somewhat doubtful to what Ophelia alludes in “Hamlet” (iv. 5), where she seems to address the king: “There’s fennel for you, and columbines.” Perhaps she regarded it as symbolical of ingratitude.

Crow-flowers. This name, which in Shakespeare’s time was applied to the “ragged robin,” is now used for the buttercup. It was one of the flowers that poor Ophelia wove into her garland (“Hamlet,” iv. 7):

 
“There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples.”
 

Cuckoo-buds. Commentators are uncertain to what flower Shakespeare refers in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):

 
“When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight.”
 

Mr. Miller, in his “Gardener’s Dictionary,” says that the flower here alluded to is the Ranunculus bulbosus; but Mr. Beisly, in his “Shakespeare’s Garden,” considers it to be the Ranunculus ficaria (lesser celandine), or pile-wort, as this flower appears earlier in spring, and is in bloom at the same time as the other flowers named in the song. Mr. Swinfen Jervis, however, in his “Dictionary of the Language of Shakespeare” (1868), decides in favor of cowslips:⁴⁸⁴ and Dr. Prior suggests the buds of the crowfoot. At the present day the nickname cuckoo-bud is assigned to the meadow cress (Cardamine pratensis).

Cuckoo-flowers. By this flower, Mr. Beisly⁴⁸⁵ says, the ragged robin is meant, a well-known meadow and marsh plant, with rose-colored flowers and deeply-cut, narrow segments. It blossoms at the time the cuckoo comes, hence one of its names. In “King Lear” (iv. 4) Cordelia narrates how

 
“he was met even now
As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud;
Crown’d with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,
With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.”
 

Cypress. From the earliest times the cypress has had a mournful history, being associated with funerals and churchyards, and as such is styled by Spenser “cypress funereal.”

In Quarles’s “Argalus and Parthenia” (1726, bk. iii.) a knight is introduced, whose

 
“horse was black as jet,
His furniture was round about beset
With branches slipt from the sad cypress tree.”
 

Formerly coffins were frequently made of cypress wood, a practice to which Shakespeare probably alludes in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4), where the Clown says: “In sad cypress let me be laid.” Some, however, prefer⁴⁸⁶ understanding cypress to mean “a shroud of cyprus or cypress” – a fine, transparent stuff, similar to crape, either white or black, but more commonly the latter.⁴⁸⁷ Douce⁴⁸⁸ thinks that the expression “laid” seems more applicable to a coffin than to a shroud, and also adds that the shroud is afterwards expressly mentioned by itself.

Daffodil. The daffodil of Shakespeare is the wild daffodil which grows so abundantly in many parts of England. Perdita, in “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4), mentions a little piece of weather-lore, and tells us how

 
“daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
 

And Autolycus, in the same play (iv. 3), sings thus:

 
“When daffodils begin to peer, —
With, heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year.”
 

Darnel. This plant, like the cockle, was used in Shakespeare’s day to denote any hurtful weed. Newton,⁴⁸⁹ in his “Herbal to the Bible,” says that “under the name of cockle and darnel is comprehended all vicious, noisome, and unprofitable graine, encombring and hindering good corne.” Thus Cordelia, in “King Lear” (iv. 4), says: