The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
scent in their leaves and roots. Of the rest many are very pretty and
worth growing, but they are all more or less tainted with the evil
habits of the family.
FOOTNOTES:
[102:1] "You (_i.e._, citizens) are still sending to the apothecaries,
and still crying out to 'fetch Master Doctor to me;' but our (_i.e._,
countrymen's) apothecary's shop is our garden full of pot herbs, and our
doctor is a good clove of Garlic."--_The Great Frost of January, 1608._
[103:1]
"Crist, which that is to every harm triacle."
CHAUCER, _Man of Lawes Tale_.
"Treacle was there anone forthe brought."
_Le Morte Arthur_, 864.
GILLIFLOWERS, _see_ CARNATIONS.
GINGER.
(1) _Clown._
I must have Saffron to colour the Warden pies--Mace--Dates?
none, that's out of my note; Nutmegs, seven--a race or two
of Ginger, but that I may beg.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (48).
(2) _Sir Toby._
Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no
more cakes and ale.
_Clown._
Yes, by St. Anne, and Ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too.
_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 3 (123).
(3) _Pompey._
First, here's Young Master Rash, he's in for a commodity of
brown paper and old Ginger, nine score and seventeen pounds,
of which he made five marks ready money; marry, then, Ginger
was not much in request, for the old women were all dead.
_Measure for Measure_, act iv, sc. 3 (4).
(4) _Salanio._
I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped
Ginger.
_Merchant of Venice_, act iii, sc. 1 (9).
(5) _2nd Carrier._
I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of Ginger to be
delivered as far as Charing Cross.
_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 1 (26).
(6) _Orleans._
He's of the colour of the Nutmeg.
_Dauphin._
And of the heat of the Ginger.
_Henry V_, act iii, sc. 7 (20).
(7) _Julia._
What is't you took up so Gingerly?
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act i, sc. 2 (70).
(8) _Costard._
An I had but one penny in the world, thou should'st have it to
buy Ginger-bread.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 1 (74).
(9) _Hotspur._
Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath, and leave "in sooth,"
And such protest of pepper Ginger-bread
To velvet-guards and Sunday-citizens.
_1st Henry IV_, act iii, sc. 1 (258).
Ginger was well known both to the Greeks and Romans. It was imported
from Arabia, together with its name, Zingiberri, which it has retained,
with little variation, in all languages.
When it was first imported into England is not known, but probably by
the Romans, for it occurs as a common ingredient in many of the
Anglo-Saxon medical recipes. Russell, in the "Boke of Nurture," mentions
several kinds of Ginger; as green and white, "colombyne, valadyne, and
Maydelyn." In Shakespeare's time it was evidently very common and cheap.
It is produced from the roots of Zingiber officinale, a member of the
large and handsome family of the Ginger-worts. The family contains some
of the most beautiful of our greenhouse plants, as the Hedychiums,
Alpinias, and Mantisias; and, though entirely tropical, most of the
species are of easy cultivation in England. Ginger is very easily reared
in hotbeds, and I should think it very probable that it may have been so
grown in Shakespeare's time. Gerard attempted to grow it, but he
naturally failed, by trying to grow it in the open ground as a hardy
plant; yet "it sprouted and budded forth greene leaves in my garden in
the heate of somer;" and he tells us that plants were sent him by "an
honest and expert apothecarie, William Dries, of Antwerp," and "that the
same had budded and grown in the said Dries' garden."
GOOSEBERRIES.
_Falstaff._
All the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this
age shapes them, are not worth a Gooseberry.
_2nd Henry IV_, act i, sc. 2 (194).
The Gooseberry is probably a native of the North of England, but Turner
said (s.v. _uva crispa_) "it groweth onely that I have sene in England,
in gardines, but I have sene it in Germany abrode in the fieldes amonge
other busshes."
The name has nothing to do with the goose. Dr. Prior has satisfactorily
shown that the word is a corruption of "Crossberry." By the writers of
Shakespeare's time, and even later, it was called Feaberry (Gerard,
Lawson, and others), and in one of the many books on the Plague
published in the sixteenth century, the patient is recommended to eat
"thepes, or goseberries" ("A Counsell against the Sweate," fol. 23).
GORSE OR GOSS.
_Ariel._
Tooth'd Briers, sharp Furzes, pricking Goss, and Thorns.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (180).
In speaking of the Furze (which see), I said that in Shakespeare's time
the Furze and Gorse were probably distinguished, though now the two
names are applied to the same plant. "In the 15th Henry VI. (1436),
license was given to Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, to inclose 200 acres
of land--pasture, wode, hethe, vrises,[106:1] and gorste (_bruere, et
jampnorum_), and to form thereof a Park at Greenwich."--_Rot. Parl._ iv.
498.[106:2] This proves that the "Gorst" was different from the "Vrise,"
and it may very likely have been the Petty Whin. "Pricking Goss,"
however, may be only a generic term, like Bramble and Brier, for any
wild prickly plant.
FOOTNOTES:
[106:1] There is a hill near Lansdown (Bath) now called Frizen or
Freezing Hill. Within memory of man it was covered with Gorse. This was
probably the origin of the name, "Vrisen Hill."
[106:2] "Promptorium Parvulorum," p. 162, note.
GOURD.
_Pistol._
For Gourd and fullam holds.
_Merry Wives_, act i, sc. 3 (94).
I merely mention this to point out that "Gourd," though probably
originally derived from the fruit, is not the fruit here, but is an
instrument of gambling. The fruit, however, was well known in
Shakespeare's time, and was used as the type of intense greenness--
"Whose coerule stream, rombling in pebble-stone,
Crept under Moss, as green as any Gourd."
SPENSER, _Virgil's Gnat_.
GRACE, _see_ RUE.
GRAPES, _see_ VINES.
GRASSES.
(1) _Gonzalo._
How lush and lusty the Grass looks! how green!
_Tempest_, act ii, sc. 1 (52).
(2) _Iris._
Here, on this Grass-plot, in this very place
To come and sport.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (73).
(3) _Ceres._
Why hath thy Queen
Summon'd me hither to this short-grass'd green?
_Ibid._ (82).
(4) _Lysander._
When Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watery glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed Grass.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act i, sc. 1 (209).
(5) _King._
Say to her, we have measured many miles
To tread a measure with her on this Grass.
_Boyet._
They say, that they have measured many miles
To tread a measure with her on the Grass.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (184).
(6) _Clown._
I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in
Grass.
_All's Well that Ends Well_, act iv, sc. 5 (21).
(7) _Luciana._
If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass.
_Dromio of Syracuse._
'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for Grass.
_Comedy of Errors_, act ii, sc. 2 (201).
(8) _Bolingbroke._
Here we march
Upon the Grassy carpet of the plain.
_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 3 (49).
(9) _King Richard._
And bedew
Her pasture's Grass with faithful English blood.
_Ibid._ (100).
(10) _Ely._
Grew like the summer Grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
_Henry V_, act i, sc. 1 (65).
(11) _King Henry._
Mowing like Grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 3 (13).
(12) _Grandpre._
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chew'd Grass, still and motionless.
_Henry V_, act iv, sc. 2 (49).
(13) _Suffolk._
Though standing naked on a mountain top
Where biting cold would never let Grass grow.
_2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (336).
(14) _Cade._
All the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my
palfrey go to Grass.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 2 (74).
(15) _Cade._
Wherefore on a brick wall have I climbed into this garden, to
see if I can eat Grass or pick a Sallet another while, which
is not amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot weather.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 10 (7).
(16) _Cade._
If I do not leave you all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I
may never eat Grass more.
_Ibid._ (42).
(17) _1st Bandit._
We cannot live on Grass, on berries, water,
As beasts and birds and fishes.
_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (425).
(18) _Saturninus._
These tidings nip me, and I hang the head
As Flowers with frost or Grass beat down with storms.
_Titus Andronicus_, act iv, sc. 4 (70).
(19) _Hamlet._
Ay but, sir, "while the Grass grows"--the proverb is something
musty.
_Hamlet_, act iii, sc. 2 (358).
(20) _Ophelia._
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a Grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 5 (29).
(21) _Salarino._
I should be still
Plucking the Grass to know where sits the wind.
_Merchant of Venice_, act i, sc. 1 (17).
In and before Shakespeare's time Grass was used as a general term for
all plants. Thus Chaucer--
"And every grass that groweth upon roote
Sche schal eek know, to whom it will do boote
Al be his woundes never so deep and wyde."
_The Squyeres Tale._
It is used in the same general way in the Bible, "the Grass of the
field."
In the whole range of botanical studies the accurate study of the
Grasses is, perhaps, the most difficult as the genus is the most
extensive, for Grasses are said to "constitute, perhaps, a twelfth part
of the described species of flowering plants, and at least nine-tenths
of the number of individuals comprising the vegetation of the world"