About this book

The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare

Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

So doth the Woodbine the sweet Honeysuckle Gently entwist; the Female Ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (47). (4) _Hostess._ O thou Honeysuckle villain. _2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 1 (52). (5) _Oberon._ I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows, Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious Woodbine. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (249). I have joined together here the Woodbine and the Honeysuckle, because there can be little doubt that in Shakespeare's time the two names belonged to the same plant,[126:1] and that the Woodbine was (where the two names were at all discriminated, as in No. 3), applied to the plant generally, and Honeysuckle to the flower. This seems very clear by comparing together Nos. 1 and 2. In earlier writings the name was applied very loosely to almost any creeping or climbing plant. In an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the eleventh century it is applied to the Wild Clematis ("Viticella--Weoden-binde"); while in Archbishop Ælfric's "Vocabulary" of the tenth century it is applied to the Hedera nigra, which may be either the Common or the Ground Ivy ("Hedera nigra--Wude-binde"); and in the Herbarium and Leechdom books of the twelfth century it is applied to the Capparis or Caper-plant, by which, however (as Mr. Cockayne considers), the Convolvulus Sepium is meant. After Shakespeare's time again the words began to be used confusedly. Milton does not seem to have been very clear in the matter. In "Paradise Lost" he makes our first parents "wind the Woodbine round this arbour" (perhaps he had Shakespeare's arbour in his mind); and in "Comus" he tells us of-- "A bank With ivy-canopied, and interwove With flaunting Honeysuckle."[126:2] While in "Lycidas" he tells of-- "The Musk Rose and the well-attired Woodbine." And we can scarcely suppose that he would apply two such contrary epithets as "flaunting" and "well-attired" to the same plant. And now the name, as of old, is used with great uncertainty, and I have heard it applied to many plants, and especially to the small sweet-scented Clematis (_C. flammula_). But with the Honeysuckle there is no such difficulty. The name is an old one, and in its earliest use was no doubt indifferently applied to many sweet-scented flowers (the Primrose amongst them); but it was soon attached exclusively to our own sweet Honeysuckle of the woods and hedges. We have two native species (Lonicera periclymenum and L. xylosteum), and there are about eighty exotic species, but none of them sweeter or prettier than our own, which, besides its fragrant flowers, has pretty, fleshy, red fruit. The Honeysuckle has ever been the emblem of firm and fast affection--as it climbs round any tree or bush, that is near it, not only clinging to it faster than Ivy, but keeping its hold so tight as to leave its mark in deep furrows on the tree that has supported it. The old writers are fond of alluding to this. Bullein in "The Book of Simples," 1562, says very prettily, "Oh, how swete and pleasant is Wood-binde, in woodes or arbours, after a tender, soft rain: and how friendly doe this herbe, if I maie so name it, imbrace the bodies, armes, and branches of trees, with his long winding stalkes, and tender leaves, openyng or spreading forthe his swete Lillis, like ladie's fingers, em[=o]g the thornes or bushes," and there is no doubt from the context that he is here referring to the Honeysuckle. Chaucer gives the crown of Woodbine to those who were constant in love-- "And tho that weare chaplets on their hede Of fresh Woodbine, be such as never were To love untrue in word, thought, ne dede, But aye stedfast; ne for pleasaunce ne fere, Though that they should their hertes al to-tere, Would never flit, but ever were stedfast Till that there lives there asunder brast." _The Flower and the Leaf._ The two last lines well describe the fast union between the Honeysuckle and its mated tree. FOOTNOTES: [126:1] "Woodbines of sweet honey full." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, _Tragedy of Valentinian_. [126:2] Milton probably took the idea from Theocritus-- "Ivy reaches up and climbs, Gilded with blossom-dust about its lip; Round which a Woodbine wreathes itself, and flaunts Her saffron fruitage."--_Idyll_ i. (_Calverley_). HYSSOP. _Iago._ 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce, set Hyssop, and weed up Thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness, or maimed with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. _Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (322). We should scarcely expect such a lesson of wisdom drawn from the simple herb-garden in the mouth of the greatest knave and villain in the whole range of Shakespeare's writings. It was the preaching of a deep hypocrite, and while we hate the preacher we thank him for his lesson.[128:1] The Hyssop (_Hyssopus officinalis_) is not a British plant, but it was held in high esteem in Shakespeare's time. Spenser spoke of it as-- "Sharp Isope good for green wounds remedies"-- and Gerard grew in his garden five or six different species or varieties. He does not tell us where his plants came from, and perhaps he did not know. It comes chiefly from Austria and Siberia; yet Greene in his "Philomela," 1615, speaks of "the Hyssop growing in America, that is liked of strangers for the smell, and hated of the inhabitants for the operation, being as prejudicial to the one as delightsome to the other." It is now very little cultivated, for it is not a plant of much beauty, and its medicinal properties are not much esteemed; yet it is a plant that must always have an interest to readers of the Bible; for there it comes before us as the plant of purification, as the plant of which the study was not beneath the wisdom of Solomon, and especially as the plant that added to the cruelties of the Crucifixion. Whether the Hyssop of Scripture is the Hyssopus officinalis is still a question, but at the present time the most modern research has decided that it is. FOOTNOTES: [128:1] It seems likely from the following passage from Lily's "Euphues, the anatomy of wit," 1617, that the plants were not named at random by Iago, but that there was some connection between them. "Good gardeners, in their curious knots, mixe Isope with Time, as aiders the one with the others; the one being dry, the other moist." The gardeners of the sixteenth century had a firm belief in the sympathies and antipathies of plants. INSANE ROOT. _Banquo._ Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the Insane Root That takes the reason prisoner? _Macbeth_, act i, sc. 3 (83). It is very possible that Shakespeare had no particular plant in view, but simply referred to any of the many narcotic plants which, when given in excess, would "take the reason prisoner." The critics have suggested many plants--the Hemlock, the Henbane, the Belladonna, the Mandrake, &c., each one strengthening his opinion from coeval writers. In this uncertainty I should incline to the Henbane from the following description by Gerard and Lyte. "This herbe is called . . . of Apuleia-Mania" (Lyte). "Henbane is called . . . of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, and Apuleius, Insana" (Gerard). IVY. (1) _Titania._ The female Ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (48). (2) _Prospero._ That now he was The Ivy which had hid my princely trunk And suck'd my verdure out on't. _Tempest_, act i, sc. 2 (85). (3) _Adriana._ If ought possess thee from me, it is dross, Usurping Ivy, Brier, or idle Moss. _Comedy of Errors_, act ii, sc. 2 (179). (4) _Shepherd._ They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master; if anywhere I have them 'tis by the seaside browsing of Ivy.[130:1] _Winter's Tale_, act iii, sc. 3 (66). (5) _Perithores._ His head's yellow, Hard hayr'd, and curl'd, thicke twin'd like Ivy tops, Not to undoe with thunder. _Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 2 (115). The rich evergreen of "the Ivy never sear" (Milton) recommended it to the Romans to be joined with the Bay in the chaplets of poets-- "Hanc sine tempora circum Inter victrices Hederam tibi serpere lauros."--VIRGIL. "Seu condis amabile carmen Prima feres Hederæ victricis præmia."--HORACE. And in mediæval times it was used with Holly for Christmas decorations, so that Bullein called it "the womens Christmas Herbe." But the old writers always assumed a curious rivalry between the two-- "Holly and Ivy made a great party Who should have the mastery In lands where they go." And there is a well-known carol of the time of Henry VI., which tells of the contest between the two, and of the mastery of the Holly; it is in eight stanzas, of which I extract the last four-- "Holly he hath berries as red as any Rose, The foresters, the hunters, keep them from the does; Ivy she hath berries as black as any Sloe, There come the owls and eat them as they go; Holly he hath birds, a full fair flock, The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock; Good Ivy, say to us, what birds hast thou? None but the owlet that cries 'How, how!'" Thus the Ivy was not allowed the same honour inside the houses of our ancestors as the Holly, but it held its place outside the houses as a sign of good cheer to be had within. The custom is now extinct, but formerly an Ivy bush (called a tod of Ivy) was universally hung out in front of taverns in England, as it still is in Brittany and Normandy. Hence arose two proverbs--"Good wine needs no bush," _i.e._, the reputation is sufficiently good without further advertisement; and "An owl in an Ivy bush," as "perhaps denoting originally the union of wisdom or prudence with conviviality, as 'Be merry and wise.'"--NARES. The Ivy was a plant as much admired by our grandfathers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as it is now by us. Spenser was evidently fond of it-- "And nigh thereto a little chappel stoode Which being all with Yvy overspread Deckt all the roofe, and shadowing the rode Seem'd like a grove faire branched over hed." _F. Q._, vi, v, 25. In another place he speaks of it as-- "Wanton Yvie, flouring fayre."--_F. Q._, ii, v, 29. And in another place-- "Amongst the rest the clambering Ivie grew Knitting his wanton armes with grasping hold, Least that the Poplar happely should rew Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold With her lythe twigs till they the top survew, And paint with pallid greene her buds of gold."