The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
Horacleoticum_). They were all favourite pot herbs, so that Lyte calls
the common one "a delicate and tender herb," "a noble and odoriferous
plant;" but, like so many of the old herbs, they have now fallen into
disrepute. The comparison of a man's hair to the buds of Marjoram is not
very intelligible, but probably it was a way of saying that the hair was
golden.
FOOTNOTES:
[159:1] See "Catholicon Anglicum," s.v. Marioron and note.
MARYBUDS, _see_ MARIGOLD.
MAST.
_Timon._
The Oaks bear Mast, the Briers scarlet hips.
_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (174).
We still call the fruit of beech, beech-masts, but do not apply the name
to the acorn. It originally meant food used for fatting, especially for
fatting swine. See note in "Promptorium Parvulorum," p. 329, giving
several instances of this use, and Strattmann, s.v. Mæst.
MEDLAR.
(1) _Apemantus._
There's a Medlar for thee, eat it.
_Timon._
On what I hate I feed not.
_Apemantus._
Dost hate a Medlar?
_Timon._
Ay, though it looks like thee.
_Apemantus._
An thou hadst hated Meddlers sooner, thou shouldst have loved
thyself better now.
_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (305).
(2) _Lucio._
They would have married me to the rotten Medlar.
_Measure for Measure_, act iv, sc. 3 (183).
(3) _Touchstone._
Truly the tree yields bad fruit.
_Rosalind._
I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a
Medlar; then it will be the earliest fruit in the country,
for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the
right virtue of the Medlar.
_As You Like It_, act iii, sc. 2 (122).
(4) _Mercutio._
Now will he sit under a Medlar tree.
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call Medlars when they laugh alone.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 1 (80).[160:1]
The Medlar is an European tree, but not a native of England; it has,
however, been so long introduced as to be now completely naturalized,
and is admitted into the English flora. It is mentioned in the early
vocabularies, and Chaucer gives it a very prominent place in his
description of a beautiful garden--
"I was aware of the fairest Medler tree
That ever yet in alle my life I sie,
As ful of blossomes as it might be;
Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile
Fro' bough to bough, and as him list, he eet
Here and there of buddes and floweres sweet."
_The Flower and the Leaf_ (240).
And certainly a fine Medlar tree "ful of blossomes" is a handsome
ornament on any lawn. There are few deciduous trees that make better
lawn trees. There is nothing stiff about the growth even from its early
youth; it forms a low, irregular, picturesque tree, excellent for
shade, with very handsome white flowers, followed by the curious fruit;
it will not, however, do well in the North of England or Scotland.
It does not seem to have been a favourite fruit with our forefathers.
Bullein says "the fruite called the Medler is used for a medicine and
not for meate;" and Shakespeare only used the common language of his
time when he described the Medlar as only fit to be eaten when rotten.
Chaucer said just the same--
"That ilke fruyt is ever lenger the wers
Till it be rote in mullok or in stree--
We olde men, I drede, so fare we,
Till we be roten, can we not be rype."
_The Reeves Tale._
And many others writers to the same effect. But, in fact, the Medlar
when fit to be eaten is no more rotten than a ripe Peach, Pear, or
Strawberry, or any other fruit which we do not eat till it has reached a
certain stage of softness. There is a vast difference between a ripe and
a rotten Medlar, though it would puzzle many of us to say when a fruit
(not a Medlar only) is ripe, that is, fit to be eaten. These things are
matters of taste and fashion, and it is rather surprising to find that
we are accused, and by good judges, of eating Peaches when rotten rather
than ripe. "The Japanese always eat their Peaches in an unripe state. In
the 'Gartenflora' Dr. Regel says, in some remarks on Japanese fruit
trees, that the Japanese regard a ripe Peach as rotten."
There are a few varieties of the Medlar, differing in the size and
flavour of the fruits, which were also cultivated in Shakespeare's time.
FOOTNOTES:
[160:1] So Chester speaks of it as "the Young Man's Medlar" ("Love's
Martyr," p. 96, New Sh. Soc.).
MINTS.
(1) _Perdita._
Here's flowers for you;
Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (103).
(2) _Armado._
I am that flower,
_Dumain._
That Mint.
_Longaville._
That Columbine.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (661).
The Mints are a large family of highly-perfumed, strong-flavoured
plants, of which there are many British species, but too well known to
call for any further description.
MISTLETOE.
_Tamora._
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with Moss and baleful Mistletoe.
_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (94).
The Mistletoe was a sore puzzle to our ancestors, almost as great a
mystery as the Fern. While they admired its fresh, evergreen branches,
and pretty transparent fruit, and used it largely in the decoration of
their houses at Christmas, they looked on the plant with a certain awe.
Something of this, no doubt, arose from its traditional connection with
the Druids, which invested the plant with a semi-sacred character, as a
plant that could drive away evil spirits; yet it was also looked upon
with some suspicion, perhaps also arising from its use by our heathen
ancestors, so that, though admitted into houses, it was not (or very
seldom) admitted into churches. And this character so far still attaches
to the Mistletoe, that it is never allowed with the Holly and Ivy and
Box to decorate the churches, and Gay's lines were certainly written in
error--
"Now with bright Holly all the temples strow,
With Laurel green and sacred Mistletoe."
The mystery attaching to the Mistletoe arose from the ignorance as to
its production. It was supposed not to grow from its seeds, and how it
was produced was a fit subject for speculation and fable. Virgil tells
the story thus--
"Quale solet sylvis brumali frigore viscum
Fronde virere novâ, quod non sua seminat arbos,
Et croceo foetu teretes circumdare truncos."
_Æneid_, vi, 205.
In this way Virgil elegantly veils his ignorance, but his commentator in
the eighteenth century (Delphic Classics) tells the tale without any
doubts as to its truth. "Non nascitur e semine proprio arboris, at neque
ex insidentum volucrum fimo, ut putavere veteres, sed ex ipso arborum
vitali excremento." This was the opinion of the great Lord Bacon; he
ridiculed the idea that the Mistletoe was propagated by the operation of
a bird as an idle tradition, saying that the sap which produces the
plant is such as "the tree doth excerne and cannot assimilate," and
Browne ("Vulgar Errors") was of the same opinion. But the opposite
opinion was perpetuated in the very name ("Mistel: fimus, muck,"
Cockayne),[163:1] and was held without any doubt by most of the writers
in Shakespeare's time--
"Upon the oak, the plumb-tree and the holme,
The stock-dove and the blackbird should not come,
Whose mooting on the trees does make to grow
Rots-curing hyphear, and the Mistletoe."
BROWNE, _Brit. Past._ i, 1.
So that we need not blame Gerard when he boldly said that "this
excrescence hath not any roote, neither doth encrease himselfe of his
seed, as some have supposed, but it rather commethe of a certaine
moisture gathered together upon the boughes and joints of the trees,
through the barke whereof this vaporous moisture proceeding bringeth
forth the Misseltoe." We now know that it is produced exclusively from
the seeds probably lodged by the birds, and that it is easily grown and
cultivated. It will grow and has been found on almost any deciduous
tree, preferring those with soft bark, and growing very seldom on the
Oak.[163:2] Those who wish for full information upon the proportionate
distribution of the Mistletoe on different British trees will find a
good summary in "Notes and Queries," vol. iii. p. 226.
FOOTNOTES:
[163:1] "_Mistel_ est a _mist_ stercus, quod ex stercore avium
pronascitur, nec aliter pronasci potest."--WACHTER, _Glossary_ (quoted
in "Notes and Queries," 3rd series, vii. 157. In the same volume are
several papers on the origin of the word). Dr. Prior derives it from
_mistl_ (different), and _tan_ (twig), being so unlike the tree it grows
upon.
[163:2] Mistletoe growing on an oak had a special legendary value. Its
rarity probably gave it value in the eyes of the Druids, and much later
it had its mystic lore. "By sitting upon a hill late in a evening, near
a Wood, in a few nights a fire drake will appeare, mark where it
lighteth, and then you shall find an oake with Mistletoe thereon, at the
Root whereof there is a Misle-childe, whereof many strange things are
conceived. _Beati qui non crediderunt._"--PLAT., _Garden of Eden_, 1659,
No. 68.
MOSS.
(1) _Adriana._
If ought possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping Ivy, Brier, or idle Moss.
_Comedy of Errors_, act ii, sc. 2 (179).
(2) _Tamora._
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with Moss and baleful Mistletoe.
_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (94).
(3) _Apemantus._
These Moss'd trees
That have outlived the eagle.
_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (223).
(4) _Hotspur._
Steeples and Moss-grown towers.
_1st Henry IV_, act iii, sc. 1 (33).
(5) _Oliver._
Under an Oak whose boughs were Moss'd with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity.
_As You Like It_, act iv, sc. 3 (105).
(6) _Arviragus._
The ruddock would,
With charitable bill,
* * * * *
bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr'd Moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.
_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (224).[164:1]
If it were not for the pretty notice of Moss in the last passage (6), we
should be inclined to say that Shakespeare had as little regard for
"idle Moss" as for the "baleful Mistletoe." In his day Moss included all
the low-growing and apparently flowerless carpet plants which are now
divided into the many families of Mosses, Lichens, Club Mosses,
Hepaticæ, Jungermanniæ, &c., &c. And these plants, though holding no
rank in the eyes of a florist, are yet deeply interesting, perhaps no
family of plants more so, to those who have time and patience to study
them. The Club Mosses, indeed, may claim a place in the garden if they
can only be induced to grow, but that is a difficult task, and the
tenderer Lycopodiums are always favourites when well grown among