The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
production of pitch, tar, resin, and turpentine--were well known and
valued. Shakespeare mentions both pitch and tar.
FOOTNOTES:
[208:1] For many examples see "Catholicon Anglicum," s.v. Pyne-Tree,
with note.
[208:2] The West Indian Pine Apple is described by Gerard as "Ananas,
the Pinea, or Pine Thistle."
PINKS.
(1) _Romeo._
A most courteous exposition.
_Mercutio._
Nay, I am the very Pink of courtesy.
_Romeo._
Pink for flower.
_Mercutio._
Right.
_Romeo._
Why, then is my pump well flowered.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 4 (60).
(2) _Maiden._
Pinks of odour faint.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.
To these may perhaps be added the following, from the second verse sung
by Mariana in "Measure for Measure," act iv, sc. 1 (337)--
Hide, oh hide, those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears!
On whose tops the Pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears.
The authority is doubtful, but it is attributed to Shakespeare in some
editions of his poems.
The Pink or Pincke was, as now, the name of the smaller sorts of
Carnations, and was generally applied to the single sorts. It must have
been a very favourite flower, as we may gather from the phrase "Pink of
courtesy," which means courtesy carried to its highest point; and from
Spenser's pretty comparison--
"Her lovely eyes like Pincks but newly spred."
_Amoretti_, Sonnet 64.
The name has a curious history. It is not, as most of us would suppose,
derived from the colour, but the colour gets its name from the plant.
The name (according to Dr. Prior) comes through _Pinksten_ (German),
from Pentecost, and so was originally applied to one species--the
Whitsuntide Gilliflower. From this it was applied to other species of
the same family. It is certainly "a curious accident," as Dr. Prior
observes, "that a word that originally meant 'fiftieth' should come to
be successively the name of a festival of the Church, of a flower, of an
ornament in muslin called _pinking_, of a colour, and of a sword stab."
Shakespeare uses the word in three of its senses. First, as applied to a
colour--
Come, thou monarch of the Vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with Pink eyne.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii, sc. 7.[210:1]
Second, as applied to an ornament of dress in Romeo's person--
Then is my pump well flowered;
_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 4.
_i.e._, well pinked. And in Grumio's excuses to Petruchio for the
non-attendance of the servants--
Nathaniel's coat, Sir, was not fully made,
And Gabriel's pumps were all unpinked
I' the heel.
_Taming of the Shrew_, act iv, sc. 1.
And thirdly, as the pinked ornament in muslin--
There's a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that
railed upon me till her Pink'd porringer fell off her head.
_Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 3.
And as applied to the flower in the passage quoted above. He also uses
it in another sense--
This Pink is one of Cupid's carriers;
Clap on more sail--pursue!
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act ii, sc. 7.
where pink means a small country vessel often mentioned under that name
by writers of the sixteenth century.
FOOTNOTES:
[210:1] It is very probable that this does not refer to the
colour--"Pink = winking, half-shut."--SCHMIDT. And see Nares, s.v. Pinke
eyne.
PIONY.
_Iris._
Thy banks with Pioned and twilled brims,
Which spongy April at thy best betrims,
To make cold nymphs chaste crowns.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (65).
There is much dispute about this passage, the dispute turning on the
question whether "Pioned" has reference to the Peony flower or not. The
word by some is supposed to mean only "digged," and it doubtless often
had this meaning,[211:1] though the word is now obsolete, and only
survives with us in "pioneer," which, in Shakespeare's time, meant
"digger" only, and not as now, "one who goes before to prepare the
way"--thus Hamlet--
Well said, old mole! cans't work i' the earth so fast?
A worthy pioner?
_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 5 (161).
and again--
There might you see the labouring pioner
Begrim'd with sweat, and smeared all with dust.
_Lucrece_ (1380).
But this reading seems very tame, tame in itself, and doubly tame when
taken in connection with the context, and "Certainly savours more of the
commentators' prose than of Shakespeare's poetry" ("Edinburgh Review,"
1872, p. 363). I shall assume, therefore, that the flower is meant,
spelt in the form of "Piony," instead of Peony or Pæony.[211:2]
The Pæony (_P. corallina_) is sometimes allowed a place in the British
flora, having been found apparently wild at the Steep Holmes in the
Bristol Channel and a few other places, but it is now considered
certain that in all these places it is a garden escape. Gerard gave one
such habitat: "The male Peionie groweth wilde upon a Coneyberry in
Betsome, being in the parish of Southfleet, in Kent, two miles from
Gravesend, and in the ground sometimes belonging to a farmer there,
called John Bradley;" but on this his editor adds the damaging note: "I
have been told that our author himselfe planted that Peionee there, and
afterwards seemed to find it there by accident; and I do believe it was
so, because none before or since have ever seen or heard of it growing
wild since in any part of this kingdome."
But though not a native plant, it had been cultivated in England long
before Shakespeare's and Gerard's time. It occurs in most of the old
vocabularies from the tenth century downwards, and in Shakespeare's time
the English gardens had most of the European species that are now grown,
including also the handsome double-red and white varieties. Since his
time the number of species and varieties has been largely increased by
the addition of the Chinese and Japanese species, and by the labours of
the French nurserymen, who have paid more attention to the flower than
the English.
In the hardy flower garden there is no more showy family than the Pæony.
They have flowers of many colours, from almost pure white and pale
yellow to the richest crimson; and they vary very much in their foliage,
most of them having large fleshy leaves, "not much unlike the leaves of
the Walnut tree," but some of them having their leaves finely cut and
divided almost like the leaves of Fennel (_P. tenuifolia_). They further
vary in that some are herbaceous, disappearing entirely in winter, while
others, Moutan or Tree Pæonies, are shrubs; and in favourable seasons,
when the shrub is not injured by spring frosts, there is no grander
shrub than an old Tree Pæony in full flower.
Of the many different species the best are the Moutans, which, according
to Chinese tradition, have been grown in China for 1500 years, and which
are now produced in great variety of colour; P. corallina, for the
beauty of its coral-like seeds; P. Cretica, for its earliness in
flowering; P. tenuifolia, single and double, for its elegant foliage; P.
Whitmaniana, for its pale yellow but very fleeting flowers, which,
before they are fully expanded, have all the appearance of immense
Globe-flowers (_trollius_); P. lobata, for the wonderful richness of its
bright crimson flowers; and P. Whitleji, a very old and very double form
of P. edulis, of great size, and most delicate pink and white colour.
FOOTNOTES:
[211:1]
"Which to outbarre, with painful pyonings,
From sea to sea, he heapt a mighty mound!"
SPENSER, _F. Q._, ii, 10, 46.
[211:2] The name was variously spelt, _e.g._--
"And other trees there was mane one
The Pyany, the Poplar, and the Plane."
_The Squyr of Lowe Degre_, 39.
"The pretie Pinke and purple Pianet."
CUTWODE, _Caltha Poetarum_, 1599, st. 24.
"A Pyon (Pyion A.) dionia, herba est."--_Catholicon Anglicum._
PIPPIN, _see_ APPLE.
PLANE.
_Daughter._
I have sent him where a Cedar,
Higher than all the rest, spreads like a Plane
Fast by a brook.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act ii, sc. 6 (4).
There is no certain record how long the Plane has been introduced into
England; it is certainly not a native tree, nor even an European tree,
but came from the East, and was largely planted and much admired both by
the Greeks and Romans. We know from Pliny that it was growing in France
in his day on the part opposite Britain, and the name occurs in the old
vocabularies. But from Turner's evidence in 1548 it must have been a
very scarce tree in the sixteenth century. He says: "I never saw any
Plaine tree in Englande, saving once in Northumberlande besyde Morpeth,
and an other at Barnwell Abbey besyde Cambryge." And more than a hundred
years later Evelyn records a special visit to Lee to inspect one as a
great curiosity. The Plane is not only a very handsome tree, and a fast
grower, but from the fact that it yearly sheds its bark it has become
one of the most useful trees for growing in towns. The wood is of very
little value. To the emblem writers the Plane was an example of
something good to the eye, but of no real use. Camerarius so moralizes
it (Pl. xix.), and, quoting Virgil's "steriles platanos," he says of it,
"umbram non fructum platanus dat."
PLANTAIN.
(1) _Costard._
O sir, Plantain, a plain Plantain! no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no
salve, sir, but a Plantain.
* * * * *
_Moth._
By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
Then call'd you for the l'envoy.
_Costard._
True! and I for a Plantain.
_Loves Labour's Lost_, act iii, sc. 1 (76).
(2) _Romeo._
Your Plantain leaf is excellent for that.
_Benvolio._
For what, I pray thee?
_Romeo._
For your broken shin.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 2 (52).
(3) _Troilus._
As true as steel, as Plantage to the moon.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act iii, sc. 2 (184).
(4) _Palamon._
These poore slight sores
Neede not a Plantin.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act i, sc. 2 (65).
The most common old names for the Plantain were Waybroad (corrupted to
Weybread, Wayborn, and Wayforn) and Ribwort. It was also called
Lamb's-tongue and Kemps, while the flower spike with the stalk was
called Cocks and Cockfighters (still so called by children).[214:1] The
old name of Ribwort was derived from the ribbed leaves, while Waybroad
marked its universal appearance, scattered by all roadsides and
pathways, and literally bred by the wayside. It has a similar name in
German, Wegetritt, that is Waytread; and on this account the Swedes name
the plant Wagbredblad, and the Indians of North America Whiteman's Foot,
for it springs up near every new settlement, having sprung up after the
English settlers, not only in America, but also in Australia and New
Zealand--
"Whereso'er they move, before them
Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo,
Swarms the bee, the honey-maker:
Wheresoe'er they tread, beneath them
Springs a flower unknown among us,