The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
realme, he, whatsoever he were that might bring it about, might deserve
immortal fame in this our Commonwealth, and such a devise was offered to
Parliament and refused, because they denied to allow him a certain
liberty, some others having obtained the same before that practised to
work that effect by Radish seed, which onely made a trial of small
quantity, and that went no further to make that oile in plenty, and now
he that offered this devise was a merchant, and is dead, and withal the
devise is dead with him" ("Voiages," vol. ii.).
The Radish is not a native of Britain, but was probably introduced by
the Romans, and was well-known to the Anglo-Saxon gardener under its
present name, but with a closer approach to the Latin, being called
Rædic, or Radiolle.[237:1]
A curious testimony to the former high reputation of the Radish survives
in the "Annual Radish Feast at Levens Hall, a custom dating from time
immemorial, and supposed by some to be a relic of feudal times, held on
May 12th at Levens Hall, the seat of the Hon. Mrs. Howard, and adjoining
the high road about midway between Kendal and Milnthorpe. Tradition hath
it that the Radish feast arose out of a rivalry between the families of
Levens Hall and Dallam Tower, as to which should entertain the
Corporation with their friends and followers, and in which Levens Hall
eventually carried the palm. The feast is provided on the bowling green
in front of the Hall, where several long tables are plentifully spread
with Radishes and brown bread and butter, the tables being repeatedly
furnished with guests" ("Gardener's Chronicle").
FOOTNOTES:
[237:1] "Catholicon Anglicum."
RAISINS.
_Clown._
Four pounds of Prunes and as many of Raisins o' the sun.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (51).
Raisins are alluded to, if not actually named, in "1st Henry IV.," act
ii, sc. 4, when Falstaff says: "If reasons were as plentiful as
Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I----" "It
seems that a pun underlies this, the association of reasons with
Blackberries springing out of the fact that _reasons_ sounded like
_raisins_."--EARLE, _Philology_, &c.
Bearing in mind that Raisin is a corruption of _racemus_, a bunch of
Grapes, we can understand that the word was not always applied, as it is
now, to the dried fruit, but was sometimes applied to the bunch of
Grapes as it hung ripe on the tree--
"For no man at the firste stroke
He may not felle down an Oke;
Nor of the Reisins have the wyne
Till Grapes be ripe and welle afyne."
_Romaunt of the Rose._
The best dried fruit were Raisins of the sun, _i.e._, dried in the sun,
to distinguish them from those which were dried in ovens. They were, of
course, foreign fruit, and were largely imported. The process of drying
in the sun is still the method in use, at least, with "the finer kinds,
such as Muscatels, which are distinguished as much by the mode of drying
as by the variety and soil in which they are grown, the finest being
dried on the Vines before gathering, the stalk being partly cut through
when the fruits are ripe, and the leaves being removed from near the
clusters, so as to allow the full effect of the sun in ripening."
The Grape thus becomes a Raisin, but it is still further transformed
when it reaches the cook; it then becomes a Plum, for Plum pudding has,
as we all know, Raisins for its chief ingredient and certainly no Plums;
and the Christmas pie into which Jack Horner put in his thumb and pulled
out a Plum must have been a mince-pie, also made of Raisins; but how a
cooked Raisin came to be called a Plum is not recorded. In Devonshire
and Dorsetshire it undergoes a further transformation, for there Raisins
are called Figs, and a Plum pudding is called a Fig pudding.
REEDS.
(1) _2nd Servant._
I had as lief have a Reed that will do me no service, as a
partizan I could not heave.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii, sc. 7 (13).
(2) _Arviragus._
Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the Reed is as the Oak;
The sceptre, learning, physick, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (264).
(3) _Ariel._
His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of Reeds.
_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (16).
(4) _Ariel._
With hair up-staring--then like Reeds, not hair--
_Ibid._, act i, sc. 2 (213).
(5) _Hotspur._
Swift Severn's flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling Reeds.
_1st Henry IV_, act 1, sc. 3 (103).
(6) _Portia._
And speak between the change of man and boy
With a Reed voice.
_Merchant of Venice_, act iii, sc. 4 (66).
(7) _Wooer._
In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace
From the far shore thick set with Reeds and Sedges.
* * * * *
The Rushes and the Reeds
Had so encompast it.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (71, 80).
(8)
To Simois' Reedy banks the red blood ran.
_Lucrece_ (1437).
Reed is a general term for almost any water-loving, grassy plant, and so
it is used by Shakespeare. In the Bible it is perhaps possible to
identify some of the Reeds mentioned, with the Sugar Cane in some
places, with the Papyrus in others, and in others with the Arundo donax.
As a Biblical plant it has a special interest, not only as giving the
emblem of the tenderest mercy that will be careful even of "the bruised
Reed," but also as entering largely into the mockery of the Crucifixion:
"They put a Reed in His right hand," and "they filled a sponge full of
vinegar, and put it upon a Reed and gave Him to drink." The Reed in
these passages was probably the Arundo donax, a very elegant Reed, which
was used for many purposes in Palestine, and is a most graceful plant
for English gardens, being perfectly hardy, and growing every year from
12ft. to 14ft. in height, but very seldom flowering.[240:1]
But in Shakespeare, as in most writers, the Reed is simply the emblem of
weakness, tossed about by and bending to a superior force, and of little
or no use--"a Reed that will do me no service" (No. 1). It is also the
emblem of the blessedness of submission, and of the power that lies in
humility to outlast its oppressor--
"Like as in tempest great,
Where wind doth bear the stroke,
Much safer stands the bowing Reed
Then doth the stubborn Oak."
Shakespeare mentions but two uses to which the Reed was applied, the
thatching of houses (No. 3), and the making of Pan or Shepherd's pipes
(No. 6). Nor has he anything to say of its beauty, yet the Reeds of our
river sides (_Arundo phragmites_) are most graceful plants, especially
when they have their dark plumes of flowers, and this Milton seems to
have felt--
"Forth flourish't thick the flustering Vine, forth crept
The swelling Gourd, up stood the Cornie Reed
Embattled in her field."
_Paradise Lost_, book vii.
FOOTNOTES:
[240:1] I have only been able to find one record of the flowering of
Arundo donax in England--"Mem: Arundo donax in flower, 15th September,
1762, the first time I ever saw it, but this very hot dry summer has
made many exotics flower. . . . It bears a handsome tassel of
flowers."--P. COLLINSON'S _Hortus Collinsonianus_.
RHUBARB.
_Macbeth._
What Rhubarb, Cyme, or what purgative drug
Would scour these English hence?
_Macbeth_, act v, sc. 3 (55).
Andrew Boorde writing from Spayne in 1535, to Thomas Cromwell, says, "I
have sent to your Mastershipp the seeds of Reuberbe the whiche come
forth of Barbary in this parte ytt ys had for a grett tresure."[241:1]
But the plant does not seem to have become established and Shakespeare
could only have known the imported drug, for the Rheum was first grown
by Parkinson, though it had been described in an uncertain way both by
Lyte and Gerard. Lyte said: "Rha, as it is thought, hath great broad
leaves;" and then he says: "We have found here in the gardens of
certaine diligent herboristes that strange plant which is thought by
some to be Rha or Rhabarbum;" but from the figure it is very certain
that the plant was not a Rheum. After the time of Parkinson, it was
largely grown for the sake of producing the drug, and it is still grown
in England to some extent for the same purpose, chiefly in the
neighbourhood of Banbury; though it is doubtful whether any of the
species now grown in England are the true species that has long produced
Turkey Rhubarb. The plant is now grown most extensively as a spring
vegetable, though I cannot find when it first began to be so used.
Parkinson evidently tried it and thought well of it. "The leaves have a
fine acid taste; a syrup, therefore, made with the juice and sugar
cannot but be very effectual in dejected appetites." Yet even in 1807
Professor Martyn, the editor of "Millar's Dictionary," in a long article
on the Rhubarb, makes no mention of its culinary qualities, but in 1822
Phillips speaks of it as largely cultivated for spring tarts, and forced
for the London markets, "medical men recommending it as one of the most
cooling and wholesome tarts sent to table."
As a garden plant the Rhubarb is highly ornamental, though it is seldom
seen out of the kitchen garden, but where room can be given to them,
Rheum palmatum or Rheum officinale, will always be admired as some of
the handsomest of foliage plants. The finest species of the family is
the Himalayan Rheum nobile, but it is exceedingly difficult to grow.
Botanically the Rhubarb is allied to the Dock and Sorrel, and all the
species are herbaceous.
FOOTNOTES:
[241:1] Quoted in Furnival's forewords to Boorde's "Introduction to
Knowledge," p. 56.
RICE.
_Clown._
Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast?
Three pound of sugar, five pound of Currants, Rice----What
will this sister of mine do with Rice?[242:1]
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (38).
Shakespeare may have had no more acquaintance with Rice than his
knowledge of the imported grain, which seems to have been long ago
introduced into England, for in a Nominale of the fifteenth century we
have "Hoc risi, indeclinabile, Ryse." And in the "Promptorium
Parvulorum," "Ryce, frute. Risia, vel risi, n. indecl. secundum quosdam,
vel risium, vel risorum granum (rizi vel granum Indicum)." Turner was
acquainted with it: "Ryse groweth plentuously in watery myddowes between
Myllane and Pavia."[242:2] And Shakespeare may have seen the plant, for
Gerard grew it in his London garden, though "the floure did not show
itselfe by reason of the injurie of our unseasonable yeare 1596." It is
a native of Africa, and was soon transferred to Europe as a nourishing
and wholesome grain, especially for invalids--"sume hoc ptisanarium
oryzæ," says the doctor to his patient in Horace, and it is mentioned
both by Dioscorides and Theophrastus. It has been occasionally grown in
England as a curiosity, but seldom comes to any perfection out-of-doors,
as it requires a mixture of moisture and heat that we cannot easily give