The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
Briar, but unlike other Roses, it gives out its scent of its own accord
and unsought, and chiefly in the evening, so that if the window of a
bedroom near which this rose is trained is left open, the scent will
soon be perceived in the room. This peculiarity did not escape the
notice of Lord Bacon. "Because the breath of flowers," he says, "is far
sweeter in the air (when it comes and goes like the warbling of music)
than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to
know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses,
damask and red, are fast flowers of their smells, so that you may walk
by a whole row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness, yea, though
it be in a morning's dew. Bays, likewise, yield no smell as they grow,
Rosemary little, nor Sweet Marjoram; that which above all others yields
the sweetest smell in the air is the Violet, especially the white double
Violet which comes twice a year, about the middle of April, and about
Bartholomew-tide; next to that is the Musk-rose."--_Essay of Gardens._
The Roses mentioned in Nos. 34, 51, and 52 as a mixture of red and white
must have been the mottled or variegated Roses, commonly called the York
and Lancaster Roses;[253:1] these are old Roses, and very probably
quite as old as the sixteenth century. There are two varieties: in one
each petal is blotched with white and pink; this is the R. versicolor of
Parkinson, and is a variety of R. Damascena; in the other most of the
petals are white, but with a mixture of pink petals; this is the Rosa
mundi or Gloria mundi, and is a variety of R. Gallica.
These, with the addition of the Eglantine or Sweet Brier (_see_
EGLANTINE), are the only Roses that Shakespeare directly names, and they
were the chief sorts grown in his time, but not the only sorts; and to
what extent Roses were cultivated in Shakespeare's time we have a
curious proof in the account of the grant of Ely Place, in Holborn, the
property of the Bishops of Ely. "The tenant was Sir Christopher Hatton
(Queen Elizabeth's handsome Lord Chancellor) to whom the greater portion
of the house was let in 1576 for the term of twenty-one years. The rent
was a Red Rose, ten loads of hay, and ten pounds per annum; Bishop Cox,
on whom this hard bargain was forced by the Queen, reserving to himself
and his successors the right of walking in the gardens, and gathering
twenty bushels of Roses yearly."--CUNNINGHAM. We have records also of
the garden cultivation of the Rose in London long before Shakespeare's
time. "In the Earl of Lincoln's garden in Holborn in 24 Edw. I., the
only flowers named are Roses, of which a quantity was sold, producing
three shillings and twopence."--HUDSON TURNER.
My space forbids me to enter more largely into any account of these old
species, or to say much of the many very interesting points in the
history of the Rose, but two or three points connected with
Shakespeare's Roses must not be passed over. First, its name. He says
through Juliet (No. 36) that the Rose by any other name would smell as
sweet. But the whole world is against him. Rose was its old Latin name
corrupted from its older Greek name, and the same name, with slight and
easily-traced differences, has clung to it in almost all European
countries.
Shakespeare also mentions its uses in Rose-water and Rose-cakes, and it
was only natural to suppose that a flower so beautiful and so sweet was
meant by Nature to be of great use to man. Accordingly we find that
wonderful virtues were attributed to it,[255:1] and an especial virtue
was attributed to the dewdrops that settled on the full-blown Rose.
Shakespeare alludes to these in Nos. 22 and 27; and from these were made
cosmetics only suited to the most extravagant.
"The water that did spryng from ground
She would not touch at all,
But washt her hands with dew of Heaven
That on sweet Roses fall."
_The Lamentable Fall of Queen Ellinor._--Roxburghe Ballads.
And as with their uses, so it was also with their history. Such a flower
must have a high origin, and what better origin than the pretty mediæval
legend told to us by Sir John Mandeville?--"At Betheleim is the Felde
_Floridus_, that is to seyne, the _Feld florisched_; for als moche as a
fayre mayden was blamed with wrong and sclaundered, for whiche cause
sche was demed to the Dethe, and to be brent in that place, to the
whiche she was ladd; and as the Fyre began to brent about hire, sche
made hire preyeres to oure Lord, that als wissely as sche was not gylty
of that Synne, that He wolde helpe hire and make it to be knowen to alle
men, of his mercyfulle grace. And when sche hadde thus seyd, sche
entered into the Fuyr; and anon was the Fuyr quenched and oute; and the
Brondes that weren brennynge becomen red Roseres, and the Brondes that
weren not kyndled becomen white Roseres, full of Roses. And these weren
the first Roseres and Roses, both white and rede, that evere ony man
saughe."--_Voiage and Travaile_, cap. vi.
With this pretty legend I may well conclude the account of Shakespeare's
Roses, commending, however, M. Biron's sensible remarks on unseasonable
flowers (No. 26) to those who estimate the beauty of a flower or
anything else in proportion to its being produced out of its natural
season.
FOOTNOTES:
[244:1] This was a familiar idea with the old writers: "Therefore,
sister Bud, grow wise by my folly, and know it is far greater happinesse
to lose thy virginity in a good hand than to wither on the stalk whereon
thou growest."--THOMAS FULLER, _Antheologia_, p. 32. (See also Chester's
"Cantoes," No. 13, p. 137, New Shak. Soc.)
[245:1] "Non vivunt contra naturam, qui hieme concupiscunt
rosas?"--SENECA, _Ep._ 122.
[250:1] We have an old record of the existence of large double Roses in
Asia by Herodotus, who tells us, that in a part of Macedonia were the
so-called gardens of Midas, in which grew native Roses, each one having
sixty petals, and of a scent surpassing all others ("Hist.," viii. 138).
[252:1] The Damask Rose was imported into England at an earlier date but
probably only as a drug. It is mentioned in a "Bill of Medicynes
furnished for the use of Edward I., 1306-7: 'Item pro aqua rosata de
Damasc,' lb. xl, iiii_li._"--_Archæological Journal_, vol. xiv. 271.
[253:1] The York and Lancaster Roses were a frequent subject for the
epigram writers; and gave occasion for one of the happiest of English
epigrams. On presenting a White Rose to a Lancastrian lady--
"If this fair Rose offend thy sight,
It in thy bosom wear;
'Twill blush to find itself less white,
And turn Lancastrian there."
[255:1] "A Rose beside his beauty is a cure."--G. HERBERT, _Providence_.
ROSEMARY.
(1) _Perdita._
Reverend Sirs,
For you there's Rosemary and Rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long;
Grace and remembrance be to you both.[256:1]
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (73).
(2) _Bawd._
Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with Rosemary and bays.
_Pericles_, act iv, sc. 6 (159).
(3) _Edgar._
Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices
Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, and sprigs of Rosemary.
_Lear_, act ii, sc. 3 (14).
(4) _Ophelia._
There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember.
_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 5 (175).
(5) _Nurse._
Doth not Rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?
_Romeo._
Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.
_Nurse._
Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for the ----.
No; I know it begins with some other
letter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious
of it, of you and Rosemary, that it would do you
good to hear it.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 4 (219).
(6) _Friar._
Dry up your tears, and stick your Rosemary
On this fair corse.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 5 (79).
The Rosemary is not a native of Britain, but of the sea-coast of the
South of Europe, where it is very abundant. It was very early introduced
into England, and is mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon Herbarium under its
Latin name of Ros marinus, and is there translated by Bothen, _i.e._
Thyme; also in an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the eleventh century, where
it is translated Feld-madder and Sun-dew. In these places our present
plant may or may not be meant, but there is no doubt that it is the one
referred to in an ancient English poem of the fourteenth century, on the
virtues of herbs, published in Wright and Halliwell's "Reliquiæ
Antiquæ." The account of "The Gloriouse Rosemaryne" is long, but the
beginning and ending are worth quoting--
"This herbe is callit Rosemaryn
Of vertu that is gode and fyne;
But alle the vertues tell I ne cane,
No I trawe no erthely man.
* * * * *
Of thys herbe telles Galiene
That in hys contree was a quene,
Gowtus and Crokyt as he hath tolde,
And eke sexty yere olde;
Sor and febyl, where men hyr sey
Scho semyth wel for to dey;
Of Rosmaryn scho toke sex po[=w]de,
And grownde hyt wel in a stownde,
And bathed hir threyes everi day,
Nine mowthes, as I herde say,
And afterwarde anoynitte wel hyr hede
With good bame as I rede;
Away fel alle that olde flessche,
And yo[=w]ge i-sprong tender and nessche;
So fresshe to be scho then began
Scho coveytede couplede be to man." (Vol. i, 196).
We can now scarcely understand the high favour in which Rosemary was
formerly held; we are accustomed to see it neglected, or only tolerated
in some corner of the kitchen garden, and not often tolerated there. But
it was very different in Shakespeare's time, when it was in high favour
for its evergreen leaves and fine aromatic scent, remaining a long time
after picking, so long, indeed, that both leaves and scent were almost
considered everlasting. This was its great charm, and so Spenser spoke
of it as "the cheerful Rosemarie" and "refreshing Rosemarine," and good
Sir Thomas More had a great affection for it. "As for Rosemarine," he
said, "I lett it run alle over my garden walls, not onlie because my
bees love it, but because tis the herb sacred to remembrance, and
therefore to friendship; whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language that
maketh it the chosen emblem at our funeral wakes and in our buriall
grounds." And Parkinson gives a similar account of its popularity as a
garden plant: "Being in every woman's garden, it were sufficient but to
name it as an ornament among other sweet herbs and flowers in our
gardens. In this our land, where it hath been planted in noblemen's and
great men's gardens against brick walls, and there continued long, it
riseth up in time unto a very great height, with a great and woody stem
of that compasse that, being cloven out into boards, it hath served to
make lutes or such like instruments, and here with us carpenters' rules
and to divers others purposes." It was the favourite evergreen wherever
the occasion required an emblem of constancy and perpetual remembrance,
such especially as weddings and funerals, at both of which it was
largely used; and so says Herrick of "The Rosemarie Branch"--
"Grow for two ends, it matters not at all,
Be't for my bridall or my buriall."
Its use at funerals was very widespread, for Laurembergius records a