The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare

* * * * * Nay, but hark you, Francis; for the Sugar thou gavest me, 'twas a pennyworth, was't not? _1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (23, 31, 64). (2) _Biron._ White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee. _Princess._ Honey, and Milk, and Sugar, there is three. _Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (230). (3) _Quickly._ And in such wine and Sugar of the best and the fairest, that would have won any woman's heart. _Merry Wives_, act ii, sc. 2 (70). (4) _Bassanio._ Here are sever'd lips Parted with Sugar breath; so sweet a bar Should sunder such sweet friends. _Merchant of Venice_, act iii, sc. 2 (118). (5) _Touchstone._ Honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to Sugar. _As You Like It_, act iii, sc. 2 (30). (6) _Northumberland._ Your fair discourse hath been as Sugar, Making the hard way sweet and delectable. _Richard II_, act ii, sc. 3 (6). (7) _Clown._ Let me see,--what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of Sugar, five pound of Currants. _Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (39). (8) _K. Henry._ You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a Sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council. _Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (401). (9) _Queen Margaret._ Poor painted Queen, vain flourish of my fortune! Why strew'st thou Sugar on that bottled spider, Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about? _Richard III_, act i, sc. 3 (241). (10) _Gloucester._ Your grace attended to their Sugar'd words, But look'd not on the poison of their hearts. _Richard III_, act iii, sc. 1 (13). (11) _Polonius._ We are oft to blame in this-- Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage And pious actions we do Sugar o'er The devil himself. _Hamlet_, act iii, sc. 1 (46). (12) _Brabantio._ These sentences, to Sugar, or to gall, Being strong on both sides, are equivocal. _Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (216). (13) _Timon._ And never learn'd The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd The Sugar'd game before thee. _Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (257). (14) _Pucelle._ By fair persuasion mix'd with Sugar'd words We will entice the Duke of Burgundy. _1st Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 3 (18). (15) _K. Henry._ Hide not thy poison with such Sugar'd words. _2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (45). (16) _Prince Henry._ One poor pennyworth of Sugar-candy, to make thee long-winded. _1st Henry IV_, act iii, sc. 3 (180). (17) Thy Sugar'd tongue to bitter Wormwood taste. _Lucrece_ (893). As a pure vegetable product, though manufactured, Sugar cannot be passed over in an account of the plants of Shakespeare; but it will not be necessary to say much about it. Yet the history of the migrations of the Sugar-plant is sufficiently interesting to call for a short notice. Its original home seems to have been in the East Indies, whence it was imported in very early times. It is probably the "sweet cane" of the Bible; and among classical writers it is named by Strabo, Lucan, Varro, Seneca, Dioscorides, and Pliny. The plant is said to have been introduced into Europe during the Crusades, and to have been cultivated in the Morea, Rhodes, Malta, Sicily, and Spain.[286:1] By the Spaniards it was taken first to Madeira and the Cape de Verd Islands, and, very soon after the discovery of America, to the West Indies. There it soon grew rapidly, and increased enormously, and became a chief article of commerce, so that though we now almost look upon it as entirely a New World plant, it is in fact but a stranger there, that has found a most congenial home. In 1468 the price of Sugar was sixpence a pound, equal to six shillings of our money,[287:1] but in Shakespeare's time it must have been very common,[287:2] or it could not so largely have worked its way into the common English language and proverbial expressions; and it must also have been very cheap, or it could not so entirely have superseded the use of honey, which in earlier times was the only sweetening material. Shakespeare may have seen the living plant, for it was grown as a curiosity in his day, though Gerard could not succeed with it: "Myself did plant some shootes thereof in my garden, and some in Flanders did the like, but the coldness of our clymate made an end of myne, and I think the Flemmings will have the like profit of their labour." But he bears testimony to the large use of Sugar in his day; "of the juice of the reede is made the most pleasant and profitable sweet called Sugar, whereof is made infinite confections, sirupes, and such like, as also preserving and conserving of sundrie fruits, herbes and flowers, as roses, violets, rosemary flowers and such like." FOOTNOTES: [286:1] "It is the juice of certain canes or reedes whiche growe most plentifully in the Ilandes of Madera, Sicilia, Cyprus, Rhodus and Candy. It is made by art in boyling of the Canes, much like as they make their white salt in the Witches in Cheshire."--COGHAN, _Haven of Health_, 1596, p. 110. [287:1] "Babee's Book," xxx. [287:2] It is mentioned by Chaucer-- "Gyngerbred that was so fyn. And licorys and eek comyn With Sugre that is trye."--_Tale of Sir Thopas._ SWEET MARJORAM, _see_ MARJORAM. SYCAMORE. (1) _Desdemona_ (singing). The poor soul sat sighing by a Sycamore tree. _Othello_, act iv, sc. 3 (41). (2) _Benvolio._ Underneath the grove of Sycamore That westward rooteth from the city's side, So early walking did I see your son. _Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 1 (130). (3) _Boyet._ Under the cool shade of a Sycamore I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour. _Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (89). In its botanical relationship, the Sycamore is closely allied to the Maple, and was often called the Great Maple, and is still so called in Scotland. It is not indigenous in Great Britain, but it has long been naturalized among us, and has taken so kindly to our soil and climate that it is one of our commonest trees. It is one of the best of forest trees for resisting wind; it "scorns to be biassed in its mode of growth even by the prevailing wind, but shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no weatherside to the storm, and may be broken, but never can be bended."-_Old Mortality_, c. i. The history of the name is curious. The Sycomore, or Zicamine tree of the Bible and of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, is the Fig-mulberry, a large handsome tree indigenous in Africa and Syria, and largely planted, partly for the sake of its fruit, and especially for the delicious shade it gives. With this tree the early English writers were not acquainted, but they found the name in the Bible, and applied it to any shade-giving tree. Thus in Ælfric's Vocabulary in the tenth century it is given to the Aspen--"Sicomorus vel celsa æps." Chaucer gives the name to some hedge shrub, but he probably used it for any thick shrub, without any very special distinction-- "The hedge also that yedde in compas And closed in all the greene herbere With Sicamour was set and Eglateere, Wrethen in fere so well and cunningly That every branch and leafe grew by measure Plaine as a bord, of an height by and by." _The Flower and the Leaf._ Our Sycamore would be very ill suited to make the sides and roof of an arbour, but before the time of Shakespeare it seems certain that the name was attached to our present tree, and it is so called by Gerard and Parkinson. The Sycamore is chiefly planted for its rapid growth rather than for its beauty. It becomes a handsome tree when fully grown, but as a young tree it is stiff and heavy, and at all times it is so infested with honeydew as to make it unfit for planting on lawns or near paths. It grows well in the north, where other trees will not well flourish, and "we frequently meet with the tree apart in the fields, or unawares in remote localities amidst the Lammermuirs and the Cheviots, where it is the surviving witness of the former existence of a hamlet there. Hence to the botanical rambler it has a more melancholy character than the Yew. It throws him back on past days, when he who planted the tree was the owner of the land and of the Hall, and whose name and race are forgotten even by tradition. . . . And there is reasonable pride in the ancestry when a grove of old gentlemanly Sycamores still shadows the Hall."--JOHNSTON. But these old Sycamores were not planted only for beauty: they were sometimes planted for a very unpleasant use. "They were used by the most powerful barons in the West of Scotland for hanging their enemies and refractory vassals on, and for this reason were called _dool_ or grief trees. Of these there are three yet standing, the most memorable being one near the fine old castle of Cassilis, one of the seats of the Marquis of Ailsa, on the banks of the River Doon. It was used by the family of Kennedy, who were the most powerful barons of the West of Scotland, for the purpose above mentioned."--JOHNS. The wood of the Sycamore is useful for turning and a few other purposes, but is not very durable. The sap, as in all the Maples, is full of sugar, and the pollen is very curious; "it appears globular in the microscope, but if it be touched with anything moist, the globules burst open with four valves, and then they appear in the form of a cross."--MILLER. THISTLE (_see also_ HOLY THISTLE). (1) _Burgundy._ And nothing teems But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs. _Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (51). (2) _Bottom._ Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons ready in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble bee on the top of a Thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (10). Thistle is the old English name for a large family of plants occurring chiefly in Europe and Asia, of which we have fourteen species in Great Britain, arranged under the botanical families of Carlina, Carduus, and Onopordon. It is the recognized symbol of untidiness and carelessness, being found not so much in barren ground as in good ground not properly cared for. So good a proof of a rich soil does the Thistle give, that a saying is attributed to a blind man who was choosing a piece of land--"Take me to a Thistle;" and Tusser says-- "Much wetnes, hog-rooting, and land out of hart makes Thistles a number foorthwith to upstart. If Thistles so growing proove lustie and long, It signifieth land to be hartie and strong."