The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
_October's Husbandry_ (13).
If the Thistles were not so common, and if we could get rid of the
associations they suggest, there are probably few of our wild plants
that we should more admire: they are stately in their foliage and habit,
and some of their flowers are rich in colour, and the Thistledown, which
carries the seed far and wide, is very beautiful, and was once
considered useful as a sign of rain, for "if the down flyeth off
Coltsfoot, Dandelyon, or Thistles when there is no winde, it is a signe
of rain."--COLES.
It had still another use in rustic divination--
"Upon the various earth's embroidered gown,
There is a weed upon whose head grows down,
Sow Thistle 'tis y'clept, whose downy wreath
If anyone can blow off at a breath
We deem her for a maid."--BROWNE'S _Brit. Past._, i, 4.
But it is owing to these pretty Thistledowns that the plant becomes a
most undesirable neighbour, for they carry the seed everywhere, and
wherever it is carried, it soon vegetates, and a fine crop of Thistles
very quickly follows. In this way, if left to themselves, the Thistles
will soon monopolize a large extent of country, to the extinction of
other plants, as they have done in parts of the American prairies, and
as they did in Australia, till a most stringent Act of Parliament was
passed about twenty years ago, imposing heavy penalties upon all who
neglected to destroy the Thistles on their land. For these reasons we
cannot admit the Thistle into the garden, at least not our native
Thistles; but there are some foreigners which may well be admitted.
There are the handsome yellow Thistles of the South of Europe
(_Scolymus_), which besides their beauty have a classical interest.
"Hesiod elegantly describing the time of year, says,
+êmos de skolymos t'anthei+,
when the Scolymus flowers, _i.e._, in hot weather or summer ("Op. et
dies," 582). This plant crowned with its golden flowers is abundant
throughout Sicily."--HOGG'S _Classical Plants of Sicily_. There is the
Fish-bone Thistle (_Chamæpeuce diacantha_) from Syria, a very handsome
plant, and, like most of the Thistles, a biennial; but if allowed to
flower and go to seed, it will produce plenty of seedlings for a
succession of years. And there is a grand scarlet Thistle from Mexico,
the Erythrolena conspicua ("Sweet," vol. ii. p. 134), which must be
almost the handsomest of the family, and which was grown in England
fifty years ago, but has been long lost. There are many others that may
deserve a place as ornamental plants, but they find little favour, for
"they are only Thistles."
Any notice of the Thistle would be imperfect without some mention of the
Scotch Thistle. It is the one point in the history of the plant that
protects it from contempt. We dare not despise a plant which is the
honoured badge of our neighbours and relations, the Scotch; which is
ennobled as the symbol of the Order of the Thistle, that claims to be
the most ancient of all our Orders of high honour; and which defies you
to insult it or despise it by its proud mottoes, "Nemo me impune
lacessit," "Ce que Dieu garde, est bien gardé." What is the true Scotch
Thistle even the Scotch antiquarians cannot decide, and in the
uncertainty it is perhaps safest to say that no Thistle in particular
can claim the sole honour, but that it extends to every member of the
family that can be found in Scotland.[292:1]
Shakespeare has noticed the love of the bee for the Thistle, and it
seems that it is for other purposes than honey gathering that he finds
the Thistle useful. For "a beauty has the Thistle, when every delicate
hair arrests a dew-drop on a showery April morning, and when the purple
blossom of a roadside Thistle turns its face to Heaven and welcomes the
wild bee, who lies close upon its flowerets on the approach of some
storm cloud until its shadow be past away. For with unerring instinct
the bee well knows that the darkness is but for a moment, and that the
sun will shine out again ere long."--LADY WILKINSON.
FOOTNOTES:
[292:1] See an interesting and fanciful account of the fitness of the
Thistle as the emblem of Scotland in Ruskin's "Proserpina," pp. 135-139.
THORNS.
(1) _Ariel._
Tooth'd Briers, sharp Furzes, pricking Goss, and Thorns,
Which entered their frail skins.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (180).
(2) _Quince._
One must come in with a bush of Thorns and a lanthorn, and say
he comes in to disfigure, or to present, the person of
Moonshine.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (60).
(3) _Puck._
For Briers and Thorns at their apparel snatch.
_Ibid._, act iii, sc. 2 (29).
(4) _Prologue._
This man with lanthorn, dog, and bush of Thorn,
Presenteth Moonshine.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 1 (136).
(5) _Moonshine._
All that I have to say, is to tell you that the lanthorn is
the moon; I, the man in the moon; this Thorn-bush, my
Thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.
_Ibid._ (261).
(6) _Dumain._
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy Thorn.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act iv, sc. 3 (111).
(7) _Carlisle._
The woe's to come; the children yet unborn
Shall feel this day as sharp to them as Thorn.
_Richard II_, act iv, sc. 1 (322).
(8) _King Henry._
The care you have of us,
To mow down Thorns that would annoy our foot,
Is worthy praise.
_2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 1 (66).
(9) _Gloucester._
And I--like one lost in a Thorny wood,
That rends the Thorns and is rent with the Thorns,
Seeking a way, and straying from the way.
_3rd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (174).
(10) _K. Edward._
Brave followers, yonder stands the Thorny wood.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 4 (67).
(11) _K. Edward._
What! can so young a Thorn begin to prick.
_Ibid._, act v, sc. 4 (13).
(12) _Romeo._
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like Thorn.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 4 (25).
(13) _Boult._
A Thornier piece of ground.
_Pericles_, act iv, sc. 6 (153).
(14) _Leontes._
Which being spotted
Is goads, Thorns, Nettles, tails of wasps.
_Winter's Tale_, act i, sc. 2 (328).
(15) _Florizel._
But O, the Thorns we stand upon!
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 4 (596).
(16) _Ophelia._
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Shew me the steep and Thorny path to Heaven.
_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 3 (47).
(17) _Ghost._
Leave her to Heaven,
And to those Thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.
_Ibid._, act i, sc. 5 (86).
(18) _Bastard._
I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way
Among the Thorns and dangers of this world.
_King John_, act iv, sc. 3 (40).
_See also_ ROSE, Nos. 7, 18, 22, 30, the scene in the Temple gardens;
and BRIER, No. 11.
Thorns and Thistles are the typical emblems of desolation and trouble,
and so Shakespeare uses them; and had he spoken of Thorns in this sense
only, I should have been doubtful as to admitting them among his other
plants, but as in some of the passages they stand for the Hawthorn tree
and the Rose bush, I could not pass them by altogether. They might need
no further comment beyond referring for further information about them
to Hawthorn, Briar, Rose, and Bramble; but in speaking of the Bramble I
mentioned the curious legend which tells why the Bramble employs itself
in collecting wool from every stray sheep, and there is another very
curious instance in Blount's "Antient Tenures" of a connection between
Thorns and wool. The original document is given in Latin, and is dated
39th Henry III. It may be thus translated: "Peter de Baldwyn holds in
Combes, in the county of Surrey, by the service to go a wool gathering
for our Lady the Queen among the White Thorns, and if he refuses to
gather it he shall pay into the Treasury of our Lord the King xxs. per
annum." I should almost suspect a false reading, as the editor is
inclined to do, but that many other services, equally curious and
improbable, may easily be found.
THYME.
(1) _Oberon._
I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (249).
(2) _Iago._
We will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce, set Hyssop and weed up Thyme.
_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (324).
(_See_ HYSSOP.)
(3) And sweet Time true.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.
It is one of the most curious of the curiosities of English plant names
that the Wild Thyme--a plant so common and so widely distributed, and
that makes itself so easily known by its fine aromatic, pungent scent,
that it is almost impossible to pass it by without notice--has yet no
English name, and seems never to have had one. Thyme is the Anglicised
form of the Greek and Latin _Thymum_, which name it probably got from
its use for incense in sacrifices, while its other name of _serpyllum_
pointed out its creeping habit. I do not know when the word Thyme was
first introduced into the English language, for it is another curious
point connected with the name, that _thymum_ does not occur in the old
English vocabularies. We have in Ælfric's "Vocabulary," "Pollegia,
hyl-wyrt," which may perhaps be the Thyme, though it is generally
supposed to be the Pennyroyal; we have in a Vocabulary of thirteenth
century, "Epitime, epithimum, fordboh," which also may be the Wild
Thyme; we have in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century, "Hoc sirpillum,
A{ce} petergrys;" and in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the same date, "Hoc
cirpillum, A{ce} a pellek" (which word is probably a misprint, for in
the "Promptorium Parvulorum," c. 1440, it is "Peletyr, herbe, _serpillum
piretrum_"), both of which are almost certainly the Wild Thyme; while in
an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the tenth or eleventh century we have
"serpulum, crop-leac," _i.e._, the Onion, which must certainly be a
mistake of the compiler. So that not even in its Latin form does the
name occur, except in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," where it is "Tyme,
herbe, _Tima_, _Timum_--Tyme, floure, _Timus_;" and in the "Catholicon
Anglicum," when it is "Tyme; _timum epitimum; flos ejus est_." It is
thus a puzzle how it can have got naturalized among us, for in
Shakespeare's time it was completely naturalized.
I have already quoted Lord Bacon's account of it under BURNET, but I
must quote it again here: "Those flowers which perfume the air most
delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and
crushed, are three--that is Burnet, Wild Thyme, and Water mints;
therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when
you walk or tread;" and again in his pleasant description of the heath
or wild garden, which he would have in every "prince-like garden," and