The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
_Romaunt of the Rose._
And by Shakespeare--
The canker galls the infants of the Spring
Too oft before their Buttons be disclosed.
_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 3 (54).
FOOTNOTES:
[27:1] Mr. J. Fitchett Marsh, of Hardwicke House, Chepstow, in "The
Garden." I have to thank Mr. Marsh for much information kindly given
both in "The Garden" and by letter.
BALM, BALSAM, OR BALSAMUM.
(1) _K. Richard._
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the Balm from an anointed king.
_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 2 (54).
(2) _K. Richard._
With mine own tears I wash away my Balm.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 1 (207).
(3) _K. Henry._
'Tis not the Balm, the sceptre, and the ball.
_Henry V_, act iv, sc. 1 (277).
(4) _K. Henry._
Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,
Thy Balm wash'd off, wherewith thou wast anointed.
_3rd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 1 (16).
(5) _K. Henry._
My pity hath been Balm to heal their wounds.
_Ibid._, act iv, sc. 8 (41).
(6) _Lady Anne._
I pour the helpless Balm of my poor eyes.
_Richard III_, act i, sc. 2 (13).
(7) _Troilus._
But, saying thus, instead of oil and Balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act i, sc. 1 (61).
(8) _1st Senator._
We sent to thee, to give thy rages Balm.
_Timon of Athens_, act v, sc. 4 (16).
(9) _France._
Balm of your age,
Most best, most dearest.
_King Lear_, act i, sc. 1 (218).
(10) _K. Henry._
Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
Be drops of Balm to sanctify thy head.
_2nd Henry IV_, act iv, sc. 5 (114).
(11) _Mowbray._
I am disgraced, impeach'd, and baffled here:
Pierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear;
The which no Balm can cure, but his heart-blood
Which breathed this poison.
_Richard II_, act i, sc. 1 (170).
(12) _Dromio of Syracuse._
Our fraughtage, Sir,
I have conveyed aboard, and I have bought
The oil, the Balsamum, and aqua vitæ.
_Comedy of Errors_, act iv, sc. 1 (187).
(13) _Alcibiades._
Is this the Balsam that the usuring Senate
Pours into captains' wounds?
_Timon of Athens_, act iii, sc. 5 (110).
(14) _Macbeth._
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
_Macbeth_, act ii, sc. 2 (37).
(15) _Quickly._
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of Balm and every precious flower.
_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (65).
(16) _Cleopatra._
As sweet as Balm, as soft as air, as gentle.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act v, sc. 2 (314).
(17)
And trembling in her passion, calls it Balm,
Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good.
_Venus and Adonis_ (27).
(18)
And drop sweet Balm in Priam's painted wound.
_Lucrece_ (1466).
(19)
With the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh.
_Sonnet_ cvii.
In all these passages, except the two last, the reference is to the Balm
or Balsam which was imported from the East, from very early times, and
was highly valued for its curative properties. The origin of Balsam was
for a long time a secret, but it is now known to have been the produce
of several gum-bearing trees, especially the Pistacia lentiscus and the
Balsamodendron Gileadense; and now, as then, the name is not strictly
confined to the produce of any one plant. But in Nos. 15 and 16 the
reference is no doubt to the Sweet Balm of the English gardens (_Melissa
officinalis_), a plant highly prized by our ancestors for its medicinal
qualities (now known to be of little value), and still valued for its
pleasant scent and its high value as a bee plant, which is shown by its
old Greek and Latin names, Melissa, Mellissophyllum, and Apiastrum. The
Bastard Balm (_Melittis melissophyllum_) is a handsome native plant,
found sparingly in Devonshire, Hampshire, and a few other places, and is
well worth growing wherever it can be induced to grow; but it is a very
capricious plant, and is apparently not fond of garden cultivation.
"Très jolie plante, mais d'une culture difficile" (Vilmorin). It
probably would thrive best in the shade, as it is found in copses.
BARLEY.
(1) _Iris._
Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of Wheat, Rye, Barley, Vetches, Oats, and Pease.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (60).
(2) _Constable._
Can sodden water,
A drench for surrein'd jades, their Barley broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
_Henry V_, act iii, sc. 5 (18).[30:1]
These two passages require little note. The Barley (_Hordeum vulgare_)
of Shakespeare's time and our own is the same. We may note, however,
that the Barley broth (2) of which the French Constable spoke so
contemptuously as the food of English soldiers was probably beer, which
long before the time of Henry V. was so celebrated that it gave its name
to the plant (Barley being simply the Beer-plant), and in Shakespeare's
time, "though strangers never heard of such a word or such a thing, by
reason it is not everyewhere made," yet "our London Beere-Brewers would
scorne to learne to make beere of either French or Dutch" (Gerard).
FOOTNOTES:
[30:1] "Vires ordea prestant."--_Modus Cenandi_, 176. ("Babee's Book.")
BARNACLES.
_Caliban._
We shall lose our time
And all be turn'd to Barnacles.
_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (248).
It may seem absurd to include Barnacles among plants; but in the time of
Shakespeare the Barnacle tree was firmly believed in, and Gerard gives a
plate of "the Goose tree, Barnacle tree, or the tree bearing Geese," and
says that he declares "what our eies have seene, and our hands have
touched."
A full account of the fable will be found in Harting's "Ornithology of
Shakespeare," p. 247, and an excellent account in Lee's "Sea Fables
Explained" (Fisheries Exhibition handbooks), p. 98. But neither of these
writers have quoted the testimony of Sir John Mandeville, which is,
however, well worth notice. When he was told in "Caldilhe" of a tree
that bore "a lytylle Best in Flessche in Bon and Blode as though it were
a lytylle Lomb, withouten Wolle," he did not refuse to believe them, for
he says, "I tolde hem of als gret a marveylle to hem that is amonges us;
and that was of the Bernakes. For I tolde hem, that in our Contree weren
Trees, that beren a Fruyt, that becomen Briddes fleeynge; and tho that
fallen in the Water lyven, and thei that fallen on the Erthe dyen anon;
and thei ben right gode to mannes mete. And here of had thei als gret
marvaylle that sume of hem trowed, it were an impossible thing to be"
("Voiage and Travaille," c. xxvi.).
BAY TREES.
(1) _Captain._
'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.
The Bay-trees in our country are all wither'd.
_Richard II_, act ii, sc. 4 (7).
(2) _Bawd._
Marry come up, my dish of chastity with Rosemary and Bays!
_Pericles_, act iv, sc. 6 (159).
(3)
_The Vision_--Enter, solemnly tripping one after another,
six personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their
heads garlands of Bays, and golden vizards on their faces,
branches of Bays or Palms in their hands.
_Henry VIII_, act iv, sc. 2
It is not easy to determine what tree is meant in these passages. In the
first there is little doubt that Shakespeare copied from some Italian
source the superstition that the Bay trees in a country withered and
died when any great calamity was approaching. We have no proof that such
an idea ever prevailed in England. In the second passage reference is
made to the decking of the chief dish at high feasts with garlands of
flowers and evergreens. But the Bay tree had been too recently
introduced from the South of Europe in Shakespeare's time to be so used
to any great extent, though the tree was known long before, for it is
mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Vocabularies by the name of Beay-beam,
that is, the Coronet tree;[32:1] but whether the Beay-beam meant our Bay
tree is very uncertain. We are not much helped in the inquiry by the
notice of the "flourishing green Bay tree" in the Psalms, for it seems
very certain that the Bay tree there mentioned is either the Oleander or
the Cedar, certainly not the Laurus nobilis.
The true Bay is probably mentioned by Spenser in the following lines--
"The Bay, quoth she, is of the victours born,
Yielded them by the vanquisht as theyr meeds,
And they therewith doe Poetes heads adorne
To sing the glory of their famous deeds."
_Amoretti_--Sonnet xxix.
And in the following passage (written in the lifetime of Shakespeare)
the Laurel and the Bay are both named as the same tree--
"And when from Daphne's tree he plucks more Baies
His shepherd's pipe may chant more heavenly lays."
_Christopher Brooke_--_Introd. verses
to_ BROWNE'S _Pastorals._
In the present day no garden of shrubs can be considered complete
without the Bay tree, both the common one and especially the Californian
Bay (_Oreodaphne Californica_), which, with its bright green lanceolate
foliage and powerful aromatic scent (to some too pungent), deserves a
place everywhere, and it is not so liable to be cut by the spring winds
as the European Bay.[32:2] Parkinson's high praise of the Bay tree
(forty years after Shakespeare's death) is too long for insertion, but
two short sentences may be quoted: "The Bay leaves are of as necessary
use as any other in the garden or orchard, for they serve both for
pleasure and profit, both for ornament and for use, both for honest
civil uses and for physic, yea, both for the sick and for the sound,
both for the living and for the dead; . . . so that from the cradle to
the grave we have still use of it, we have still need of it."
The Bay tree gives us a curious instance of the capriciousness of
English plant names. Though a true Laurel it does not bear the
name, which yet is given to two trees, the common (and Portugal)
Laurel, and the Laurestinus, neither of which are Laurels--the one
being a Cherry or Plum (_Prunus_ or _Cerasus_), the other a Guelder Rose
(_Viburnum_).[33:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[32:1] "The Anglo-Saxon Beay was not a ring only, or an armlet: it was
also a coronet or diadem. . . . The Bays, then, of our Poets and the Bay