The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
in the "still evening, hushed on purpose to grace harmony;" and it is
the time of year for the full leafage when Beatrice might
"Steal into the pleached bower,
Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter" (act iii, sc. 1).
_Midsummer Night's Dream._ The name marks the season, and there is a
profusion of flowers to mark it too. It may seem strange to us to have
"Apricocks" at the end of June, but in speaking of the seasons of
Shakespeare and others it should be remembered that their days were
twelve days later than ours of the same names; and if to this is added
the variation of a fortnight or three weeks, which may occur in any
season in the ripening of a fruit, "apricocks" might well be sometimes
gathered on their Midsummer day. But I do not think even this elasticity
will allow for the ripening of mulberries and purple grapes at that
time, and scarcely of figs. The scene, however, being laid in Athens and
in fairyland, must not be too minutely criticized in this respect. But
with the English plants the time is more accurately observed. There is
the "_green_ corn;" the "dewberries," which in a forward season may be
gathered early in July; the "lush woodbine" in the fulness of its
lushness at that time; the pansies, or "love-in-idleness," which (says
Gerard) "flower not onely in the spring, but for the most part all
sommer thorowe, even untill autumne;" the "sweet musk-roses and the
eglantine," also in flower then, though the musk-roses, being rather
late bloomers, would show more of the "musk-rose buds" in which Titania
bid the elves "kill cankers" than of the full-blown flower; while the
thistle would be exactly in the state for "Mounsieur Cobweb" to "kill a
good red-hipped humble bee on the top of it" to "bring the honey-bag" to
Bottom. Besides these there are the flowers on the "bank where the wild
thyme blows; where oxlips and the nodding violet grows," and I think the
distinction worth noting between the "_blowing_" of the wild thyme,
which would then be at its fullest, and the "_growing_" of the oxlips
and the violet, which had passed their time of blowing, but the living
plants continued "growing."[386:1]
_Love's Labour's Lost._ The general tone of the play points to the full
summer, the very time when we should expect to find Boyet thinking "to
close his eyes some half an hour under the cool shade of a sycamore"
(act v, sc. 2).
_All's Well that Ends Well._ There is a pleasant note of the season in--
"The time will bring on summer,
When briars will have leaves as well as thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp" (act iv, sc. 4);
but probably that is only a proverbial expression of hopefulness, and
cannot be pushed further.
_Winter's Tale._ There seems some little confusion in the season of the
fourth act--the feast for the sheep-shearing, which is in the very
beginning of summer--yet Perdita dates the season as "the year growing
ancient"--
"Nor yet on summer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter"--
and gives Camillo the "flowers of middle summer." The flowers named are
all summer flowers; carnations or gilliflowers, lavender, mints, savory,
marjoram, and marigold.
_Richard II._ There are several marked and well-known dates in this
play, but they are not much marked by the flowers. The intended combat
was on St. Lambert's day (17th Sept.), but there is no allusion to
autumn flowers. In act iii, sc. 3, which we know must be placed in
August, there is, besides the mention of the summer dust, King Richard's
sad strain--
"Our sighs, and they (tears) shall lodge the summer corn,"
and in the same act we have the gardener's orders to trim the rank
summer growth of the "dangling apricocks," while in the last act, which
must be some months later, we have the Duke of York speaking of "this
new spring of time," and the Duchess asking--
"Who are the violets now
That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?"
and though in both cases the words may be used proverbially, yet it
seems also probable that they may have been suggested by the time of
year.
_2nd Henry IV._ There is one flower-note in act ii, sc. 4, where the
Hostess says to Falstaff, "Fare thee well! I have known thee these
twenty-five years come peascod time," of which it can only be said that
it must have been spoken at some other time than the summer.
_Henry V._ The exact season of act v, sc. 1, is fixed by St. David's day
(March 1) and the leek.
_1st Henry VI._ The scene in the Temple gardens (act ii, sc. 4), where
all turned on the colour of the roses, must have been at the season when
the roses were in full bloom, say June.
_Richard III._ Here too the season of act ii, sc. 4, is fixed by the
ripe strawberries brought by the Bishop of Ely to Richard. The exact
date is known to be June 13, 1483.
_Timon of Athens._ An approximate season for act iv, sc. 3, might be
guessed from the medlar offered by Apemantus to Timon. Our medlars are
ripe in November.
_Antony and Cleopatra._ The figs and fig-leaves brought to Cleopatra
give a slight indication of the season of act v.[388:1]
_Cymbeline._ Here there is a more distinct plant-note of the season of
act i, sc. 3. The queen and her ladies, "whiles yet the dew's on ground,
gather flowers," which at the end of the scene we are told are violets,
cowslips, and primroses, the flowers of the spring. In the fourth act
Lucius gives orders to "find out the prettiest daisied plot we can," to
make a grave for Cloten; but daisies are too long in flower to let us
attempt to fix a date by them.
_Hamlet._ In this play the season intended is very distinctly marked by
the flowers. The first act must certainly be some time in the winter,
though it may be the end of winter or early spring--"The air bites
shrewdly, it is very cold." Then comes an interval of two months or
more, and Ophelia's madness must be placed in the early summer, _i.e._,
in the end of May or the beginning of June; no other time will all the
flowers mentioned fit, but for that time they are exact. The violets
were "all withered;" but she could pick fennel and columbines, daisies
and pansies in abundance, while the evergreen rosemary and rue ("which
we may call Herb of Grace on Sundays") would be always ready. It was the
time of year when trees were in their full leafage, and so the "willow
growing aslant the brook would show its hoar leaves in the glassy
stream," while its "slivers," would help her in making "fantastic
garlands" "of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples," or
"dead men's fingers," all of which she would then be able to pick in
abundance in the meadows, but which in a few weeks would be all gone.
Perhaps the time of year may have suggested to Laertes that pretty but
sad address to his sister,
"O Rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!"
_Titus Andronicus._ There is a plant-note in act ii, sc. 2--
"The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe."
_Romeo and Juliet._ A slight plant-note of the season may be detected in
the nightly singing of the nightingale in the pomegranate tree in the
third act.
_King Lear._ The plants named point to one season only, the spring. At
no other time could the poor mad king have gone singing aloud,
"Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With harlock, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
And darnel."
I think this would also be the time for gathering the fresh shoots of
the samphire; but I do not know this for certain.[389:1]
_Two Noble Kinsmen._ Here the season is distinctly stated for us by the
poet. The scene is laid in May, and the flowers named are all in
accordance--daffodils, daisies, marigolds, oxlips, primrose, roses, and
thyme.
I cannot claim any great literary results from this inquiry into the
seasons of Shakespeare as indicated by the flowers named; on the
contrary, I must confess that the results are exceedingly small--I might
almost say, none at all--still I do not regret the time and trouble that
the inquiry has demanded of me. In every literary inquiry the value of
the research is not to be measured by the visible results. It is
something even to find out that there are no results, and so save
trouble to future inquirers. But in this case the research has not been
altogether in vain. Every addition, however small, to the critical study
of our great Poet has its value; and to myself, as a student of the
Natural History of Shakespeare, the inquiry has been a very pleasant
one, because it has confirmed my previous opinion, that even in such
common matters as the names of the most familiar every-day plants he
does not write in a careless hap-hazard way, naming just the plant that
comes uppermost in his thoughts, but that they are all named in the most
careful and correct manner, exactly fitting into the scenes in which
they are placed, and so giving to each passage a brightness and a
reality which would be entirely wanting if the plants were set down in
the ignorance of guess-work. Shakespeare knew the plants well; and
though his knowledge is never paraded, by its very thoroughness it
cannot be hid.
FOOTNOTES:
[386:1] If "the rite of May" (act iv, sc. 1) is to be strictly limited
to May-Day, the title of a "_Midsummer_ Night's Dream" does not apply.
The difficulty can only be met by supposing the scene to be laid at any
night in May, even in the last night, which would coincide with our 12th
of June.
[388:1] "The Alexandrine figs are of the black kind having a white rift
or Chanifre, and are surnamed Delicate. . . . Certain figs there be,
which are both early and also lateward; . . . . they are ripe first in
harvest, and afterwards in time of vintage; . . . . also some there be
which beare thrice a year" (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ b. xv., c. 18, P.
Holland's translation, 1601).
[389:1] The objection to fixing the date of the play in spring is that
Cordelia bids search to be made for Lear "in every acre of the
high-grown field." If this can only refer to a field of corn at its full
growth, there is a confusion of seasons. But if the larger meaning is
given to "field," which it bears in "flowers of the field," "beasts of
the field," the confusion is avoided. The words would then refer to the
wild overgrowth of an open country.
APPENDIX III.
_NAMES OF PLANTS._
_Juliet._
What's in a name? That which we call a Rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 2.
NAMES OF PLANTS.
Finding that many are interested in the old names of the plants named by
Shakespeare, I give in this appendix the names of the plants, showing at
one view how they were written and explained by different writers in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The list might have been very largely
increased, especially by giving the forms used at an earlier date, but
my object is to show the forms of the names in which they were (or might
have been) familiar to Shakespeare. The authors quoted are these:
1440. "Promptorium Parvulorum."
1483. "Catholicon Anglicum."
1548. Turner's "Names of Herbes," and "Herbal," 1568.
1597. Gerard's "Herbal."
1611. Cotgrave's "Dictionarie."[393:1]
ACONITUM.
_Turner._ Aconitum.
_Gerard._ Of Wolfes-banes and Monkeshoods.
_Cotgrave._ Aconit; Aconitum, _A most venemous hearbe, of two principall
kindes_; viz., _Libbard's-bane, and Wolfe-bane_.
ACORN.
_Promptorium._ Accorne, or archarde, frute of the oke; _Glans_.
_Catholicon._ An Acorne; _hæc glans dis, hec glandicula_.
_Cotgrave._ Gland; _An Acorne_; _Mast of Oakes or other trees_.
ALMOND.