The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespear - Henry Nicholson Ellacombe (color ebook reader txt) 📗
- Author: Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
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Unto the roser where that grewe
The freshe Bothum so bright of hewe.
I was so nygh, I myght fele
Of the Bothom the swote odour
And also see the fresshe colour;
And that right gretly liked me."
And by Shakespeare—
Too oft before their Buttons be disclosed.
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 seaCan 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 leasOf 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 timeAnd 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—
Yielded them by the vanquisht as theyr meeds,
And they therewith doe Poetes heads adorne
To sing the glory of their famous deeds."
And in the following passage (written in the lifetime of Shakespeare) the Laurel and the Bay are both named as the same tree—
His shepherd's pipe may chant more heavenly lays."
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
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