Folk-lore of Shakespeare - Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (ereader iphone txt) 📗
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Daffodil. The daffodil of Shakespeare is the wild daffodil which grows so abundantly in many parts of England. Perdita, in “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4), mentions a little piece of weather-lore, and tells us how
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
And Autolycus, in the same play (iv. 3), sings thus:
With, heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year.”
Darnel. This plant, like the cockle, was used in Shakespeare’s day to denote any hurtful weed. Newton,[490] in his “Herbal to the Bible,” says that “under the name of cockle and darnel is comprehended all vicious, noisome, and unprofitable graine, encombring and hindering good corne.” Thus Cordelia, in “King Lear” (iv. 4), says:
In our sustaining corn.”
According to Gerarde, “darnel hurteth the eyes, and maketh them dim, if it happen either in corne for breade or drinke.” Hence, it is said, originated the old proverb, “lolio victitare”—applied to such as were dim-sighted. Steevens considers that Pucelle, in the following passage from “1 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), alludes to this property of the darnel—meaning to intimate that the corn she carried with her had produced the same effect on the guards of Rouen, otherwise they would have seen through her disguise and defeated her stratagem:
I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast,
Before he’ll buy again at such a rate:
’Twas full of darnel: do you like the taste?”
Date. This fruit of the palm-tree was once a common ingredient in all kinds of pastry, and some other dishes, and often supplied a pun for comedy, as, for example, in “All’s Well That Ends Well” (i. 1), where Parolles says: “Your date is better in your pie and your porridge, than in your cheek.” And in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 2): “Ay, a minced man; and then to be baked with no date in the pie; for then the man’s date’s out.”
Ebony. The wood of this tree was regarded as the typical emblem of darkness; the tree itself, however, was unknown in this country in Shakespeare’s time. It is mentioned in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 3):
A wife of such wood were felicity.”
In the same play we read of “the ebon-coloured ink” (i. 1), and in “Venus and Adonis” (948) of “Death’s ebon dart.”
Elder. This plant, while surrounded by an extensive folk-lore, has from time immemorial possessed an evil reputation, and been regarded as one of bad omen. According to a popular tradition “Judas was hanged on an elder,” a superstition mentioned by Biron in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2); and also by Ben Jonson in “Every Man Out of His Humour” (iv. 4): “He shall be your Judas, and you shall be his elder-tree to hang on.” In “Piers Plowman’s Vision” (ll. 593-596) we are told how
With jewen silver,
And sithen on an eller
Hanged hymselve.”
So firmly rooted was this belief in days gone by that Sir John Mandeville tells us in his Travels, which he wrote in 1364, that he was actually shown the identical tree at Jerusalem, “And faste by is zit, the tree of Elder that Judas henge himself upon, for despeyr that he hadde when he solde and betrayed oure Lord.” This tradition no doubt, in a great measure, helped to give it its bad fame, causing it to be spoken of as “the stinking elder.” Shakespeare makes it an emblem of grief. In “Cymbeline” (iv. 2) Arviragus says:
And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine
His perishing root with the increasing vine!”
The dwarf elder[491] (Sambucus ebulus) is said only to grow where blood has been shed either in battle or in murder. The Welsh call it “Llysan gward gwyr,” or “plant of the blood of man.” Shakespeare, perhaps, had this piece of folk-lore in mind when he represents Bassianus, in “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 4), as killed at a pit beneath an elder-tree:
Eringoes. These were formerly said to be strong provocatives, and as such are mentioned by Falstaff in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5): “Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing comfits, and snow eringoes.” Mr. Ellacombe[492] thinks that in this passage the globe artichoke is meant, “which is a near ally of the eryngium, and was a favorite dish in Shakespeare’s time.”
Fennel. This was generally considered as an inflammatory herb; and to eat “conger and fennel” was “to eat two high and hot things together,” which was an act of libertinism.[493] Thus in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) Falstaff says of Poins, he “eats conger and fennel.” Mr. Beisly states[494] that fennel was used as a sauce with fish hard of digestion, being aromatic, and as the old writers term it, “hot in the third degree.” One of the herbs distributed by poor Ophelia, in her distraction, is fennel, which she offers either as a cordial or as an emblem of flattery: “There’s fennel for you, and columbines.”
Mr. Staunton, however, considers that fennel here signifies lust, while Mr. Beisly thinks its reputed property of clearing the sight is alluded to. It is more probable that it denotes flattery; especially as, in Shakespeare’s time, it was regarded as emblematical of flattery. In this sense it is often quoted by old writers. In Greene’s “Quip for an Upstart Courtier,” we read, “Fennell I meane for flatterers.” In “Phyala Lachrymarum”[495] we find:
Begot of his, and fained courtesie.”
Fern. According to a curious notion fern-seed was supposed to possess the power of rendering persons invisible. Hence it was a most important object of superstition, being gathered mystically, especially on Midsummer Eve. It was believed at one time to have neither flower nor seed; the seed, which lay on the back of the leaf, being so small as to escape the detection of the hasty observer. On this account, probably, proceeding on the fantastic doctrine of signatures, our ancestors derived the notion that those who could obtain and wear this invisible seed would be themselves invisible: a belief which is referred to in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1):
“Gadshill. We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.
Chamberlain. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night, than to fern-seed, for your walking invisible.”
This superstition is mentioned by many old writers; a proof of its popularity in times past. It is alluded to in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Fair Maid of the Inn” (i. 1):
Or the herb that gives invisibility?”
Again, in Ben Jonson’s “New Inn” (i. 1):
No medicine, sir, to go invisible,
No fern-seed in my pocket.”
As recently as Addison’s day, we are told in the Tatler (No. 240) that “it was impossible to walk the streets without having an advertisement thrust into your hand of a doctor who had arrived at the knowledge of the green and red dragon, and had discovered the female fern-seed.”[496]
Fig. Formerly the term fig served as a common expression of contempt, and was used to denote a thing of the least importance. Hence the popular phrase, “not to care a fig for one;” a sense in which it is sometimes used by Shakespeare, who makes Pistol say, in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (i. 3), “a fico for the phrase!” and in “Henry V.” (iii. 6) Pistol exclaims, “figo for thy friendship!” In “Othello” (i. 3) Iago says, “Virtue! a fig!”
The term “to give or make the fig,” as an expression of insult, has for many ages been very prevalent among the nations of Europe, and, according to Douce,[497] was known to the Romans. It consists in thrusting the thumb between two of the closed fingers, or into the mouth, a practice, as some say,[498] in allusion to a contemptuous punishment inflicted on the Milanese, by the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, in 1162, when he took their city. This, however, is altogether improbable, the real origin, no doubt, being a coarse representation of a disease, to which the name of ficus or fig has always been given.[499]
The “fig of Spain,” spoken of in “Henry V.” (iii. 6), may either allude to the poisoned fig employed in Spain as a secret way of destroying an obnoxious person, as in Webster’s “White Devil:”[500]
and in Shirley’s “Brothers:”[501]
One fig sends him to Erebus;”
or it may, as Mr. Dyce remarks,[502] simply denote contempt or insult in the sense already mentioned.
Flower-de-luce. The common purple iris which adorns our gardens is now generally agreed upon as the fleur-de-luce, a corruption of fleur de Louis—being spelled either fleur-de-lys or fleur-de-lis. It derives its name from Louis VII., King of France, who chose this flower as his heraldic emblem when setting forth on his crusade to the Holy Land. It had already been used by the other French kings, and by the emperors of Constantinople; but it is still a matter of dispute among antiquarians as to what it was originally intended to represent. Some say a flower, some a toad, some a halbert-head. It is uncertain what plant is referred to by Shakespeare when he alludes to the flower-de-luce in the following passage[503] in “2 Henry VI.” (v. 1), where the Duke of York says:
On which I’ll toss the flower-de-luce of France.”
In “1 Henry VI.” (i. 2) Pucelle declares:
Deck’d with five flower-de-luces on each side.”
Some think the lily is meant, others the iris. For the lily theory, says Mr. Ellacombe,[504] “there are the facts that Shakespeare calls it one of the lilies, and that the other way of spelling is fleur-de-lys.”
Chaucer seems to connect it with the lily (“Canterbury Tales,” Prol. 238):
On the other hand, Spenser separates the lilies from the flower-de-luces in his “Shepherd’s Calendar;” and Ben Jonson mentions “rich carnations, flower-de-luces, lilies.”
The fleur-de-lis was not always confined to royalty as a badge. Thus, in the square of La Pucelle, in Rouen, there is a statue of Jeanne D’Arc with fleurs-de-lis sculptured upon it, and an inscription as follows:
Beneath the maiden’s sword the lilies safely blow.”
St. Louis conferred upon the Chateaubriands the device of a fleur-de-lis, and the motto, “Mon sang teint les bannièrs de
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