Folk-lore of Shakespeare - Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (ereader iphone txt) 📗
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Wormwood. The use of this plant in weaning infants is alluded to in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 3), by Juliet’s nurse, in the following passage:
*****
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool.”
Yew. This tree, styled by Shakespeare “the dismal yew” (“Titus Andronicus,” ii. 3), apart from the many superstitions associated with it, has been very frequently planted in churchyards, besides being used at funerals. Paris, in “Romeo and Juliet” (v. 3), says:
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it.”
Although various reasons have been assigned for planting the yew-tree in churchyards, it seems probable that the practice had a superstitious origin. As witches were supposed to exercise a powerful influence over the winds, they were believed occasionally to exert their formidable power against religious edifices. Thus Macbeth says (iv. 1):
Against the churches.”
To counteract, therefore, this imaginary danger, our ancestors may have planted the yew-tree in their churchyards, not only on account of its vitality as an evergreen, but as connected in some way, in heathen times, with the influence of evil powers.[562] In a statute made in the latter part of Edward I.’s reign, to prevent rectors from cutting down trees in churchyards, we find the following: “Verum arbores ipsæ, propter ventorum impetus ne ecclesiis noceant, sæpe plantantur.”[563]
The custom of sticking yew in the shroud is alluded to in the following song in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4):
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.”
Through being reckoned poisonous, it is introduced in “Macbeth” (iv. 1) in connection with the witches:
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse.”
“How much the splitting or tearing off of the slip had to do with magic we learn from a piece of Slavonic folk-lore. It is unlucky to use for a beam a branch or a tree broken by the wind. The devil, or storm-spirit, claims it as his own, and, were it used, the evil spirit would haunt the house. It is a broken branch the witches choose; a sliver’d slip the woodman will have none of.”[564]
Its epithet, “double-fatal” (“Richard II.,” iii. 2), no doubt refers to the poisonous quality of the leaves, and on account of its wood being employed for instruments of death. Sir Stephen Scroop, when telling Richard of Bolingbroke’s revolt, declares that
Of double-fatal yew against thy state.”
It has been suggested that the poison intended by the Ghost in “Hamlet” (i. 5), when he speaks of the “juice of cursed hebenon,” is that of the yew, and is the same as Marlowe’s “juice of hebon” (“Jew of Malta,” iii. 4). The yew is called hebon by Spenser and by other writers of Shakespeare’s age; and, in its various forms of eben, eiben, hiben, etc., this tree is so named in no less than five different European languages. From medical authorities, both of ancient and modern times, it would seem that the juice of the yew is a rapidly fatal poison; next, that the symptoms attendant upon yew-poisoning correspond, in a very remarkable manner, with those which follow the bites of poisonous snakes; and, lastly, that no other poison but the yew produces the “lazar-like” ulcerations on the body upon which Shakespeare, in this passage, lays so much stress.[565]
Among the other explanations of this passage is the well-known one which identifies “hebenon” with henbane. Mr. Beisly suggests that nightshade may be meant, while Nares considers that ebony is meant.[566]
From certain ancient statutes it appears that every Englishman, while archery was practised, was obliged to keep in his house either a bow of yew or some other wood.[567]
[450] Aconitum napellus, Wolf’s-bane or Monk’s-hood.
[451] “Miseros fallunt aconita legentis” (Georgics, bk. ii. l. 152).
[452] See Ellacombe’s “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” 1878, pp. 7, 8.
[453] Dr. Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1870, pp. 1, 2.
[454] Phillips, “Flora Historica,” 1829, vol. ii. pp. 122, 128.
[455] “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” pp. 10, 11.
[456] Phillips, “Flora Historica,” 1829, vol. i. p. 104.
[457] Ellacombe’s “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” p. 13.
[458] Dyce’s “Glossary to Shakespeare,” p. 15.
[459] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 29; probably synonymous with the term “apple-Squire,” which formerly signified a pimp.
[460] Forby, in his “Vocabulary of East Anglia,” says of this apple, “we retain the name, but whether we mean the same variety of fruit which was so called in Shakespeare’s time, it is not possible to ascertain.”
[461] Ellacombe’s “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” p. 16; Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 430; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 81; Coles’s “Latin and English Dictionary.” “A bitter-suete [apple]—Amari-mellum.”
[462] See chapter xi., Customs connected with the Calendar.
[463] See chapter on Customs connected with Birth and Baptism.
[464] Edited by Dyce, 1861, p. 446. Many fanciful derivations for this word have been thought of, but it was no doubt named from its smoothness and softness, resembling the wool of lambs.
[465] Dr. Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1870, p. 50.
[466] Note on Jonson’s Works, vol. iv. p. 24.
[467] Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 242.
[468] Quoted by Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 662.
[469] “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” p. 16.
[470] “Theatrum Botanicum,” 1640.
[471] “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” pp. 17, 37.
[472] “Glossary,” pp. 65, 66.
[473] See “Notes and Queries,” 2d series, bk. i. p. 420.
[474] See Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” 1879, pp. 151, 152.
[475] Napier’s “Folk-Lore of West of Scotland,” 1879, p. 124.
[476] Dr. Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” p. 13.
[477] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 45.
[478] See “Richard III.,” i. 2; “Timon of Athens,” iii. 5.
[479] See “2 Henry IV.,” iv. 5.
[480] “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” p. 22.
[481] Ellacombe’s “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” p. 23.
[482] See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 32.
[483] See also Evelyn’s “Sylva,” 1776, p. 396.
[484] “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 150; see Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 63.
[485] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 212.
[486] “Shakespeare’s Garden,” p. 143.
[487] See “Winter’s Tale,” iv. 4:
Cyprus black as e’er was crow.”
Its transparency is alluded to in “Twelfth Night,” iii. 1:
Hides my heart.”
[488] See Dyce’s “Glossary,” 1872, p. 113.
[489] Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 56. See Mr. Gough’s “Introduction to Sepulchral Monuments,” p. lxvi.; also Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 221.
[490] See Dr. Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1870, p. 63.
[491] “Flower-Lore,” p. 35.
[492] “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” p. 66.
[493] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 302; Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 159.
[494] “Shakspere’s Garden,” p. 158.
[495] Quoted in Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 303.
[496] See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. i. pp. 314-316.
[497] “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 302-308.
[498] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 305.
[499] See Gifford’s note on Jonson’s Works, vol. i. p. 52; Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 161; Du Cange’s “Glossary;” Connelly’s “Spanish and English Dictionary,” 4to.
[500] Edited by Dyce, 1857, p. 30.
[501] Edited by Gifford and Dyce, vol. i. p. 231.
[502] “Glossary,” p. 161.
[503] See “Winter’s Tale,” iv. 3; “Henry V.,” v. 2; “1 Henry VI.,” i. 1.
[504] “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” p. 73.
[505] “Nares’s Glossary,” vol. i. p. 363.
[506] “Shakespeare’s Garden,” p. 82; see Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 184.
[507] Ellacombe’s “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” p. 204; Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1870, p. 111.
[508] Cf. “All’s Well that Ends Well,” iv. 5; “Antony and Cleopatra,” iv. 2; “Romeo and Juliet,” ii. 3, where Friar Laurence says:
[509] “A Dissuasive from Popery,” pt. i. chap. ii. sec. 9; see Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 371.
[510] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 464.
[511] Batman’s “Upon Bartholomæus de Proprietate Rerum,” lib. xvii. chap. 87.
[512] “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 465.
[513] See Hotten’s “History of Sign Boards.”
[514] “Shakespeare,” vol. iii. p. 112.
[515] See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 482.
[516] “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1879, p. 128.
[517] Polygonum aviculare.
[518] See “3 Henry VI.,” iv. 6; “Troilus and Cressida,” i. 3.
[519] See “Henry V.,” iv. 1.
[520] “Cambrian Biography,” 1803, p. 86; see Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. i. pp. 102-108.
[521] See Dr. Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1870, p. 139.
[522] Cf. “Taming of the Shrew,” i. 1.
[523] Cf. what Egeus says (i. 1) when speaking of Lysander:
Thou, thou Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes
And interchanged love-tokens with my child.”
[524] Dian’s bud is the bud of the Agnus castus, or chaste tree. “The virtue this herbe is, that he will kepe man and woman chaste.” “Macer’s Herbal,” 1527.
[525] Cupid’s flower, another name for the pansy.
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