Folk-lore of Shakespeare

“Like as a lyon, whose imperiall powerA prowd rebellious unicorn defyes,T’ avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowreOf his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,And when him ronning in full course he spyes,He slips aside: the whiles that furious beastHis precious horne, sought of his enimyesStrikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast,But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast.”

Weasel. To meet a weasel was formerly considered a bad omen.448 That may be a tacit allusion to this superstition in “Lucrece” (l. 307):

“Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there;They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.”

It appears that weasels were kept in houses, instead of cats, for the purpose of killing vermin. Phædrus notices this their feline office in the first and fourth fables of his fourth book. The supposed quarrelsomeness of this animal is spoken of by Pisanio in “Cymbeline” (iii. 4), who tells Imogen that she must be “as quarrelous as the weasel;” and in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 3), Lady Percy says to Hotspur:

“A weasel hath not such a deal of spleenAs you are toss’d with.”

This character of the weasel is not, however, generally mentioned by naturalists.

CHAPTER VIII

PLANTS

That Shakespeare possessed an extensive knowledge of the history and superstitions associated with flowers is evident, from even only a slight perusal of his plays. Apart from the extensive use which he has made of these lovely objects of nature for the purpose of embellishing, or adding pathos to, passages here and there, he has also, with a master hand, interwoven many a little legend or superstition, thereby infusing an additional force into his writings. Thus we know with what effect he has made use of the willow in “Othello,” in that touching passage where Desdemona (iv. 3), anticipating her death, relates how her mother had a maid called Barbara:

“She was in love; and he she lov’d prov’d mad,And did forsake her; she had a song of willow,An old thing ’twas, but it expressed her fortune,And she died singing it: that song, to-night,Will not go from my mind.”

In a similar manner Shakespeare has frequently introduced flowers with a wonderful aptness, as in the case of poor Ophelia. Those, however, desirous of gaining a good insight into Shakespeare’s knowledge of flowers, as illustrated by his plays, would do well to consult Mr. Ellacombe’s exhaustive work on the “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” a book to which we are much indebted in the following pages, as also to Mr. Beisly’s “Shakespeare’s Garden.”

Aconite. 449 This plant, from the deadly virulence of its juice, which, Mr. Turner says, “is of all poysones the most hastie poysone,” is compared by Shakespeare to gunpowder, as in “2 Henry IV.” (iv. 4):

“the united vessel of their blood,Mingled with venom of suggestion,As, force perforce, the age will pour it in,Shall never leak, though it do work as strongAs aconitum, or rash gunpowder.”

It is, too, probably alluded to in the following passage in “Romeo and Juliet” (v. 1), where Romeo says:

“let me haveA dram of poison; such soon-speeding gearAs will disperse itself through all the veins,That the life-weary taker may fall dead;And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breathAs violently, as hasty powder fir’dDoth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.”

According to Ovid, it derived its name from growing upon rock (Metamorphoses, bk. vii. l. 418):

“Quæ, quia nascuntur, dura vivacia caute,Agrestes aconita vocant.”

It is probably derived from the Greek ἀκόνιτος, “without a struggle,” in allusion to the intensity of its poisonous qualities. Vergil450 speaks of it, and tells us how the aconite deceives the wretched gatherers, because often mistaken for some harmless plant.451 The ancients fabled it as the invention of Hecate,452 who caused the plant to spring from the foam of Cerberus, when Hercules dragged him from the gloomy regions of Pluto. Ovid pictures the stepdame as preparing a deadly potion of aconite (Metamorphoses, bk. i. l. 147):

“Lurida terribiles miscent aconita novercæ.”

In hunting, the ancients poisoned their arrows with this venomous plant, as “also when following their mortal brutal trade of slaughtering their fellow-creatures.”453 Numerous instances are on record of fatal results through persons eating this plant. In the “Philosophical Transactions” (1732, vol. xxxvii.) we read of a man who was poisoned in that year, by eating some of it in a salad, instead of celery. Dr. Turner mentions the case of some Frenchmen at Antwerp, who, eating the shoots of this plant for masterwort, all died, with the exception of two, in forty-eight hours. The aconitum is equally pernicious to animals.

Anemone. This favorite flower of early spring is probably alluded to in the following passage of “Venus and Adonis:”

“By this, the boy that by her side lay kill’dWas melted like a vapour from her sight;And in his blood, that on the ground lay spill’d,A purple flower sprung up, chequer’d with white,Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the bloodWhich in round drops upon their whiteness stood.”

According to Bion, it is said to have sprung from the tears that Venus wept over the body of Adonis:

“Alas, the Paphian! fair Adonis slain!Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain,But gentle flowers are born, and bloom around;From every drop that falls upon the groundWhere streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose,And where a tear has dropp’d a wind-flower blows.”

Other classical writers make the anemone to be the flower of Adonis. Mr. Ellacombe454 says that although Shakespeare does not actually name the anemone, yet the evidence is in favor of this plant. The “purple color,” he adds, is no objection, for purple in Shakespeare’s time had a very wide signification, meaning almost any bright color, just as “purpureus” had in Latin.455

Apple. Although Shakespeare has so frequently introduced the apple into his plays, yet he has abstained from alluding to the extensive folk-lore associated with this favorite fruit. Indeed, beyond mentioning some of the popular nicknames by which the apple was known in his day, little is said about it. The term apple was not originally confined to the fruit now so called, but was a generic name applied to any fruit, as we still speak of the love-apple, pine-apple, etc.456 So when Shakespeare (Sonnet xciii.) makes mention of Eve’s apple, he simply means that it was some fruit that grew in Eden:

“How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.”

(a) The “apple-John,” called in France deux-années or deux-ans, because it will keep two years, and considered to be in perfection when shrivelled and withered,457 is evidently spoken of in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 3), where Falstaff says: “My skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown; I am withered like an old apple-John.” In “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) there is a further allusion:

“1st Drawer. What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-Johns? thou know’st Sir John cannot endure an apple-John.

2d Drawer. Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish of apple-Johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said, ‘I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.’”

This apple, too, is well described by Phillips (“Cider,” bk. i.):

“Nor John Apple, whose wither’d rind, entrench’dBy many a furrow, aptly representsDecrepit age.”

In Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair” (i. 1), where Littlewit encourages Quarlus to kiss his wife, he says: “she may call you an apple-John if you use this.” Here apple-John458 evidently means a procuring John, besides the allusion to the fruit so called.459

(b) The “bitter-sweet, or sweeting,” to which Mercutio alludes in “Romeo and Juliet” (ii. 4): “Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce;” was apparently a favorite apple, which furnished many allusions to poets. Gower, in his “Confessio Amantis” (1554, fol. 174), speaks of it:

“For all such time of love is loreAnd like unto the bitter swete,For though it thinke a man first sweete,He shall well felen atte lasteThat it is sower, and maie not laste.”

The name is “now given to an apple of no great value as a table fruit, but good as a cider apple, and for use in silk dyeing.”460

(c) The “crab,” roasted before the fire and put into ale, was a very favorite indulgence, especially at Christmas, in days gone by, and is referred to in the song of winter in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):

“When roasted crabs hiss in the bowlThen nightly sings the staring owl.”

The beverage thus formed was called “Lambs-wool,” and generally consisted of ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs, or apples. It formed the ingredient of the wassail-bowl;461 and also of the gossip’s bowl462 alluded to in “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), where Puck says:

“And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,In very likeness of a roasted crab,And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale.”

In Peele’s “Old Wives’ Tale,” it is said:

“Lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb’s wool.”463

And in Herrick’s “Poems:”

“Now crowne the bowleWith gentle lamb’s wooll,Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger.”

(d) The “codling,” spoken of by Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” (i. 5) – “Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before ’tis a peascod, or a codling when ’tis almost an apple” – is not the variety now so called, but was the popular term for an immature apple, such as would require cooking to be eaten, being derived from “coddle,” to stew or boil lightly – hence it denoted a boiling apple, an apple for coddling or boiling.464 Mr. Gifford465 says that codling was used by our old writers for that early state of vegetation when the fruit, after shaking off the blossom, began to assume a globular and determinate form.

(e) The “leather-coat” was the apple generally known as “the golden russeting.”466 Davy, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3), says: “There is a dish of leather-coats for you.”

(f) The “pippin” was formerly a common term for an apple, to which reference is made in “Hudibras Redivivus” (1705):

“A goldsmith telling o’er his cash,A pipping-monger selling trash.”

In Taylor’s “Workes”467 (1630) we read:

“Lord, who would take him for a pippin squire,That’s so bedaub’d with lace and rich attire?”

Mr. Ellacombe468 says the word “pippin” denoted an apple raised from pips and not from grafts, and “is now, and probably was in Shakespeare’s time, confined to the bright-colored long-keeping apples of which the golden pippin is the type.” Justice Shallow, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3), says: “Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year’s pippin of my own graffing.”

(g) The “pomewater” was a species of apple evidently of a juicy nature, and hence of high esteem in Shakespeare’s time; for in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (iv. 2) Holofernes says: “The deer was, as you know, sanguis– in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo– the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra– the soil, the land, the earth.”

Parkinson469 tells us the “pomewater” is an excellent, good, and great whitish apple, full of sap or moisture, somewhat pleasant, sharp, but a little bitter withal; it will not last long, the winter’s frost soon causing it to rot and perish.

It appears that apples and caraways were formerly always eaten together; and it is said that they are still served up on particular days at Trinity College, Cambridge. This practice is probably alluded to by Justice Shallow, in the much-disputed passage in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3), when he speaks of eating “a last year’s pippin, … with a dish of carraways.” The phrase, too, seems further explained by the following quotations from Cogan’s “Haven of Health” (1599). After stating the virtues of the seed, and some of its uses, he says: “For the same purpose careway seeds are used to be made in comfits, and to be eaten with apples, and surely very good for that purpose, for all such things as breed wind would be eaten with other things that break wind.” Again, in his chapter on Apples, he says: “Howbeit wee are wont to eat carrawaies or biskets, or some other kind of comfits, or seeds together with apples, thereby to breake winde ingendred by them, and surely this is a verie good way for students.” Mr. Ellacombe,470 however, considers that in “the dish of carraways,” mentioned by Justice Shallow, neither caraway seeds, nor cakes made of caraways, are meant, but the caraway or caraway-russet apple. Most of the commentators are in favor of one of the former explanations. Mr. Dyce471 reads caraways in the sense of comfits or confections made with caraway-seeds, and quotes from Shadwell’s “Woman-Captain” the following: “The fruit, crab-apples, sweetings, and horse-plumbs; and for confections, a few carraways in a small sawcer, as if his worship’s house had been a lousie inn.”

Apricot. This word, which is spelled by Shakespeare “apricock,” occurs in “Richard II.” (iii. 4), where the gardener says:

“Go, bind thou up yond dangling apricocks,Which, like unruly children, make their sireStoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.”

And in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1) Titania gives directions:

“Be kind and courteous to this gentleman,*****Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries.”

The spelling “apricock”472 is derived from the Latin præcox, or præcoquus; and it was called “the precocious tree,” because it flowered and fruited earlier than the peach. The term “apricock” is still in use in Northamptonshire.

Aspen. According to a mediæval legend, the perpetual motion of this tree dates from its having supplied the wood of the Cross, and that its leaves have trembled ever since at the recollection of their guilt. De Quincey, in his essay on “Modern Superstition,” says that this belief is coextensive with Christendom. The following verses,473 after telling how other trees were passed by in the choice of wood for the Cross, describe the hewing down of the aspen, and the dragging of it from the forest to Calvary:

“On the morrow stood she, tremblingAt the awful weight she bore,When the sun in midnight blacknessDarkened on Judea’s shore.“Still, when not a breeze is stirring,When the mist sleeps on the hill,And all other trees are moveless,Stands the aspen, trembling still.”

The Germans, says Mr. Henderson, have a theory of their own, embodied in a little poem, which may be thus translated:

“Once, as our Saviour walked with men below,His path of mercy through a forest lay;And mark how all the drooping branches show,What homage best a silent tree may pay.“Only the aspen stands erect and free,Scorning to join that voiceless worship pure;But see! He casts one look upon the tree,Struck to the heart she trembles evermore!”

Another legend tells us474 that the aspen was said to have been the tree on which Judas hanged himself after the betrayal of his Master, and ever since its leaves have trembled with shame. Shakespeare twice alludes to the trembling of the aspen. In “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 4) Marcus exclaims:

“O, had the monster seen those lily handsTremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute;”

and in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) the hostess says: “Feel, masters, how I shake. Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen leaf.”

Bachelor’s Buttons. This was a name given to several flowers, and perhaps in Shakespeare’s time was more loosely applied to any flower in bud. It is now usually understood to be a double variety of ranunculus; according to others, the Lychnis sylvestris; and in some counties it is applied to the Scabiosa succisa.475 According to Gerarde, this plant was so called from the similitude of its flowers “to the jagged cloathe buttons, anciently worne in this kingdome.” It was formerly supposed, by country people, to have some magical effect upon the fortunes of lovers. Hence it was customary for young people to carry its flowers in their pockets, judging of their good or bad success in proportion as these retained or lost their freshness. It is to this sort of divination that Shakespeare probably refers in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 2), where he makes the hostess say, “What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry ’t, he will carry ’t; ’tis in his buttons; he will carry ’t.” Mr. Warter, in one of his notes in Southey’s “Commonplace Book” (1851, 4th series, p. 244), says that this practice was common in his time, in Shropshire and Staffordshire. The term “to wear bachelor’s buttons” seems to have grown into a phrase for being unmarried.476

Balm. From very early times the balm, or balsam, has been valued for its curative properties, and, as such, is alluded to in “Troilus and Cressida” (i. 1):

“But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given meThe knife that made it.”

In “3 Henry VI.” (iv. 8) King Henry says:477

“My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds.”

Alcibiades, in “Timon of Athens” (iii. 5), says:

“Is this the balsam, that the usuring senatePours into captains’ wounds? Banishment!”

Macbeth, too, in the well-known passage ii. 2, introduces it:

“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.”

As the oil of consecration478 it is spoken of by King Richard (“Richard II.,” iii. 2):

“Not all the water in the rough rude seaCan wash the balm from an anointed king.”

And again, in “3 Henry VI.” (iii. 1), King Henry, when in disguise, speaks thus:

“Thy place is fill’d, thy sceptre wrung from thee,Thy balm wash’d off wherewith thou wast anointed:No bending knee will call thee Cæsar now.”

The origin of balsam, says Mr. Ellacombe,479 “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.”

Barley. The barley broth, of which the Constable, in “Henry V.” (iii. 5), spoke so contemptuously as the food of English soldiers, was probably beer,480 which long before the time of Henry was so celebrated that it gave its name to the plant (barley being simply the beer-plant):

“Can sodden water,A drench for sur-rein’d jades, their barley broth,Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?”

Bay-tree. The withering and death of this tree were reckoned a prognostic of evil, both in ancient and modern times, a notion481 to which Shakespeare refers in “Richard II.” (ii. 4):

“’Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay.The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d”

– having obtained it probably from Holinshed, who says: “In this yeare, in a manner throughout all the realme of Englande, old baie trees withered.” Lupton, in his “Syxt Booke of Notable Things,” mentions this as a bad omen: “Neyther falling-sickness, neyther devyll, wyll infest or hurt one in that place whereas a bay-tree is. The Romaynes call it the plant of the good angel.”482

Camomile. It was formerly imagined that this plant grew the more luxuriantly for being frequently trodden or pressed down; a notion alluded to in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) by Falstaff: “For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.” Nares483 considers that the above was evidently written in ridicule of the following passage, in a book very fashionable in Shakespeare’s day, Lyly’s “Euphues,” of which it is a parody: “Though the camomile, the more it is trodden and pressed down, the more it spreadeth; yet the violet, the oftener it is handled and touched, the sooner it withereth and decayeth,” etc.

Clover. According to Johnson, the “honey-stalks” in the following passage (“Titus Andronicus,” iv. 4) are “clover-flowers, which contain a sweet juice.” It is not uncommon for cattle to overcharge themselves with clover, and die, hence the allusion by Tamora:

“I will enchant the old AndronicusWith words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,Than baits to fish, or honey-stalks to sheep.”

Columbine. This was anciently termed “a thankless flower,” and was also emblematical of forsaken lovers. It is somewhat doubtful to what Ophelia alludes in “Hamlet” (iv. 5), where she seems to address the king: “There’s fennel for you, and columbines.” Perhaps she regarded it as symbolical of ingratitude.

Crow-flowers. This name, which in Shakespeare’s time was applied to the “ragged robin,” is now used for the buttercup. It was one of the flowers that poor Ophelia wove into her garland (“Hamlet,” iv. 7):

“There with fantastic garlands did she comeOf crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples.”

Cuckoo-buds. Commentators are uncertain to what flower Shakespeare refers in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):

“When daisies pied and violets blue,And lady-smocks all silver-white,And cuckoo-buds of yellow hueDo paint the meadows with delight.”

Mr. Miller, in his “Gardener’s Dictionary,” says that the flower here alluded to is the Ranunculus bulbosus; but Mr. Beisly, in his “Shakespeare’s Garden,” considers it to be the Ranunculus ficaria (lesser celandine), or pile-wort, as this flower appears earlier in spring, and is in bloom at the same time as the other flowers named in the song. Mr. Swinfen Jervis, however, in his “Dictionary of the Language of Shakespeare” (1868), decides in favor of cowslips:484 and Dr. Prior suggests the buds of the crowfoot. At the present day the nickname cuckoo-bud is assigned to the meadow cress (Cardamine pratensis).

Cuckoo-flowers. By this flower, Mr. Beisly485 says, the ragged robin is meant, a well-known meadow and marsh plant, with rose-colored flowers and deeply-cut, narrow segments. It blossoms at the time the cuckoo comes, hence one of its names. In “King Lear” (iv. 4) Cordelia narrates how

“he was met even nowAs mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud;Crown’d with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,Darnel, and all the idle weeds that growIn our sustaining corn.”

Cypress. From the earliest times the cypress has had a mournful history, being associated with funerals and churchyards, and as such is styled by Spenser “cypress funereal.”

In Quarles’s “Argalus and Parthenia” (1726, bk. iii.) a knight is introduced, whose

“horse was black as jet,His furniture was round about besetWith branches slipt from the sad cypress tree.”

Formerly coffins were frequently made of cypress wood, a practice to which Shakespeare probably alludes in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4), where the Clown says: “In sad cypress let me be laid.” Some, however, prefer486 understanding cypress to mean “a shroud of cyprus or cypress” – a fine, transparent stuff, similar to crape, either white or black, but more commonly the latter.487 Douce488 thinks that the expression “laid” seems more applicable to a coffin than to a shroud, and also adds that the shroud is afterwards expressly mentioned by itself.

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

“daffodils,That come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty.”

And Autolycus, in the same play (iv. 3), sings thus:

“When daffodils begin to peer, —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,489 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:

“Darnel, and all the idle weeds that growIn 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: