Folk-lore of Shakespeare

“Good morrow, gallants! want ye corn for bread?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):

“King. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.Biron. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!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

“Judas, he japedWith jewen silver,And sithen on an ellerHanged 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:

“Grow, patience!And let the stinking elder, grief, untwineHis perishing root with the increasing vine!”

The dwarf elder490 (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:

“This is the pit and this the 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. Ellacombe491 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.492 Thus in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) Falstaff says of Poins, he “eats conger and fennel.” Mr. Beisly states493 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”494 we find:

“Nor fennel-finkle bring for flattery,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):

“Did you think that you had Gyges’ ring?Or the herb that gives invisibility?”

Again, in Ben Jonson’s “New Inn” (i. 1):

“I hadNo 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.”495

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,496 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,497 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.498

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:”499

“I do look now for a Spanish fig, or an Italian salad, daily;”

and in Shirley’s “Brothers:”500

“I must poison him;One fig sends him to Erebus;”

or it may, as Mr. Dyce remarks,501 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 passage502 in “2 Henry VI.” (v. 1), where the Duke of York says:

“A sceptre shall it have, – have I a soul, —On which I’ll toss the flower-de-luce of France.”

In “1 Henry VI.” (i. 2) Pucelle declares:

“I am prepared; here is my keen-edged sword,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,503 “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):

“Her nekke was white as the flour-de-lis.”

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:

“The maiden’s sword protects the royal crown;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 France.” When Edward III. claimed the crown of France, in the year 1340, he quartered the ancient shield of France with the lions of England. It disappeared, however, from the English shield in the first year of the present century.

Gillyflower. This was the old name for the whole class of carnations, pinks, and sweet-williams, from the French girofle, which is itself corrupted from the Latin caryophyllum.504 The streaked gillyflowers, says Mr. Beisly,505 noticed by Perdita in “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 4) —

“the fairest flowers o’ the seasonAre our carnations and streak’d gillyvors,Which some call nature’s bastards” —

“are produced by the flowers of one kind being impregnated by the pollen of another kind, and this art (or law) in nature Shakespeare alludes to in the delicate language used by Perdita, as well as to the practice of increasing the plants by slips.” Tusser, in his “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,” says:

“The gilloflower also the skilful doe know,Doth look to be covered in frost and in snow.”

Harebell. This flower, mentioned in “Cymbeline” (iv. 2), is no doubt another name for the wild hyacinth.

Arviragus says of Imogen:

“thou shalt not lackThe flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose; norThe azured harebell, like thy veins.”

Hemlock. In consequence of its bad and poisonous character, this plant was considered an appropriate ingredient for witches’ broth. In “Macbeth” (iv. 1) we read of

“Root of hemlock, digged i’ the dark.”

Its scientific name, conium, is from the Greek word meaning cone or top, whose whirling motion resembles the giddiness produced on the constitution by its poisonous juice. It is by most persons supposed to be the death-drink of the Greeks, and the one by which Socrates was put to death.

Herb of Grace or Herb Grace. A popular name in days gone by for rue. The origin of the term is uncertain. Most probably it arose from the extreme bitterness of the plant, which, as it had always borne the name rue (to be sorry for anything), was not unnaturally associated with repentance. It was, therefore, the herb of repentance,506 “and this was soon changed into ‘herb of grace,’ repentance being the chief sign of grace.” The expression is several times used by Shakespeare. In “Richard II.” (iii. 4) the gardener narrates:

“Here did she fall a tear; here, in this placeI’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,In the remembrance of a weeping queen.”

In “Hamlet” (iv. 5), Ophelia, when addressing the queen, says, “There’s rue for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-grace o’ Sundays: O, you must wear your rue with a difference.”507

Malone observes that there is no ground for supposing that rue was called “herb of grace” from its being used in exorcisms in churches on Sunday, a notion entertained by Jeremy Taylor, who says, referring to the Flagellum Dæmonum, “First, they (the Romish exorcisers) are to try the devil by holy water, incense, sulphur, rue, which from thence, as we suppose, came to be called ‘herb of grace.’”508 Rue was also a common subject of puns, from being the same word which signified sorrow or pity (see “Richard II.,” iii. 4, cited above).

Holy Thistle. The Carduus Benedictus, called also “blessed thistle,” was so named, like other plants which bear the specific name of “blessed,” from its supposed power of counteracting the effect of poison.509 Cogan, in his “Haven of Health,” 1595, says, “This herbe may worthily be called Benedictus, or Omnimorbia, that is, a salve for every sore, not known to physitians of old time, but lately revealed by the special providence of Almighty God.” It is alluded to in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 4):

“Margaret. Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm.

Hero. There thou prickest her with a thistle.

Beatrice. Benedictus! why Benedictus? you have some moral in this Benedictus.

Margaret. Moral? no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning. I meant, plain holy-thistle.”

Insane Root. There is much doubt as to what plant is meant by Banquo in “Macbeth” (i. 3):

“have we eaten on the insane rootThat takes the reason prisoner?”

The origin of this passage is probably to be found in North’s “Plutarch,” 1579 (“Life of Antony,” p. 990), where mention is made of a plant which “made them out of their wits.” Several plants have been suggested – the hemlock, belladonna, mandrake, henbane, etc. Douce supports the last, and cites the following passage:510 “Henbane … is called insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth madness, or slow lykenesse of sleepe.” Nares511 quotes from Ben Jonson (“Sejanus,” iii. 2), in support of hemlock:

“well, read my charms,And may they lay that hold upon thy sensesAs thou hadst snufft up hemlock.”

Ivy. It was formerly the general custom in England, as it is still in France and the Netherlands, to hang a bush of ivy at the door of a vintner.512 Hence the allusion in “As You Like It” (v. 4, Epilogue), where Rosalind wittily remarks: “If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.” This custom is often referred to by our old writers, as, for instance, in Nash’s “Summer’s Last Will and Testament,” 1600:

“Green ivy bushes at the vintner’s doors.”

And in the “Rival Friends,” 1632:

“’Tis like the ivy bush unto a tavern.”

This plant was no doubt chosen from its being sacred to Bacchus. The practice was observed at statute hirings, wakes, etc., by people who sold ale at no other time. The manner, says Mr. Singer,513 in which they were decorated appears from a passage in Florio’s “Italian Dictionary,” in voce tremola, “Gold foile, or thin leaves of gold or silver, namely, thinne plate, as our vintners adorn their bushes with.” We may compare the old sign of “An owl in an ivy bush,” which perhaps denoted the union of wisdom or prudence with conviviality, with the phrase “be merry and wise.”

Kecksies. These are the dry, hollow stalks of hemlock. In “Henry V.” (v. 2) Burgundy makes use of the word:

“and nothing teems,But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,Losing both beauty and utility.”

It has been suggested514 that kecksies may be a mistaken form of the plural kex; and that kex may have been formed from keck, something so dry that the eater would keck at it, or be unable to swallow it. The word is probably derived from the Welsh “cecys,” which is applied to several plants of the umbelliferous kind. Dr. Prior,515 however, says that kecksies is from an old English word keek, or kike, retained in the northern counties in the sense of “peep” or “spy.”

Knotgrass. 516 The allusion to this plant in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 2) —

“Get you gone, you dwarf!You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;You bead, you acorn!” —

refers to its supposed power of hindering the growth of any child or animal, when taken in an infusion, a notion alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher (“Coxcombe,” ii. 2):

“We want a boy extremely for this function,Kept under for a year with milk and knot-grass.”

In “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” (ii. 2) we read: “The child’s a fatherless child, and say they should put him into a strait pair of gaskins, ’twere worse than knot-grass; he would never grow after it.”

Lady-smocks. This plant is so called from the resemblance of its white flowers to little smocks hung out to dry (“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” v. 2), as they used to be at that season of the year especially

“When daisies pied, and violets blue,And lady-smocks all silver white,And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,Do paint the meadows with delight.*****When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,*****And maidens bleach their summer smocks.”

According to another explanation, the lady-smock is a corruption of “Our Lady’s Smock,” so called from its first flowering about Lady-tide. This plant has also been called cuckoo-flower, because, as Gerarde says, “it flowers in April and May, when the cuckoo doth begin to sing her pleasant notes without stammering.”

Laurel. From the very earliest times this classical plant has been regarded as symbolical of victory, and used for crowns. In “Titus Andronicus” (i. 1) Titus says:

“Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs.”

And in “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 3) the latter exclaims:

“upon your swordSit laurelled victory.”517

Leek. The first of March is observed by the Welsh in honor of St. David, their patron saint, when, as a sign of their patriotism, they wear a leek. Much doubt exists as to the origin of this custom. According to the Welsh, it is because St. David ordered his Britons to place leeks in their caps, that they might be distinguished in fight from their Saxon foes. Shakespeare, in “Henry V.” (iv. 7), alludes to the custom when referring to the battle of Cressy. Fluellen says, “If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which your majesty know to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.”518 Dr. Owen Pughe519 supposes the custom arose from the practice of every farmer contributing his leek to the common repast when they met at the Cymmortha, an association by which they reciprocated assistance in ploughing the land. Anyhow, the subject is one involved in complete uncertainty, and the various explanations given are purely conjectural (see p. 303).

Lily. Although so many pretty legends and romantic superstitions have clustered round this sweet and favorite flower, yet they have escaped the notice of Shakespeare, who, while attaching to it the choicest epithets, has simply made it the type of elegance and beauty, and the symbol of purity and whiteness.

Long Purples. This plant, mentioned by Shakespeare in “Hamlet” (iv. 7) as forming part of the nosegay of poor Ophelia, is generally considered to be the early purple orchis (Orchis mascula), which blossoms in April or May. It grows in meadows and pastures, and is about ten inches high. Tennyson (“A Dirge”) uses the name:

“Round thee blow, self-pleached deep,Bramble roses, faint and pale,And long purples of the dale.”

Another term applied by Shakespeare to this flower was “Dead Men’s Fingers,” from the pale color and hand-like shape of the palmate tubers:

“Our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.”

In “Flowers from Stratford-on-Avon,” it is said, “there can be no doubt that the wild arum is the plant alluded to by Shakespeare,” but there seems no authority for this statement.

Love-in-Idleness, or, with more accuracy, Love-in-Idle,520 is one of the many nicknames of the pansy or heart’s-ease – a term said to be still in use in Warwickshire. It occurs in “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1),521 where Oberon says:

“Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:It fell upon a little western flower,Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,And maidens call it love-in-idleness.”

The phrase literally signifies love in vain, or to no purpose, as Taylor alludes to it in the following couplet:

“When passions are let loose without a bridle,Then precious time is turned to love and idle.”

That flowers, and pansies especially, were used as love-philters,522 or for the object of casting a spell over people, in Shakespeare’s day, is shown in the passage already quoted. where Puck and Oberon amuse themselves at Titania’s expense. Again, a further reference occurs (iv. 1), where the fairy king removes the spell:

“But first I will release the fairy queen.Be as thou wast wont to be:See as thou wast wont to see:Dian’s bud523 o’er Cupid’s flower524Hath such force and blessed power.Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.”

“It has been suggested,” says Mr. Aldis Wright,525 “that the device employed by Oberon to enchant Titania by anointing her eyelids with the juice of a flower, may have been borrowed by Shakespeare from the Spanish romance of ‘Diana’ by George of Montemayor. But apart from the difficulty which arises from the fact that no English translation of this romance is known before that published by Young in 1598, there is no necessity to suppose that Shakespeare was indebted to any one for what must have been a familiar element in all incantations at a time when a belief in witchcraft was common.” Percy (“Reliques,” vol. iii. bk. 2) quotes a receipt by the celebrated astrologer, Dr. Dee, for “an ungent to anoynt under the eyelids, and upon the eyelids eveninge and morninge, but especially when you call,” that is, upon the fairies. It consisted of a decoction of various flowers.

Mandragora or Mandrake. No plant, perhaps, has had, at different times, a greater share of folk-lore attributed to it than the mandrake; partly owing, probably, to the fancied resemblance of its root to the human figure, and the accidental circumstance of man being the first syllable of the word. An inferior degree of animal life was assigned to it; and it was commonly supposed that, when torn from the ground, it uttered groans of so pernicious a character, that the person who committed the violence either went mad or died. In “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 2) Suffolk says:

“Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake’s groan,I would invent,” etc.

And Juliet (“Romeo and Juliet,” iv. 3) speaks of

“shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth,That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.”

To escape this danger, it was recommended to tie one end of a string to the plant and the other to a dog, upon whom the fatal groan would discharge its whole malignity. The ancients, it appears, were equally superstitious with regard to this mysterious plant, and Columella, in his directions for the site of gardens, says they may be formed where

“the mandrake’s flowersProduce, whose root shows half a man, whose juiceWith madness strikes.”

Pliny526 informs us that those who dug up this plant paid particular attention to stand so that the wind was at their back; and, before they began to dig, they made three circles round the plant with the point of the sword, and then, proceeding to the west, commenced digging it up. It seems to have been well known as an opiate in the time of Shakespeare, who makes Iago say in “Othello” (iii. 3):

“Not poppy, nor mandragora,Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleepWhich thou ow’dst yesterday.”

In “Antony and Cleopatra” (i. 5), the queen pathetically says:

“Give me to drink mandragora.Char. Why, madam?Cleo. That I might sleep out this great gap of time,My Antony is away.”

Lyte, in his translation of “Dodoens” (1578), p. 438, tells us that “the leaves and fruit be also dangerous, for they cause deadly sleepe, and peevish drowsiness, like opium.” It was sometimes regarded as an emblem of incontinence, as in “2 Henry IV.” (iii. 2): “yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him – mandrake.” A very diminutive figure was, too, often compared to a mandrake. In “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2), Falstaff says: “Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels.” Tracing back the history of this plant into far-distant times, it is generally believed that it is the same as that which the ancient Hebrews called Dudain.527 That these people held it in the highest esteem in the days of Jacob is evident from its having been found by Reuben, who carried the plant to his mother; and the inducement which tempted Leah to part with it proves the value then set upon this celebrated plant. According to a curious superstition, this plant was thought to possess the properties of making childless wives become mothers, and hence, some suppose, Rachel became so desirous of possessing the mandrakes which Reuben had found. Among the many other items of folk-lore associated with the mandrake, there is one which informs us that “it is perpetually watched over by Satan, and if it be pulled up at certain holy times, and with certain invocations, the evil spirit will appear to do the bidding of the practitioner.”528 In comparatively recent times, quacks and impostors counterfeited with the root briony figures resembling parts of the human body, which were sold to the credulous as endued with specific virtues.529 The Germans, too, equally superstitious, formed little idols of the roots of the mandrake, which were regularly dressed every day, and consulted as oracles – their repute being such that they were manufactured in great numbers, and sold in cases. They were, also, imported into this country during the time of Henry VIII., it being pretended that they would, with the assistance of some mystic words, increase whatever money was placed near them. In order, too, to enhance the value of these so-called miracle-workers, it was said that the roots of this plant were produced from the flesh of criminals which fell from the gibbet, and that it only grew in such a situation.530