Appendices - Appendix 2. The Seasons Of Shakespeare's Plays

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_ APPENDIX II. THE SEASONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

Biron. I like of each thing that in season grows.

--- Love's Labour's Lost, act i, sc. 1.

This paper was read to the New Shakespeare Society in June, 1880, and to the Bath Literary Club in the following November. The subject is so closely connected with the "Plant-lore of Shakespeare," that I add it as an Appendix.

 

THE SEASONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS.

In this paper I do not propose to make any exhaustive inquiry into the seasons of Shakespeare's plays, but (at Mr. Furnivall's suggestion) I have tried to find out whether in any case the season that was in the poet's mind can be discovered by the flowers or fruits, or whether, where the season is otherwise indicated, the flowers and fruits are in accordance. In other words, my inquiry is simply confined to the argument, if any, that may be derived from the flowers and fruits, leaving out of the question all other indications of the seasons.

The first part of the inquiry is, what plants or flowers are mentioned in each play? They are as follows:--

COMEDIES.

Tempest. Apple, crab, wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, peas, briar, furze, gorse, thorns, broom, cedar, corn, cowslip, nettle, docks, mallow, filbert, heath, ling, grass, nut, ivy, lily, piony, lime, mushrooms, oak, acorn, pignuts, pine, reed, saffron, sedges, stover, vine.

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Lily, roses, sedges.

Merry Wives. Pippins, buttons (?), balm, bilberry, cabbage, carrot, elder, eringoes, figs, flax, hawthorn, oak, pear, plums, prunes, potatoes, pumpion, roses, turnips, walnut.

Twelfth Night. Apple, box, ebony, flax, nettle, olive, squash, peascod, codling, roses, violet, willow, yew.

Measure for Measure. Birch, burs, corn, garlick, medlar, oak, myrtle, peach, prunes, grapes, vine, violet.

Much Ado. Carduus benedictus, honeysuckle, woodbine, oak, orange, rose, sedges, willow.

Midsummer Night's Dream. Crab, apricots, beans, briar, red rose, broom, bur, cherry, corn, cowslip, dewberries, oxlip, violet, woodbine, eglantine, elm, ivy, figs, mulberries, garlick, onions, grass, hawthorn, nuts, hemp, honeysuckle, knot-grass, leek, lily, peas, peas-blossom, oak, acorn, oats, orange, love-in-idleness, primrose, musk-rose buds, musk-roses, rose, thistle, thorns, thyme, grapes, violet, wheat.

Love's Labour's Lost. Apple, pomewater, crab, cedar, lemon, cockle, mint, columbine, corn, daisies, lady-smocks, cuckoo-buds, ebony, elder, grass, lily, nutmeg, oak, osier, oats, peas, plantain, rose, sycamore, thorns, violets, wormwood.

Merchant of Venice. Apple, grass, pines, reed, wheat, willow.

As You Like It. Acorns, hawthorn, brambles, briar, bur, chestnut, cork, nuts, holly, medlar, moss, mustard, oak, olive, palm, peascod, rose, rush, rye, sugar, grape, osier.

All's Well. Briar, date, grass, nut, marjoram, herb of grace, onions, pear, pomegranate, roses, rush, saffron, grapes.

Taming of Shrew. Apple, crab, chestnut, cypress, hazel, oats, onion, love-in-idleness, mustard, parsley, roses, rush, sedges, walnut.

Winter's Tale. Briars, carnations, gillyflower, cork, oxlips, crown imperial, currants, daffodils, dates, saffron, flax, lilies, flower-de-luce, garlick, ivy, lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, marigold, nettle, oak, warden, squash, pines, prunes, primrose, damask-roses, rice, raisins, rosemary, rue, thorns, violets.

Comedy of Errors. Balsam, ivy, briar, moss, rush, nut, cherrystone, elm, vine, grass, saffron.

HISTORIES.

King John. Plum, cherry, fig, lily, rose, violet, rush, thorns.

Richard II. Apricots, balm, bay, corn, grass, nettles, pines, rose, rue, thorns, violets, yew.

1st Henry IV. Apple-john, pease, beans, blackberries, camomile, fernseed, garlick, ginger, moss, nettle, oats, prunes, pomegranate, radish, raisins, reeds, rose, rush, sedges, speargrass, thorns.

2nd Henry IV. Aconite, apple-john, leathercoats, aspen, balm, carraways, corn, ebony, elm, fennel, fig, gooseberries, hemp, honeysuckle, mandrake, olive, peach, peascod, pippins, prunes, radish, rose, rush, wheat.

Henry V. Apple, balm, docks, elder, fig, flower-de-luce, grass, hemp, leek, nettle, fumitory, kecksies, burs, cowslips, burnet, clover, darnel, strawberry, thistles, vine, violet, hemlock.

1st Henry VI. Briar, white and red rose, corn, flower-de-luce, vine.

2nd Henry VI. Crab, cedar, corn, cypress, fig, flax, flower-de-luce, grass, hemp, laurel, mandrake, pine, plums, damsons, primrose, thorns.

3d Henry VI. Balm, cedar, corn, hawthorn, oaks, olive, laurel, thorns.

Richard III. Balm, cedar, roses, strawberry, vines.

Henry VIII. Apple, crab, bays, palms, broom, cherry, cedar, corn, lily, vine.

 

TRAGEDIES.

Troilus and Cressida. Almond, balm, blackberry, burs, date, nut, laurels, lily, toadstool, nettle, oak, pine, plantain, potato, wheat.

Timon of Athens. Balm, balsam, oaks, briars, grass, medlar, moss, olive, palm, rose, grape.

Coriolanus. Crab, ash, briars, cedar, cockle, corn, cypress, garlick, mulberry, nettle, oak, orange, palm, rush, grape.

Macbeth. Balm, chestnut, corn, hemlock, insane root, lily, primrose, rhubarb, senna (cyme), yew.

Julius Caesar. Oak, palm.

Antony and Cleopatra. Balm, figs, flag, laurel, mandragora, myrtle, olive, onions, pine, reeds, rose, rue, rush, grapes, wheat, vine.

Cymbeline. Cedar, violet, cowslip, primrose, daisies, harebell, eglantine, elder, lily, marybuds, moss, oak, acorn, pine, reed, rushes, vine.

Titus Andronicus. Aspen, briars, cedar, honeystalks, corn, elder, grass, laurel, lily, moss, mistletoe, nettles, yew.

Pericles. Rosemary, bay, roses, cherry, corn, violets, marigolds, rose, thorns.

Romeo and Juliet. Bitter-sweeting, dates, hazel, mandrake, medlar, nuts, popering pear, pink, plantain, pomegranate, quince, roses, rosemary, rush, sycamore, thorn, willow, wormwood, yew.

King Lear. Apple, balm, burdock, cork, corn, crab, fumiter, hemlock, harlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, darnel, flax, hawthorn, lily, marjoram, oak, oats, peascod, rosemary, vines, wheat, samphire.

Hamlet. Fennel, columbine, crow-flower, nettles, daisies, long purples or dead-men's-fingers, flax, grass, hebenon, nut, palm, pansies, plum-tree, primrose, rose, rosemary, rue, herb of grace, thorns, violets, wheat, willow, wormwood.

Othello. Locusts, coloquintida, figs, nettles, lettuce, hyssop, thyme, poppy, mandragora, oak, rose, rue, rush, strawberries, sycamore, grapes, willow.

Two Noble Kinsmen. Apricot, bulrush, cedar, plane, cherry, corn, currant, daffodils, daisies, flax, lark's heels, marigolds, narcissus, nettles, oak, oxlips, plantain, reed, primrose, rose, thyme, rush.

This I believe to be a complete list of the flowers of Shakespeare arranged according to the plays, and they are mentioned in one of three ways--first, adjectively, as "flaxen was his pole," "hawthorn-brake," "barley-broth," "thou honeysuckle villain," "onion-eyed," "cowslip-cheeks," but the instances of this use by Shakespeare are not many; second, proverbially or comparatively, as "tremble like aspen," "we grew together like to a double cherry seeming parted," "the stinking elder, grief," "thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine," "not worth a gooseberry." There are numberless instances of this use of the names of flowers, fruits, and trees, but neither of these uses give any indication of the seasons; and in one or other of these ways they are used (and only in these ways) in the following plays:--Tempest, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Taming of the Shrew, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, King John, 1st Henry IV., 2nd Henry VI., 3rd Henry VI., Henry VIII., Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Pericles, Othello. These therefore may be dismissed at once. There remain the following plays in which indications of the seasons intended either in the whole play or in the particular act may be traced. In some cases the traces are exceedingly slight (almost none at all); in others they are so strongly marked that there is little doubt that Shakespeare used them of set purpose and carefully:--Merry Wives, Twelfth Night, Much Ado, Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost, As You Like It, All's Well, Winter's Tale, Richard II., 1st Henry IV., Henry V., 2nd Henry VI., Richard III., Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Hamlet, and Two Noble Kinsmen.

Merry Wives. Herne's oak gives the season intended--

"Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time at still midnight
Walk round about an oak with ragged horns."

If Shakespeare really meant to place the scene in mid-winter, there may be a fitness in Mrs. Quickly's looking forward to "a posset at night, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire," for it was a "raw rheumatick day" (act iii, sc. 1), in Pistol's--

"Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing,"

in Ford's "birding" and "hawking," and in the concluding words--

"Let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire" (act v, sc. 5);

but it is not in accordance with the literature of the day to have fairies dancing at midnight in the depth of winter.

Twelfth Night. We know that the whole of this play occupies but a few days, and is chiefly "matter for a May morning." This gives emphasis to Olivia's oath, "By the roses of the Spring . . . I love thee so" (act ii, sc. 4).

Much Ado. The season must be summer. There is the sitting out of doors in the "still evening, hushed on purpose to grace harmony;" and it is the time of year for the full leafage when Beatrice might

"Steal into the pleached bower,
Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter" (act iii, sc. 1).

Midsummer Night's Dream. The name marks the season, and there is a profusion of flowers to mark it too. It may seem strange to us to have "Apricocks" at the end of June, but in speaking of the seasons of Shakespeare and others it should be remembered that their days were twelve days later than ours of the same names; and if to this is added the variation of a fortnight or three weeks, which may occur in any season in the ripening of a fruit, "apricocks" might well be sometimes gathered on their Midsummer day. But I do not think even this elasticity will allow for the ripening of mulberries and purple grapes at that time, and scarcely of figs. The scene, however, being laid in Athens and in fairyland, must not be too minutely criticized in this respect. But with the English plants the time is more accurately observed. There is the "green corn;" the "dewberries," which in a forward season may be gathered early in July; the "lush woodbine" in the fulness of its lushness at that time; the pansies, or "love-in-idleness," which (says Gerard) "flower not onely in the spring, but for the most part all sommer thorowe, even untill autumne;" the "sweet musk-roses and the eglantine," also in flower then, though the musk-roses, being rather late bloomers, would show more of the "musk-rose buds" in which Titania bid the elves "kill cankers" than of the full-blown flower; while the thistle would be exactly in the state for "Mounsieur Cobweb" to "kill a good red-hipped humble bee on the top of it" to "bring the honey-bag" to Bottom. Besides these there are the flowers on the "bank where the wild thyme blows; where oxlips and the nodding violet grows," and I think the distinction worth noting between the "blowing" of the wild thyme, which would then be at its fullest, and the "growing" of the oxlips and the violet, which had passed their time of blowing, but the living plants continued "growing."[386:1]

Love's Labour's Lost. The general tone of the play points to the full summer, the very time when we should expect to find Boyet thinking "to close his eyes some half an hour under the cool shade of a sycamore" (act v, sc. 2).

All's Well that Ends Well. There is a pleasant note of the season in--

"The time will bring on summer,
When briars will have leaves as well as thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp" (act iv, sc. 4);

but probably that is only a proverbial expression of hopefulness, and cannot be pushed further.

Winter's Tale. There seems some little confusion in the season of the fourth act--the feast for the sheep-shearing, which is in the very beginning of summer--yet Perdita dates the season as "the year growing ancient"--

"Nor yet on summer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter"--

and gives Camillo the "flowers of middle summer." The flowers named are all summer flowers; carnations or gilliflowers, lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, and marigold.

Richard II. There are several marked and well-known dates in this play, but they are not much marked by the flowers. The intended combat was on St. Lambert's day (17th Sept.), but there is no allusion to autumn flowers. In act iii, sc. 3, which we know must be placed in August, there is, besides the mention of the summer dust, King Richard's sad strain--

"Our sighs, and they (tears) shall lodge the summer corn,"

and in the same act we have the gardener's orders to trim the rank summer growth of the "dangling apricocks," while in the last act, which must be some months later, we have the Duke of York speaking of "this new spring of time," and the Duchess asking--

"Who are the violets now
That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?"

and though in both cases the words may be used proverbially, yet it seems also probable that they may have been suggested by the time of year.

2nd Henry IV. There is one flower-note in act ii, sc. 4, where the Hostess says to Falstaff, "Fare thee well! I have known thee these twenty-five years come peascod time," of which it can only be said that it must have been spoken at some other time than the summer.

Henry V. The exact season of act v, sc. 1, is fixed by St. David's day (March 1) and the leek.

1st Henry VI. The scene in the Temple gardens (act ii, sc. 4), where all turned on the colour of the roses, must have been at the season when the roses were in full bloom, say June.

Richard III. Here too the season of act ii, sc. 4, is fixed by the ripe strawberries brought by the Bishop of Ely to Richard. The exact date is known to be June 13, 1483.

Timon of Athens. An approximate season for act iv, sc. 3, might be guessed from the medlar offered by Apemantus to Timon. Our medlars are ripe in November.

Antony and Cleopatra. The figs and fig-leaves brought to Cleopatra give a slight indication of the season of act v.[388:1]

Cymbeline. Here there is a more distinct plant-note of the season of act i, sc. 3. The queen and her ladies, "whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather flowers," which at the end of the scene we are told are violets, cowslips, and primroses, the flowers of the spring. In the fourth act Lucius gives orders to "find out the prettiest daisied plot we can," to make a grave for Cloten; but daisies are too long in flower to let us attempt to fix a date by them.

Hamlet. In this play the season intended is very distinctly marked by the flowers. The first act must certainly be some time in the winter, though it may be the end of winter or early spring--"The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold." Then comes an interval of two months or more, and Ophelia's madness must be placed in the early summer, i.e., in the end of May or the beginning of June; no other time will all the flowers mentioned fit, but for that time they are exact. The violets were "all withered;" but she could pick fennel and columbines, daisies and pansies in abundance, while the evergreen rosemary and rue ("which we may call Herb of Grace on Sundays") would be always ready. It was the time of year when trees were in their full leafage, and so the "willow growing aslant the brook would show its hoar leaves in the glassy stream," while its "slivers," would help her in making "fantastic garlands" "of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples," or "dead men's fingers," all of which she would then be able to pick in abundance in the meadows, but which in a few weeks would be all gone. Perhaps the time of year may have suggested to Laertes that pretty but sad address to his sister,

"O Rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!"

Titus Andronicus. There is a plant-note in act ii, sc. 2--

"The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe."

Romeo and Juliet. A slight plant-note of the season may be detected in the nightly singing of the nightingale in the pomegranate tree in the third act.

King Lear. The plants named point to one season only, the spring. At no other time could the poor mad king have gone singing aloud,

"Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With harlock, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
And darnel."

I think this would also be the time for gathering the fresh shoots of the samphire; but I do not know this for certain.[389:1]

Two Noble Kinsmen. Here the season is distinctly stated for us by the poet. The scene is laid in May, and the flowers named are all in accordance--daffodils, daisies, marigolds, oxlips, primrose, roses, and thyme.

I cannot claim any great literary results from this inquiry into the seasons of Shakespeare as indicated by the flowers named; on the contrary, I must confess that the results are exceedingly small--I might almost say, none at all--still I do not regret the time and trouble that the inquiry has demanded of me. In every literary inquiry the value of the research is not to be measured by the visible results. It is something even to find out that there are no results, and so save trouble to future inquirers. But in this case the research has not been altogether in vain. Every addition, however small, to the critical study of our great Poet has its value; and to myself, as a student of the Natural History of Shakespeare, the inquiry has been a very pleasant one, because it has confirmed my previous opinion, that even in such common matters as the names of the most familiar every-day plants he does not write in a careless hap-hazard way, naming just the plant that comes uppermost in his thoughts, but that they are all named in the most careful and correct manner, exactly fitting into the scenes in which they are placed, and so giving to each passage a brightness and a reality which would be entirely wanting if the plants were set down in the ignorance of guess-work. Shakespeare knew the plants well; and though his knowledge is never paraded, by its very thoroughness it cannot be hid.

FOOTNOTES:

[386:1] If "the rite of May" (act iv, sc. 1) is to be strictly limited to May-Day, the title of a "Midsummer Night's Dream" does not apply. The difficulty can only be met by supposing the scene to be laid at any night in May, even in the last night, which would coincide with our 12th of June.

[388:1] "The Alexandrine figs are of the black kind having a white rift or Chanifre, and are surnamed Delicate. . . . Certain figs there be, which are both early and also lateward; . . . . they are ripe first in harvest, and afterwards in time of vintage; . . . . also some there be which beare thrice a year" (Pliny, Nat. Hist. b. xv., c. 18, P. Holland's translation, 1601).

[389:1] The objection to fixing the date of the play in spring is that Cordelia bids search to be made for Lear "in every acre of the high-grown field." If this can only refer to a field of corn at its full growth, there is a confusion of seasons. But if the larger meaning is given to "field," which it bears in "flowers of the field," "beasts of the field," the confusion is avoided. The words would then refer to the wild overgrowth of an open country. _

Read next: Appendices: Appendix 3. Names Of Plants

Read previous: Appendices: Appendix 1. The Daisy: Its History, Poetry, And Botany

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