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The Plant-Lore & Garden-Craft of Shakespeare, a non-fiction book by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe |
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Part 1. The Plant-Lore Of Shakespeare - Anemone, Apple, Apricots |
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_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE ANEMONE, APPLE, APRICOTS ANEMONE.
Shakespeare does not actually name the Anemone, and I place this passage under that name with some doubt, but I do not know any other flower to which he could be referring. The original legend of the Anemone as given by Bion was that it sprung from the tears of Venus, while the Rose sprung from Adonis' blood--
But this legend was not followed by the other classical writers, who made the Anemone to be the flower of Adonis. Theocritus compares the Dog-rose (so called also in his day, +kynosbatos+) and the Anemone with the Rose, and the Scholia comment on the passage thus--"Anemone, a scentless flower, which they report to have sprung from the blood of Adonis; and again Nicander says that the Anemone sprung from the blood of Adonis." The storehouse of our ancestors' pagan mythology was in Ovid, and his well-known lines are--
Thus translated by Golding in 1567, from whom it is very probable that Shakespeare obtained his information--
I feel sure that Shakespeare had some particular flower in view. Spenser only speaks of it as a flower, and gives no description--
--- F. Q., iii, 1, 34.
--- F. Q., iii, 1, 38.
We have transferred the Greek name of Anemone to the English language, and we have further kept the Greek idea in the English form of "wind-flower." The name is explained by Pliny: "The flower hath the propertie to open but when the wind doth blow, wherefore it took the name Anemone in Greeke" ("Nat. Hist." xxi. 11, Holland's translation). This, however, is not the character of the Anemone as grown in English gardens; and so it is probable that the name has been transferred to a different plant than the classical one, and I think no suggestion more probable than Dr. Prior's that the classical Anemone was the Cistus, a shrub that is very abundant in the South of Europe; that certainly opens its flowers at other times than when the wind blows, and so will not well answer to Pliny's description, but of which the flowers are bright-coloured and most fugacious, and so will answer to Ovid's description. This fugacious character of the Anemone is perpetuated in Sir William Jones' lines ("Poet. Works," i, 254, ed. 1810)--
but the lines, though classical, are not true of the Anemone, though they would well apply to the Cistus.[17:1] Our English Anemones belong to a large family inhabiting cold and temperate regions, and numbering seventy species, of which three are British.[17:2] These are A. Nemorosa, the common wood Anemone, the brightest spring ornament of our woods; A. Apennina, abundant in the South of Europe, and a doubtful British plant; and A. pulsatilla, the Passe, or Pasque flower, i.e., the flower of Easter, one of the most beautiful of our British flowers, but only to be found on the chalk formation.
[15:1] Golding evidently adopted the reading "qui perflant omnia," instead of the reading now generally received, "qui praestant nomina." [15:2] Gerard thought that Ovid's Anemone was the Venice Mallow--Hibiscus trionum--a handsome annual from the South of Europe. [16:1] In the "Nineteenth Century" for October, 1877, is an interesting article by Mr. Gladstone on the "colour-sense" in Homer, proving that Homer, and all nations in the earlier stages of their existence, have a very limited perception of colour, and a very limited and loosely applied nomenclature of colours. The same remark would certainly apply to the early English writers, not excluding Shakespeare. [17:1] Mr. Leo Grindon also identifies the classical Anemone with the Cistus. See a good account of it in "Gardener's Chronicle," June 3, 1876. [17:2] The small yellow A. ranunculoides has been sometimes included among the British Anemones, but is now excluded. It is a rare plant, and an alien.
APPLE
Here Shakespeare names the Apple, the Crab, the Pippin, the Pomewater, the Apple-john, the Codling, the Caraway, the Leathercoat, and the Bitter-Sweeting. Of the Apple generally I need say nothing, except to notice that the name 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, the Pine-apple,[20:1] &c. The Anglo-Saxon name for the Blackberry was the Bramble-apple; and Sir John Mandeville, in describing the Cedars of Lebanon, says: "And upon the hills growen Trees of Cedre, that ben fulle hye, and they beren longe Apples, and als grete as a man's heved"[20:2] (cap. ix.). In the English Bible it is the same. The Apple is mentioned in a few places, but it is almost certain that it never means the Pyrus malus, but is either the Orange, Citron, or Quince, or is a general name for a tree fruit. So that when Shakespeare (24) and the other old writers speak of Eve's Apple, they do not necessarily assert that the fruit of the temptation was our Apple, but simply that it was some fruit that grew in Eden. The Apple (pomum) has left its mark in the language in the word "pomatum," which, originally an ointment made of Apples, is now an ointment in which Apples have no part. The Crab was held in far more esteem in the sixteenth century than it is with us. The roasted fruit served with hot ale (9 and 10) was a favourite Christmas dish, and even without ale the roasted Crab was a favourite, and this not for want of better fruit, for Gerard tells us that in his time "the stocke or kindred of Apples was infinite," but because they were considered pleasant food.[20:3] Another curious use of Crabs is told in the description of Crab-wake, or "Crabbing the Parson," at Halesowen, Salop, on St. Kenelm's Day (July 17), in Brand's "Popular Antiquities" (vol. i. p. 342, Bohn's edition). Nor may we now despise the Crab tree, though we do not eat its fruit. Among our native trees there is none more beautiful than the Crab tree, both in flower and in fruit. An old Crab tree in full flower is a sight that will delight any artist, nor is it altogether useless; its wood is very hard and very lasting, and from its fruit verjuice is made, not, however, much in England, as I believe nearly all the verjuice now used is made in France. The Pippin, from being originally a general name for any Apple raised from pips and not from grafts, is now, and probably was in Shakespeare's time, confined to the bright-coloured, long-keeping Apples (Justice Shallow's was "last year's Pippin"), of which the Golden Pippin ("the Pippin burnished o'er with gold," Phillips) is the type. The Bitter-Sweeting (22) was an old and apparently a favourite Apple. It is frequently mentioned in the old writers, as by Gower, "Conf. Aman." viii. 174-- "For all such time of love is lore, By Chaucer--
--- Prologue of the Chanoune's Yeman. And by Ben Jonson--
--- Underwoods. Parkinson names it in his list of Apples, but soon dismisses it--"Twenty sorts of Sweetings, and none good." 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. It is not easy to identify the Pomewater (21). It was highly esteemed both by Shakespeare ("it hangeth like a jewel in the ear of coelo") and many other writers. In Gerard's figure it looks like a Codling, and its Latin name is Malus carbonaria, which probably refers to its good qualities as a roasting Apple. The name Pomewater (or Water Apple) makes us expect a juicy but not a rich Apple, and with this agrees Parkinson's description: "The Pomewater is an excellent, good, and great whitish Apple, full of sap or moisture, somewhat pleasant sharp, but a little bitter withall; it will not last long, the winter frosts soon causing it to rot and perish." It must have been very like the modern Lord Suffield Apple, and though Parkinson says it will not last long, yet it is mentioned as lasting till the New Year in a tract entitled "Vox Graculi," 1623. Speaking of New Year's Day, the author says: "This day shall be given many more gifts than shall be asked for; and apples, egges, and oranges shall be lifted to a lofty rate; when a Pomewater bestuck with a few rotten cloves shall be worth more than the honesty of a hypocrite" (quoted by Brand, vol. i. 17, Bohn's edition). We have no such difficulty with the "dish of Apple-johns" (17 and 18). Hakluyt recommends "the Apple John that dureth two years to make show of our fruit" to be carried by voyagers.[22:1] "The Deusan (deux ans) or Apple-john," says Parkinson, "is a delicate fine fruit, well rellished when it beginneth to be fit to be eaten, and endureth good longer than any other Apple." With this description there is no difficulty in identifying the Apple-john with an Apple that goes under many names, and is figured by Maund as the Easter Pippin. When first picked it is of a deep green colour, and very hard. In this state it remains all the winter, and in April or May it becomes yellow and highly perfumed, and remains good either for cooking or dessert for many months. The Codling (2) is not the Apple now so called, but is the general name of a young unripe Apple. The "Leathercoats" (19) are the Brown Russets; and though the "dish of Caraways" in the same passage may refer to the Caraway or Caraway-russet Apple, an excellent little apple, that seems to be a variety of the Nonpareil, and has long been cultivated in England, yet it is almost certain that it means a dish of Caraway Seeds. (See CARRAWAYS.)
[20:1] See PINE, p. 208. [20:2] "A peche appulle." "The appulys of a peche tre."--Porkington MSS. in Early English Miscellany. (Published by Warton Club.) [20:3] "As for Wildings and Crabs . . . their tast is well enough liked, and they carrie with them a quicke and a sharp smell; howbeit this gift they have for their harsh sournesse, that they have many a foule word and shrewd curse given them."--PHILEMON HOLLAND'S Pliny, book xv. c. 14. [21:1] "Amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus."--PLAUTUS. [21:2] Juliet describes leave-taking in almost the same words--"Parting is such sweet sorrow." [22:1] "Voyages," 1580, p. 466.
Shakespeare's spelling of the word "Apricocks" takes us at once to its derivation. It is derived undoubtedly from the Latin praecox or praecoquus, under which name it is referred to by Pliny and Martial; but, before it became the English Apricot it was much changed by Italians, Spaniards, French, and Arabians. The history of the name is very curious and interesting, but too long to give fully here; a very good account of it may be found in Miller and in "Notes and Queries," vol. ii. p. 420 (1850). It will be sufficient to say here that it acquired its name of "the precocious tree," because it flowered and fruited earlier than the Peach, as explained in Lyte's "Herbal," 1578: "There be two kinds of Peaches, whereof the one kinde is late ripe, . . . the other kinds are soner ripe, wherefore they be called Abrecox or Aprecox." Of its introduction into England we have no very certain account. It was certainly grown in England before Turner's time (1548), though he says, "We have very few of these trees as yet;"[23:1] but the only account of its introduction is by Hakluyt, who states that it was brought from Italy by one Wolf, gardener to King Henry the Eighth. If that be its true history, Shakespeare was in error in putting it into the garden of the queen of Richard the Second, nearly a hundred years before its introduction.[24:1] In Shakespeare's time the Apricot seems to have been grown as a standard; I gather this from the description in Nos. 2 (see the entire passage s.v. "Pruning" in Part II.) and 3, and from the following in Browne's "Britannia's Pastorals"-- "Or if from where he is[24:2] he do espy ---Book ii. Song 4. FOOTNOTES: [23:1] "Names of Herbes," s.v. Malus Armeniaca. [24:1] The Apricot has usually been supposed to have come from Armenia, but there is now little doubt that its original country is the Himalaya (M. Lavaillee). [24:2] On a Cherry tree in an orchard. _ |
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