Part 1. The Plant-Lore Of Shakespeare - Raisins, Reeds, Rhubarb

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_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE
RAISINS, REEDS, RHUBARB

RAISINS.

Clown.

Four pounds of Prunes and as many of Raisins o' the sun.

--- Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 3 (51).

Raisins are alluded to, if not actually named, in "1st Henry IV.," act ii, sc. 4, when Falstaff says: "If reasons were as plentiful as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I----" "It seems that a pun underlies this, the association of reasons with Blackberries springing out of the fact that reasons sounded like raisins."--EARLE, Philology, &c.

Bearing in mind that Raisin is a corruption of racemus, a bunch of Grapes, we can understand that the word was not always applied, as it is now, to the dried fruit, but was sometimes applied to the bunch of Grapes as it hung ripe on the tree--

"For no man at the firste stroke
He may not felle down an Oke;
Nor of the Reisins have the wyne
Till Grapes be ripe and welle afyne."

--- Romaunt of the Rose.

The best dried fruit were Raisins of the sun, i.e., dried in the sun, to distinguish them from those which were dried in ovens. They were, of course, foreign fruit, and were largely imported. The process of drying in the sun is still the method in use, at least, with "the finer kinds, such as Muscatels, which are distinguished as much by the mode of drying as by the variety and soil in which they are grown, the finest being dried on the Vines before gathering, the stalk being partly cut through when the fruits are ripe, and the leaves being removed from near the clusters, so as to allow the full effect of the sun in ripening."

The Grape thus becomes a Raisin, but it is still further transformed when it reaches the cook; it then becomes a Plum, for Plum pudding has, as we all know, Raisins for its chief ingredient and certainly no Plums; and the Christmas pie into which Jack Horner put in his thumb and pulled out a Plum must have been a mince-pie, also made of Raisins; but how a cooked Raisin came to be called a Plum is not recorded. In Devonshire and Dorsetshire it undergoes a further transformation, for there Raisins are called Figs, and a Plum pudding is called a Fig pudding.

 

REEDS.

(1) 2nd Servant.

I had as lief have a Reed that will do me no service, as a
partizan I could not heave.

--- Antony and Cleopatra, act ii, sc. 7 (13).

(2) Arviragus.

Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the Reed is as the Oak;
The sceptre, learning, physick, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

--- Cymbeline, act iv, sc. 2 (264).

(3) Ariel.

His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of Reeds.

--- Tempest, act v, sc. 1 (16).

(4) Ariel.

With hair up-staring--then like Reeds, not hair--

--- Ibid., act i, sc. 2 (213).

(5) Hotspur.

Swift Severn's flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling Reeds.

--- 1st Henry IV, act 1, sc. 3 (103).

(6) Portia.

And speak between the change of man and boy
With a Reed voice.

--- Merchant of Venice, act iii, sc. 4 (66).

(7) Wooer.

In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace
From the far shore thick set with Reeds and Sedges.

* * * * *

The Rushes and the Reeds
Had so encompast it.

--- Two Noble Kinsmen, act iv, sc. 1 (71, 80).

(8)

To Simois' Reedy banks the red blood ran.

--- Lucrece (1437).

Reed is a general term for almost any water-loving, grassy plant, and so it is used by Shakespeare. In the Bible it is perhaps possible to identify some of the Reeds mentioned, with the Sugar Cane in some places, with the Papyrus in others, and in others with the Arundo donax. As a Biblical plant it has a special interest, not only as giving the emblem of the tenderest mercy that will be careful even of "the bruised Reed," but also as entering largely into the mockery of the Crucifixion: "They put a Reed in His right hand," and "they filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it upon a Reed and gave Him to drink." The Reed in these passages was probably the Arundo donax, a very elegant Reed, which was used for many purposes in Palestine, and is a most graceful plant for English gardens, being perfectly hardy, and growing every year from 12ft. to 14ft. in height, but very seldom flowering.[240:1]

But in Shakespeare, as in most writers, the Reed is simply the emblem of weakness, tossed about by and bending to a superior force, and of little or no use--"a Reed that will do me no service" (No. 1). It is also the emblem of the blessedness of submission, and of the power that lies in humility to outlast its oppressor--

"Like as in tempest great,
Where wind doth bear the stroke,
Much safer stands the bowing Reed
Then doth the stubborn Oak."

Shakespeare mentions but two uses to which the Reed was applied, the thatching of houses (No. 3), and the making of Pan or Shepherd's pipes (No. 6). Nor has he anything to say of its beauty, yet the Reeds of our river sides (Arundo phragmites) are most graceful plants, especially when they have their dark plumes of flowers, and this Milton seems to have felt--

"Forth flourish't thick the flustering Vine, forth crept
The swelling Gourd, up stood the Cornie Reed
Embattled in her field."

--- Paradise Lost, book vii.

FOOTNOTES:

[240:1] I have only been able to find one record of the flowering of Arundo donax in England--"Mem: Arundo donax in flower, 15th September, 1762, the first time I ever saw it, but this very hot dry summer has made many exotics flower. . . . It bears a handsome tassel of flowers."--P. COLLINSON'S Hortus Collinsonianus.

 

RHUBARB.

Macbeth.

What Rhubarb, Cyme, or what purgative drug
Would scour these English hence?

--- Macbeth, act v, sc. 3 (55).

Andrew Boorde writing from Spayne in 1535, to Thomas Cromwell, says, "I have sent to your Mastershipp the seeds of Reuberbe the whiche come forth of Barbary in this parte ytt ys had for a grett tresure."[241:1] But the plant does not seem to have become established and Shakespeare could only have known the imported drug, for the Rheum was first grown by Parkinson, though it had been described in an uncertain way both by Lyte and Gerard. Lyte said: "Rha, as it is thought, hath great broad leaves;" and then he says: "We have found here in the gardens of certaine diligent herboristes that strange plant which is thought by some to be Rha or Rhabarbum;" but from the figure it is very certain that the plant was not a Rheum. After the time of Parkinson, it was largely grown for the sake of producing the drug, and it is still grown in England to some extent for the same purpose, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Banbury; though it is doubtful whether any of the species now grown in England are the true species that has long produced Turkey Rhubarb. The plant is now grown most extensively as a spring vegetable, though I cannot find when it first began to be so used. Parkinson evidently tried it and thought well of it. "The leaves have a fine acid taste; a syrup, therefore, made with the juice and sugar cannot but be very effectual in dejected appetites." Yet even in 1807 Professor Martyn, the editor of "Millar's Dictionary," in a long article on the Rhubarb, makes no mention of its culinary qualities, but in 1822 Phillips speaks of it as largely cultivated for spring tarts, and forced for the London markets, "medical men recommending it as one of the most cooling and wholesome tarts sent to table."

As a garden plant the Rhubarb is highly ornamental, though it is seldom seen out of the kitchen garden, but where room can be given to them, Rheum palmatum or Rheum officinale, will always be admired as some of the handsomest of foliage plants. The finest species of the family is the Himalayan Rheum nobile, but it is exceedingly difficult to grow. Botanically the Rhubarb is allied to the Dock and Sorrel, and all the species are herbaceous.

FOOTNOTES:

[241:1] Quoted in Furnival's forewords to Boorde's "Introduction to Knowledge," p. 56. _

Read next: Part 1. The Plant-Lore Of Shakespeare: Rice, Roses

Read previous: Part 1. The Plant-Lore Of Shakespeare: Pumpion, Radish

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