book ii
. c. 6, and Dr. M. C. Cooke's "Freaks of Plant Life."
MARIGOLD.
(1) _Perdita._
The Marigold that goes to bed wi' the sun, And with him rises weeping; these are flowers Of middle summer.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (105).
(2) _Marina._
The purple Violets and Marigolds Shall, as a carpet, hang upon thy grave While summer-days do last.
_Pericles_, act iv, sc. 1 (16).
(3) _Song._
And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes.
_Cymbeline_, act ii, sc. 3 (25).
(4)
Marigolds on death-beds blowing.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.
(5)
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread But as the Marigolds at the sun's eye.
_Sonnet_ xxv.
(6)
Her eyes, like Marigolds, had sheathed their light, And canopied in darkness sweetly lay, Till they might open to adorn the day.
_Lucrece_ (397).
There are at least three plants which claim to be the old Marigold. 1. The Marsh Marigold (_Caltha palustris_). This is a well-known golden flower--
"The wild Marsh Marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray."
TENNYSON.
And there is this in favour of its being the flower meant, that the name signifies the golden blossom of the marish or marsh; but, on the other hand, the Caltha does not fulfil the conditions of Shakespeare's Marigold--it does not open and close its flowers with the sun. 2. The Corn Marigold (_Chrysanthemum segetum_), a very handsome but mischievous weed in Corn-fields, not very common in England and said not to be a true native, but more common in Scotland, where it is called Goulands. I do not think this is the flower, because there is no proof, as far as I know, that it was called Marigold in Shakespeare's time. 3. The Garden Marigold or Ruddes (_Calendula officinalis_). I have little doubt this is the flower meant; it was always a great favourite in our forefathers' gardens, and it is hard to give any reason why it should not be so in ours. Yet it has been almost completely banished, and is now seldom found but in the gardens of cottages and old farmhouses, where it is still prized for its bright and almost everlasting flowers (looking very like a Gazania) and evergreen tuft of leaves, while the careful housewife still picks and carefully stores the petals of the flowers, and uses them in broths and soups, believing them to be of great efficacy, as Gerard said they were, "to strengthen and comfort the heart;" though scarcely perhaps rating them as high as Fuller: "we all know the many and sovereign vertues . . . in your leaves, the Herb Generall in all pottage" ("Antheologie," 1655, p. 52).
The two properties of the Marigold--that it was always in flower, and that it turned its flowers to the sun and followed his guidance in their opening and shutting--made it a very favourite flower with the poets and emblem writers. T. Forster, in the "Circle of the Seasons," 1828, says that "this plant received the name of Calendula, because it was in flower on the calends of nearly every month. It has been called Marigold for a similar reason, being more or less in blow at the times of all the festivals of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the word gold having reference to its golden rays, likened to the rays of light around the head of the Blessed Virgin." This is ingenious, and, as he adds, "thus say the old writers," it is worth quoting, though he does not say what old writer gave this derivation, which I am very sure is not the true one. The old name is simply _goldes_. Gower, describing the burning of Leucothoe, says--
"She sprong up out of the molde Into a flour, was named Golde, Which stant governed of the Sonne."
_Conf. Aman._, lib. quint.
Chaucer spoke of the "yellow Goldes;"[157:1] in the "Promptorium Parvulorum" we have "Goolde, herbe, solsequium, quia sequitur solem, elitropium, calendula;" and Spenser says--
"And if I her like ought on earth might read I would her liken to a crowne of Lillies, Upon a virgin brydes adorned head, With Roses dight and Goolds and Daffodillies."
_Colin Clout._
But it was its other quality of opening or shutting its flowers at the sun's bidding that made the Marigold such a favourite with the old writers, especially those who wrote on religious emblems. It was to them the emblem of constancy in affection,[157:2] and sympathy in joy and sorrow, though it was also the emblem of the fawning courtier, who can only shine when everything is bright. As the emblem of constancy, it was to the old writers what the Sunflower was to Moore--
"The Sunflower turns on her god when he sets The same look which she did when he rose."
It was the Heliotrope or Solsequium or Turnesol of our forefathers, and is the flower often alluded to under that name.[158:1] "All yellow flowers," says St. Francis de Sales, "and, above all, those that the Greeks call Heliotrope, and we call Sunflower, not only rejoice at the sight of the sun, but follow with loving fidelity the attraction of its rays, gazing at the sun, and turning towards it from its rising to its setting" ("Divine Love," Mulholland's translation).
Of this higher and more religious use of the emblematic flower there are frequent examples. I will only give one from G. Withers, a contemporary of Shakespeare's later life--
"When with a serious musing I behold The grateful and obsequious Marigold, How duly every morning she displays Her open breast when Phoebus spreads his rays; How she observes him in his daily walk, Still bending towards him her small slender stalk; How when he down declines she droops and mourns, Bedewed, as 'twere, with tears till he returns; And how she veils her flowers when he is gone. When this I meditate, methinks the flowers Have spirits far more generous than ours, And give us fair examples to despise The servile fawnings and idolatries Wherewith we court these earthly things below, Which merit not the service we bestow."
From the time of Withers the poets treated the Marigold very much as the gardeners did--they passed it by altogether as beneath their notice.
FOOTNOTES:
[157:1]
"That werud of yolo Guldes a garland."
_The Knightes Tale._
[157:2]
"You the Sun to her must play, She to you the Marigold, To none but you her leaves unfold."
MIDDLETON AND ROWLEY, _The Spanish Gipsy_.
See also Thynne's "Emblems," No. 18; and Cutwode's "Caltha Poetarum," 1599, st. 18, 19.
[158:1] "Solsequium vel heliotropium; Solsece vel sigel-hwerfe" (_i.e._, sun-seeker or sun-turner).--ÆLFRIC'S _Vocabulary_.
"Marigolde; solsequium, sponsa solis."--_Catholicon Anglicum._
In a note Mr. Herttage says, "the oldest name for the plant was _ymbglidegold_, that which moves round with the sun."
MARJORAM.
(1) _Perdita._
Here's flowers for you; Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (103).
(2) _Lear._
Give the word.
_Edgar._
Sweet Marjoram.
_Lear._ Pass.
_King Lear_, act iv, sc. 6 (93).
(3)
The Lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of Marjoram had stolen thy hair.
_Sonnet_ xcix.
(4) _Clown._
Indeed, sir, she was the sweet Marjoram of the Salad, or rather the Herb-of-grace.
_All's Well that Ends Well_, act iv, sc. 5 (17).
In Shakespeare's time several species of Marjoram were grown, especially the Common Marjoram (_Origanum vulgare_), a British plant, the Sweet Marjoram (_O. Marjorana_), a plant of the South of Europe, from which the English name comes,[159:1] and the Winter Marjoram (_O. Horacleoticum_). They were all favourite pot herbs, so that Lyte calls the common one "a delicate and tender herb," "a noble and odoriferous plant;" but, like so many of the old herbs, they have now fallen into disrepute. The comparison of a man's hair to the buds of Marjoram is not very intelligible, but probably it was a way of saying that the hair was golden.
FOOTNOTES:
[159:1] See "Catholicon Anglicum," s.v. Marioron and note.
MARYBUDS, _see_ MARIGOLD.
MAST.
_Timon._
The Oaks bear Mast, the Briers scarlet hips.
_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (174).
We still call the fruit of beech, beech-masts, but do not apply the name to the acorn. It originally meant food used for fatting, especially for fatting swine. See note in "Promptorium Parvulorum," p. 329, giving several instances of this use, and Strattmann, s.v. Mæst.
MEDLAR.
(1) _Apemantus._
There's a Medlar for thee, eat it.
_Timon._
On what I hate I feed not.
_Apemantus._
Dost hate a Medlar?
_Timon._
Ay, though it looks like thee.
_Apemantus._
An thou hadst hated Meddlers sooner, thou shouldst have loved thyself better now.
_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (305).
(2) _Lucio._
They would have married me to the rotten Medlar.
_Measure for Measure_, act iv, sc. 3 (183).
(3) _Touchstone._
Truly the tree yields bad fruit.
_Rosalind._
I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a Medlar; then it will be the earliest fruit in the country, for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the Medlar.
_As You Like It_, act iii, sc. 2 (122).
(4) _Mercutio._
Now will he sit under a Medlar tree. And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit As maids call Medlars when they laugh alone.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 1 (80).[160:1]
The Medlar is an European tree, but not a native of England; it has, however, been so long introduced as to be now completely naturalized, and is admitted into the English flora. It is mentioned in the early vocabularies, and Chaucer gives it a very prominent place in his description of a beautiful garden--
"I was aware of the fairest Medler tree That ever yet in alle my life I sie, As ful of blossomes as it might be; Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile Fro' bough to bough, and as him list, he eet Here and there of buddes and floweres sweet."
_The Flower and the Leaf_ (240).
And certainly a fine Medlar tree "ful of blossomes" is a handsome ornament on any lawn. There are few deciduous trees that make better lawn trees. There is nothing stiff about the growth even from its early youth; it forms a low, irregular, picturesque tree, excellent for shade, with very handsome white flowers, followed by the curious fruit; it will not, however, do well in the North of England or Scotland.
It does not seem to have been a favourite fruit with our forefathers. Bullein says "the fruite called the Medler is used for a medicine and not for meate;" and Shakespeare only used the common language of his time when he described the Medlar as only fit to be eaten when rotten. Chaucer said just the same--
"That ilke fruyt is ever lenger the wers Till it be rote in mullok or in stree-- We olde men, I drede, so fare we, Till we be roten, can we not be rype."
_The Reeves Tale._
And many others writers to the same effect. But, in fact, the Medlar when fit to be eaten is no more rotten than a ripe Peach, Pear, or Strawberry, or any other fruit which we do not eat till it has reached a certain stage of softness. There is a vast difference between a ripe and a rotten Medlar, though it would puzzle many of us to say when a fruit (not a Medlar only) is ripe, that is, fit to be eaten. These things are matters of taste and fashion, and it is rather surprising to find that we are accused, and by good judges, of eating Peaches when rotten rather than ripe. "The Japanese always eat their Peaches in an unripe state. In the 'Gartenflora' Dr. Regel says, in some remarks on Japanese fruit trees, that the Japanese regard a ripe Peach as rotten."
There are a few varieties of the Medlar, differing in the size and flavour of the fruits, which were also cultivated in Shakespeare's time.
FOOTNOTES:
[160:1] So Chester speaks of it as "the Young Man's Medlar" ("Love's Martyr," p. 96, New Sh. Soc.).
MINTS.
(1) _Perdita._
Here's flowers for you; Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (103).
(2) _Armado._
I am that flower,
_Dumain._
That Mint.
_Longaville._
That Columbine.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (661).
The Mints are a large family of highly-perfumed, strong-flavoured plants, of which there are many British species, but too well known to call for any further description.
MISTLETOE.
_Tamora._
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, O'ercome with Moss and baleful Mistletoe.
_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (94).
The Mistletoe was a sore puzzle to our ancestors, almost as great a mystery as the Fern. While they admired its fresh, evergreen branches, and pretty transparent fruit, and used it largely in the decoration of their houses at Christmas, they looked on the plant with a certain awe. Something of this, no doubt, arose from its traditional connection with the Druids, which invested the plant with a semi-sacred character, as a plant that could drive away evil spirits; yet it was also looked upon with some suspicion, perhaps also arising from its use by our heathen ancestors, so that, though admitted into houses, it was not (or very seldom) admitted into churches. And this character so far still attaches to the Mistletoe, that it is never allowed with the Holly and Ivy and Box to decorate the churches, and Gay's lines were certainly written in error--
"Now with bright Holly all the temples strow, With Laurel green and sacred Mistletoe."
The mystery attaching to the Mistletoe arose from the ignorance as to its production. It was supposed not to grow from its seeds, and how it was produced was a fit subject for speculation and fable. Virgil tells the story thus--
"Quale solet sylvis brumali frigore viscum Fronde virere novâ, quod non sua seminat arbos, Et croceo foetu teretes circumdare truncos."
_Æneid_, vi, 205.
In this way Virgil elegantly veils his ignorance, but his commentator in the eighteenth century (Delphic Classics) tells the tale without any doubts as to its truth. "Non nascitur e semine proprio arboris, at neque ex insidentum volucrum fimo, ut putavere veteres, sed ex ipso arborum vitali excremento." This was the opinion of the great Lord Bacon; he ridiculed the idea that the Mistletoe was propagated by the operation of a bird as an idle tradition, saying that the sap which produces the plant is such as "the tree doth excerne and cannot assimilate," and Browne ("Vulgar Errors") was of the same opinion. But the opposite opinion was perpetuated in the very name ("Mistel: fimus, muck," Cockayne),[163:1] and was held without any doubt by most of the writers in Shakespeare's time--
"Upon the oak, the plumb-tree and the holme, The stock-dove and the blackbird should not come, Whose mooting on the trees does make to grow Rots-curing hyphear, and the Mistletoe."
BROWNE, _Brit. Past._ i, 1.
So that we need not blame Gerard when he boldly said that "this excrescence hath not any roote, neither doth encrease himselfe of his seed, as some have supposed, but it rather commethe of a certaine moisture gathered together upon the boughes and joints of the trees, through the barke whereof this vaporous moisture proceeding bringeth forth the Misseltoe." We now know that it is produced exclusively from the seeds probably lodged by the birds, and that it is easily grown and cultivated. It will grow and has been found on almost any deciduous tree, preferring those with soft bark, and growing very seldom on the Oak.[163:2] Those who wish for full information upon the proportionate distribution of the Mistletoe on different British trees will find a good summary in "Notes and Queries," vol. iii. p. 226.
FOOTNOTES:
[163:1] "_Mistel_ est a _mist_ stercus, quod ex stercore avium pronascitur, nec aliter pronasci potest."--WACHTER, _Glossary_ (quoted in "Notes and Queries," 3rd series, vii. 157. In the same volume are several papers on the origin of the word). Dr. Prior derives it from _mistl_ (different), and _tan_ (twig), being so unlike the tree it grows upon.
[163:2] Mistletoe growing on an oak had a special legendary value. Its rarity probably gave it value in the eyes of the Druids, and much later it had its mystic lore. "By sitting upon a hill late in a evening, near a Wood, in a few nights a fire drake will appeare, mark where it lighteth, and then you shall find an oake with Mistletoe thereon, at the Root whereof there is a Misle-childe, whereof many strange things are conceived. _Beati qui non crediderunt._"--PLAT., _Garden of Eden_, 1659, No. 68.
MOSS.
(1) _Adriana._
If ought possess thee from me, it is dross, Usurping Ivy, Brier, or idle Moss.
_Comedy of Errors_, act ii, sc. 2 (179).
(2) _Tamora._
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, O'ercome with Moss and baleful Mistletoe.
_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (94).
(3) _Apemantus._
These Moss'd trees That have outlived the eagle.
_Timon of Athens_, act iv, sc. 3 (223).
(4) _Hotspur._
Steeples and Moss-grown towers.
_1st Henry IV_, act iii, sc. 1 (33).
(5) _Oliver._
Under an Oak whose boughs were Moss'd with age, And high top bald with dry antiquity.
_As You Like It_, act iv, sc. 3 (105).
(6) _Arviragus._
The ruddock would, With charitable bill,
* * * * *
bring thee all this; Yea, and furr'd Moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-ground thy corse.
_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (224).[164:1]
If it were not for the pretty notice of Moss in the last passage (6), we should be inclined to say that Shakespeare had as little regard for "idle Moss" as for the "baleful Mistletoe." In his day Moss included all the low-growing and apparently flowerless carpet plants which are now divided into the many families of Mosses, Lichens, Club Mosses, Hepaticæ, Jungermanniæ, &c., &c. And these plants, though holding no rank in the eyes of a florist, are yet deeply interesting, perhaps no family of plants more so, to those who have time and patience to study them. The Club Mosses, indeed, may claim a place in the garden if they can only be induced to grow, but that is a difficult task, and the tenderer Lycopodiums are always favourites when well grown among greenhouse Ferns; but for the most part, the Mosses must be studied in their native haunts, and when so studied, they are found to be full of beauty and of wonderful construction. Nor are they without use, and it is rather strange that Shakespeare should have so markedly called them "idle," or useless, considering that in his day many medical virtues were attributed to them. This reputation for medical virtues they have now all lost, except the Iceland Moss, which is still in use for invalids; but the Mosses have other uses. The Reindeer Moss (_Cladonia rangiferina_) and Roch-hair (_Alectoria jubata_) are indispensable to the Laplander as food for his reindeer, and Usnea florida is used in North America as food for cattle; the Iceland Moss (_Cetraria Islandica_) is equally indispensable as an article of food to all the inhabitants of the extreme North; and the Tripe de la Roche (_Gyrophora cylindrica_) has furnished food to the Arctic explorers when no other food could be obtained; while many dyes are produced from the Lichens, especially the Cudbear (a most discordant corruption of the name of the discoverer, Mr. Cuthbert), which is the produce of the Rock Moss (_Lecanora tartarea_). So that even to us the Mosses have their uses, even if they do not reach the uses that they have in North Sweden, where, according to Miss Bremer, "the forest, which is the countryman's workshop, is his storehouse, too. With the various Lichens that grow upon the trees and rocks, he cures the virulent diseases with which he is sometimes afflicted, dyes the articles of clothes which he wears, and poisons the noxious and dangerous animals which annoy him."
As to the beauty of Mosses and Lichens we have only to ask any artist or go into any exhibition of pictures. Their great beauty has been so lovingly described by Ruskin ("Modern Painters"), that no one can venture to do more than quote his description. It is well known to many, but none will regret having it called to their remembrance--"placuit semel--decies repetita placebit"--space, however, will oblige me somewhat to curtail it. "Meek creatures! the first mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its dentless rocks: creatures full of pity, covering with strange and tender honour the sacred disgrace of ruin, laying quiet fingers on the trembling stones to teach them rest. No words that I know of will say what these Mosses are; none are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough.. . . . They will not be gathered like the flowers for chaplet or love token; but of these the wild bird will make its nest and the wearied child its pillow, and as the earth's first mercy so they are its last gift to us. When all other service is vain from plant and tree, the soft Mosses and grey Lichens take up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing Grasses have done their parts for a time, but these do service for ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, Corn for the granary, Moss for the grave."
FOOTNOTES:
[164:1] There may be special appropriateness in the selection of the "furr'd Moss" to "winter-ground thy corse." "The final duty of Mosses is to die; the main work of other leaves is in their life, but these have to form the earth, out of which other leaves are to grow."--RUSKIN, _Proserpina_, p. 20.
MULBERRIES.
(1) _Titania._
Feed him with Apricocks and Dewberries, With purple Grapes, green Figs, and Mulberries.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (169).
(2) _Volumnia._
Thy stout heart, Now humble as the ripest Mulberry That will not bear the handling.
_Coriolanus_, act iii, sc. 2 (78).
(3) _Prologue._
Thisby tarrying in Mulberry shade.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v, sc. 1 (149).
(4) _Wooer._
Palamon is gone Is gone to the wood to gather Mulberries.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (87).
(5)
The birds would bring him Mulberries and ripe-red Cherries.
_Venus and Adonis_ (1103). (_See_ CHERRIES.)
We do not know when the Mulberry, which is an Eastern tree, was introduced into England, but probably very early. We find in Archbishop Ælfric's "Vocabulary," "morus vel rubus, mor-beam," but it is doubtful whether that applies to the Mulberry or Blackberry, as in the same catalogue Blackberries are mentioned as "flavi vel mori, blace-berian." There is no doubt that Morum was a Blackberry as well as a Mulberry in classical times. Our Mulberry is probably the fruit mentioned by Horace--
"Ille salubres Æstates peraget, qui nigris prandia Moris Finiet ante gravem quæ legerit arbore solem."
_Sat._ ii, 4, 24.
And it certainly is the fruit mentioned by Ovid--
"In duris hærentia mora rubetis."
_Metam._, i, 105.
In the Dictionarius of John de Garlande (thirteenth century)[167:1] we find, "Hec sunt nomina silvestrium arborum, qui sunt in luco magistri Johannis; quercus cum fago, pinus cum lauro, celsus gerens celsa;" and Mr. Wright translates "celsa" by "Mulberries," without, however, giving his authority for this translation.[167:2] But whenever introduced, it had been long established in England in Shakespeare's time.
It must have been a common tree even in Anglo-Saxon times, for the favourite drink, Morat, was a compound of honey flavoured with Mulberries (Turner's "Anglo-Saxons").[167:3] Spenser spoke of it--
"With love juice stained the Mulberie, The fruit that dewes the poet's braine."
_Elegy_, 18.
Gerard describes it as "high and full of boughes," and growing in sundry gardens in England, and he grew in his own London garden both the Black and the White Mulberry. Lyte also, before Gerard, describes it and says: "It is called in the fayning of Poetes the wisest of all other trees, for this tree only among all others bringeth forth his leaves after the cold frostes be past;" and the Mulberry Garden, often mentioned by the old dramatists, "occupied the site of the present Buckingham Palace and Gardens, and derived its name from a garden of Mulberry trees planted by King James I. in 1609, in which year 935_l._ was expended by the king in the planting of Mulberry trees near the Palace of Westminster."[168:1]
As an ornamental tree for any garden, the Mulberry needs no recommendation, being equally handsome in shape, in foliage, and in fruit. It is a much prized ornament in all old gardens, so that it has been well said that an old Mulberry tree on the lawn is a patent of nobility to any garden; and it is most easy of cultivation; it will bear removal when of a considerable size, and so easily can it be propagated from cuttings that a story is told of Mr. Payne Knight that he cut large branches from a Mulberry tree to make standards for his clothes-lines, and that each standard took root, and became a flourishing Mulberry tree.
Though most of us only know of the common White or Black Mulberry, yet, where it is grown for silk culture (as it is now proposed to grow it in England, with a promised profit of from £70 to £100 per acre for the silk, and an additional profit of from £100 to £500 per acre from the grain (eggs)!!), great attention is paid to the different varieties; so that M. de Quatrefuges briefly describes six kinds cultivated in one valley in France, and Royle remarks, "so many varieties have been produced by cultivation that it is difficult to ascertain whether they all belong to one species; they are," as he adds, "nearly as numerous as those of the silkworm" (Darwin).
We have good proof of Shakespeare's admiration of the Mulberry in the celebrated Shakespeare Mulberry growing in his garden at New Place at Stratford-on-Avon. "That Shakespeare planted this tree is as well authenticated as anything of that nature can be, . . . and till this was planted there was no Mulberry tree in the neighbourhood. The tree was celebrated in many a poem, one especially by Dibdin, but about 1752, the then owner of New Place, the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, bought and pulled down the house, and wishing, as it should seem, to be 'damned to everlasting fame,' he had some time before cut down Shakespeare's celebrated Mulberry tree, to save himself the trouble of showing it to those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the poetick ground on which it stood."--MALONE. The pieces were made into many snuff-boxes[169:1] and other mementoes of the tree.
"The Mulberry tree was hung with blooming wreaths; The Mulberry tree stood centre of the dance; The Mulberry tree was hymn'd with dulcet strains; And from his touchwood trunk the Mulberry tree Supplied such relics as devotion holds Still sacred, and preserves with pious care."
COWPER, _Task_,