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.

APRICOTS.

(1) _Titania._

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with Apricocks and Dewberries, With purple Grapes, green Figs, and Mulberries.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 1 (167).

(2) _Gardener._

Go, bind thou up yon dangling Apricocks, Which, like unruly children, make their sire Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight.

_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 4 (29).

(3) _Palamon._

Would I were, For all the fortunes of my life hereafter, Yon little tree, yon blooming Apricocke; How I would spread and fling my wanton armes In at her window! I would bring her fruit Fit for the gods to feed on.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act ii, sc. 2 (291).

Shakespeare's spelling of the word "Apricocks" takes us at once to its derivation. It is derived undoubtedly from the Latin _præcox or præcoquus_, 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