Book xiv
, 99.
Many of the Willows make handsome shrubs for the garden, for besides those that grow into large trees, there are many that are low shrubs, and some so low as to be fairly called carpet plants. Salix Reginæ is one of the most silvery shrubs we have, with very narrow leaves; S. lanata is almost as silvery, but with larger and woolly leaves, and makes a very pretty object when grown on rockwork near water; S. rosmarinifolia is another desirable shrub; and among the lower-growing species, the following will grow well on rockwork, and completely clothe the surface: S. alpina, S. Grahami, S. retusa, S. serpyllifolia, and S. reticulata. They are all easily cultivated and are quite hardy.
FOOTNOTES:
[321:1] In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Willow does not appear to have had any value for its medical uses. In the present day salicine and salicylic acid are produced from the bark, and have a high reputation as antiseptics and in rheumatic cases.
[323:1] This is the traditional history of the introduction of the Weeping Willow into England, but it is very doubtful.
WOODBINE, _see_ HONEYSUCKLE.
WORMWOOD.
(1) _Rosaline._
To weed this Wormwood from your fruitful brain.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (857).
(2) _Nurse._
For I had then laid Wormwood to my dug.
* * * * *
When it did taste the Wormwood on the nipple Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 3 (26).
(3) _Hamlet_ (aside).
Wormwood, Wormwood.
_Hamlet_, act iii, sc. 2 (191).
(4)
Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame, Thy private feasting to a public fast, Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name, Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter Wormwood taste.
_Lucrece_ (890).
_See also_ DIAN'S BUD.
Wormwood is the product of many species of Artemisia, a family consisting of 180 species, of which we have four in England. The whole family is remarkable for the extreme bitterness of all parts of the plant, so that "as bitter as Wormwood" is one of the oldest proverbs. The plant was named Artemisia from Artemis, the Greek name of Diana, and for this reason: "Verily of these three Worts which we named Artemisia, it is said that Diana should find them, and delivered their powers and leechdom to Chiron the Centaur, who first from these Worts set forth a leechdom, and he named these Worts from the name of Diana, Artemis, that is, Artemisias."--_Herbarium Apulæi_, Cockayne's translation. The Wormwood was of very high reputation in medicine, and is thus recommended in the Stockholm MS.:
"Lif man or woman, more or lesse In his head have gret sicknesse Or gruiance or any werking Awoyne he take wt. owte lettyng It is called Sowthernwode also And hony eteys et spurge stamp yer to And late hy yis drunk, fastined drinky And his hed werk away schall synkyn."[325:1]
But even in Shakespeare's time this high character had somewhat abated, though it was still used for all medicines in which a strong bitter was recommended. But its chief use seems to have been as a protection against insects of all kinds, who might very reasonably be supposed to avoid such a bitter food. This is Tusser's advice about the plant--
"While Wormwood hath seed get a handful or twaine To save against March, to make flea to refraine: Where chamber is sweeped and Wormwood is strowne, No flea, for his life, dare abide to be knowne. What saver is better (if physick be true), For places infected than Wormwood and Rue? It is as a comfort for hart and the braine, And therefore to have it, it is not in vaine."
_July's Husbandry._
This quality was the origin of the names of Mugwort[326:1] and Wormwood. Its other name (in the Stockholm MS. referred to), Avoyne or Averoyne is a corruption of the specific name of one of the species, A. Abrotanum. Southernwood is the southern Wormwood, _i.e._, the foreign, as distinguished from the native plant. The modern name for the same species is Boy's Love, or Old Man. The last name may have come from its hoary leaves, though different explanations are given: the other name is given to it, according to Dr. Prior, "from an ointment made with its ashes being used by young men to promote the growth of a beard." There is good authority for this derivation, but I think the name may have been given for other reasons. "Boy's Love" is one of the most favourite cottage-garden plants, and it enters largely into the rustic language of flowers. No posy presented by a young man to his lass is complete without Boy's Love; and it is an emblem of fidelity, at least it was so once. It is, in fact, a Forget-me-Not, from its strong abiding smell; so St. Francis de Sales applied it: "To love in the midst of sweets, little children could do that; but to love in the bitterness of Wormwood is a sure sign of our affectionate fidelity." Not that the Wormwood was ever named Forget-me-Not, for that name was given to the Ground Pine (_Ajuga chamæpitys_) on account of its unpleasant and long-enduring smell, until it was transferred to the Myosotis (which then lost its old name of Mouse-ear), and the pretty legend was manufactured to account for the name.
In England Wormwood has almost fallen into complete disuse; but in France it is largely used in the shape of Absinthe. As a garden plant, Tarragon, which is a species of Wormwood, will claim a place in every herb garden, and there are a few, such as A. sericea, A. cana, and A. alpina, which make pretty shrubs for the rockwork.
FOOTNOTES:
[325:1] Wormwood had a still higher reputation among the ancients, as the following extract shows:
+Artemisia monoklônos.+
+Auei gar kopon audros hodoiporou, hos k'eni chersin tên monoklônon echê; peri d' au posin herpeta panta pheugei, hên tis echê en hodô, kai phasmata deina.+
_Anonymi Carmen de Herbis, in "Poetæ Bucolici."_
[326:1] In connection with Mugwort there is a most curious account of the formation of a plant name given in a note in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," s.v. Mugworte: "Mugwort, al on as seyn some, Modirwort; lewed folk that in manye wordes conne no rygt sownyge, but ofte shortyn wordys, and changyn lettrys and silablys, they coruptyn the _o_ in to _a_ and _d_ in to _g_, and syncopyn _i_ smytyn a-wey _i_ and _r_ and seyn mugwort."--_Arundel MS._, 42, f. 35 v.
YEW.
(1) _Song._
My shroud of white, stuck all with Yew, Oh! prepare it.
_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 4 (56).
_(2) 3rd Witch._
Gall of goat, and slips of Yew Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse.
_Macbeth_, act iv, sc. 1 (27).
(3) _Scroop._
Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Of double-fatal Yew against thy state.
_Richard II_, act iii, sc. 2 (116).
(4) _Tamora._
But straight they told me they would bind me here Unto the body of a dismal Yew.
_Titus Andronicus_, act ii, sc. 3 (106).
(5) _Paris._
Under yond Yew-trees lay thee all along, Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground; So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread (Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves) But thou shalt hear it.
_Romeo and Juliet_, act v, sc. 3 (3).
(6) _Balthasar._
As I did sleep under this Yew tree here,[327:1] I dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him.
_Ibid._ (137).
_See also_ HEBENON, p. 118.
The Yew, though undoubtedly an indigenous British plant, has not a British name. The name is derived from the Latin _Iva_, and "under this name we find the _Yew_ so inextricably mixed up with the _Ivy_ that, as dissimilar as are the two trees, there can be no doubt that these names are in their origin identical." So says Dr. Prior, and he proceeds to give a long and very interesting account of the origin of the name. The connection of Yew with _iva_ and _Ivy_ is still shown in the French _if_, the German _eibe_, and the Portuguese _iva_. _Yew_ seems to be quite a modern form; in the old vocabularies the word is variously spelt iw, ewe,[328:1] eugh-tre,[328:2] haw-tre, new-tre, ew, uhe, and iw.
The connection of the Yew with churchyards and funerals is noticed by Shakespeare in Nos. 1, 5, and 6, and its celebrated connection with English bow-making in No. 3, where "double-fatal" may probably refer to its noxious qualities when living and its use for deadly weapons afterwards. These noxious qualities, joined to its dismal colour, and to its constant use in churchyards, caused it to enter into the supposed charms and incantations of the quacks of the Middle Ages. Yet Gerard entirely denies its noxious qualities: "They say that the fruit thereof being eaten is not onely dangerous and deadly unto man, but if birds do eat thereof it causeth them to cast their feathers and many times to die--all which I dare boldly affirme is altogether untrue; for when I was yong and went to schoole, divers of my schoolfellowes, and likewise my selfe, did eat our fils of the berries of this tree, and have not only slept under the shadow thereof, but among the branches also, without any hurt at all, and that not at one time but many times." Browne says the same in his "Vulgar Errors:" "That Yew and the berries thereof are harmlesse, we know" (