foot high, full of branches and small whitish, soft, roundish leaves,
smelling very sweet. At the tops of the branches stand divers small,
scaly heads, like unto knots, of a whitish green color, out of which
come, here and there, small, white flowers, and afterward small reddish
seed. Called _Mariorama_ in Latin, it is taken of most writers to be
the Amaracus, or Sampsuchum, of Dioscorides, Theophrastus and Pliny."
According to the Greek myth a young man named Amarakos was employed in
the household of the King of Cyprus. One day when he was carrying a
vase of perfumes he dropped it, and he was so much humiliated by his
carelessness that he fell and lost consciousness. The gods then changed
him into the sweet herb _amarakos_, or _amaracus_, which is the Greek
name for this plant. Rapin thought it owed its existence to Venus:
And tho' Sweet Marjoram will your garden paint
With no gay colors, yet preserve the plant,
Whose fragrance will invite your kind regard
When her known virtues have her worth declared:
On Simois' shore fair Venus raised the plant,
Which from the Goddess' touch derived her scent.
THYME (_Thymus Serpyllum_). Thyme has always been appreciated by those
who delight in aromatic perfume. It was one of those plants that Lord
Bacon said were so delicious when trodden upon and crushed. Thyme was
the symbol for sweetness in Elizabethan days.
And sweet thyme true
was a favorite expression. "Sweet thyme true" occurs in connection
with roses, "maiden pinks," and daisies in the song in "The Two Noble
Kinsmen."[79]
[79] Act I, Scene I.
Fairies were thought to be particularly fond of thyme, and that is one
reason why Shakespeare covered the bank where _Titania_ was wont to
sleep with wild thyme. The other reason was that he chose the sweetest
flowers for perfume for the canopy and couch of the Fairy Queen:
musk-roses, eglantine, honeysuckle, violets, and wild thyme mingling
the most delicious of scents. The word comes from the Greek and Latin
_thymum_. Thyme covered Mount Hymettus and gave to the honey produced
there a particularly delicious aromatic flavor. The "honey of Mount
Hymettus" became a proverb. Hybla in Sicily was no less famed for its
thyme, and, consequently, its honey. Thyme is especially a "bee-plant";
and those who would see their gardens full of bees would do well to
plant thyme with lavish hand. Ladies used to embroider a bee hovering
over a sprig of thyme on the scarves they gave to their lovers--a
symbol of action and honor. Thyme, too, was supposed to renew the
spirits of man and beast and it was deemed a powerful antidote against
melancholy.
Turning to our old friend, Parkinson, we find that
"The ordinary garden Thyme (_Thymus vulgatius sive durius_) is a small,
low, woody plant with brittle branches and small, hard, green leaves,
as every one knoweth, having small white purplish flowers standing
round about the tops of the stalks. The seed is small and brown, darker
than Marjoram. The root is woody and abideth well divers Winters.
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE GARDEN, VAN CORTLANDT HOUSE, VAN CORTLANDT
PARK, COLONIAL DAMES OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK]
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE GARDEN, VAN CORTLANDT HOUSE, VAN CORTLANDT
PARK, COLONIAL DAMES OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK]
"To set down all the particular uses whereunto Thyme is applied were
to weary both the writer and the reader. I will but only note out a
few, for besides the physical uses to many purposes for the head,
stomach, spleen, etc., there is no herb almost of more use in the
houses both of high and low, rich and poor, both for inward and outward
occasions,--outwardly for bathings among other hot herbs and among
other sweet herbs for strewings. Inwardly in most sorts of broths, with
Rosemary, as also with other faseting (or rather farsing) herbs,[80]
and to make sauce for divers sorts, both fish and flesh, as to stuff
the belly of a goose to be roasted and after put into the sauce and the
powder with bread to strew on meat when it is roasted, and so likewise
on roasted or fried fish. It is held by divers to be a speedy remedy
against the sting of a bee, being bruised and laid thereon.
[80] _Farsi_, stuffing.
"The wild Thyme (_Serpyllum hortense sive maius_), growth upright, but
yet is low, with divers slender branches and small round green leaves,
somewhat like unto small fine Marjoram, and smelling somewhat like
unto it. The flowers grow in roundels at the tops of the branches of a
purplish color. And in another of this kind they are of a pure white
color. There is another also that smelleth somewhat like unto Musk, and
therefore called Musk Thyme, whose green leaves are not so small as the
former, but larger and longer."
SAVORY (_Satureia_). This herb is mentioned by _Perdita_. It was a
great favorite in the old herb-garden and was probably introduced
into England by the Romans. It is mentioned in Anglo-Saxon recipes as
"savorie." Both the winter and summer savory were used as seasoning
for dressing and sauces. "The Winter Savory is used as a condiment and
sauce to meat, to put into puddings, sausages and such-like kinds of
meat." So says an old writer, who continues: "Some do use the powder of
the herb dried to mix with grated bread to bread their meat, be it fish
or flesh, to give it the quicker relish."
Parkinson writes:
"The Winter Savory (_Satureia sive Thymbra_) is a small, low, bushy
herb, very like unto hyssop, but not above a foot high, with divers
small, hard branches and hard, dark, green leaves thereon, thicker set
together than the former by so much, and as thick as common Hyssop,
sometimes with four leaves, or more, at a joint, of a reasonable strong
scent, yet not so strong or quick as the former. The flowers are of a
pale purplish color, set at several distances at the tops of the stalks
with leaves at the joints also with them, like the former. The root is
woody with divers small strings thereat, and abideth all the winter
with his green leaves. It is more usually increased by slipping, or
dividing, the root and new setting it, severally again in the Spring,
than by sowing the seed."
IV
_Sweet Balm and Camomile_
SWEET BALM (_Melissa officinalis_). Sweet _Anne Page_ commanded the
elves to bestow good luck throughout Windsor Castle:[81]
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm and every precious flower.
[81] "The Merry Wives of Windsor"; Act V, Scene V.
The Greek and Latin names, _melissa_, _melissophyllum_, and
_apiastrum_, show that this was a bee-plant, which was still the case
in Shakespeare's time.
"It is an herb," says Parkinson, "wherein bees do much delight"; and
he also tells us that if balm is rubbed on the inside of the hive "it
draweth others to resort thither." He goes on to describe it as follows:
"The Garden Balm hath divers square blackish green stalks and round,
hard, dark, green pointed leaves growing thereon by couples, a little
notched about the edges; of a pleasant sweet scent drawing near to the
scent of a Lemon or Citron; and therefore of some called Citrago. The
flowers grow about the tops of the stalks at certain distances, being
small and gaping, of a pale carnation color, almost White. The roots
fasten themselves strongly on the ground and endure many years. It is
increased by dividing the roots; for the leaves die down to the ground
every year, leaving no show of leaf or stalk in the Winter. Balm is
often used among other hot and sweet herbs to make baths and washings
for men's bodies in the Summer time. The herb without all question is
an excellent help to comfort the heart, as the very smell may induce
any so to believe. It is also good to heal green wounds being made
into salve. I verily think that our forefathers hearing of the healing
and comfortable properties of the true natural Balm and finding this
herb to be so effectual gave it the name of Balm in imitation of his
properties and virtues."
Arabian physicians recommended balm for affections of the heart and
hypochondria.
CAMOMILE (_Anthemis nobilis_). _Falstaff_ points a moral in the lowly
camomile: "Though the Camomile the more it is trodden on the faster
it grows, yet youth the more it is wasted the sooner it wears."[82] A
similar idea occurs in Lyly's "Euphues" (1588): "Though the Camomile
the more it is trodden and pressed down the more it spreadeth, yet the
violet the oftener it is handled and touched, the sooner it withereth
and decayeth."
[82] "King Henry IV"; Part I, Act II, Scene IV.
Emblem of patience, the camomile was often used to point a moral and to
teach patience. In "The More the Merrier" (1608), a character observes:
The Camomile shall teach thee patience,
Which riseth best when trodden most upon.
Because its scent was brought out when trodden upon, camomile was
planted in and along walks and on the edges of flower-beds. Its low
growth and delicious perfume made it a very attractive border plant.
In Lawson's "New Orchard" (about 1616) there are instructions for
"Large walks, broad and long, close and open like the Tempe groves
in Thessaly, raised with gravel and sand, having seats and banks of
Camomile: all this delights the mind and brings health to the body."
In Shakespeare's day camomile grew in "the wild field by Richmond
Green."
"Our ordinary Camomill [says Parkinson] is well known to all to have
many small trailing branches set with very fine small leaves and
spreading thick over the ground taking root as it spreadeth; the tops
of the branches have white flowers with yellow thrums in the middle,
very like unto the Featherfew, but somewhat greater not so hard but
more soft and gentle in handling and the whole herb is to be of a very
sweet scent.
"Camomill is called _Anthemis Leucanthemis_ and _Leucanthemum_ of the
whiteness of the flowers; and _Chamœmœlum_ of the corrupted Italian
name Camomilla. Some call the naked Camomill _Chrysanthemum odoratum_.
The double Camomill is called by some _Chamœmœlum Romanum flore
multiplici_.
"Camomill is put to divers and sundry uses both for pleasure and
profit; both for inward and outward diseases, both for the sick and
the sound, in bathings to comfort and strengthen the sound and to ease
pains in the diseased. The flowers boiled in posset drink provoketh
sweat and helpeth to expel colds, aches and other griefs. A syrup made
of the juice of the double Camomill with the flowers and white wine is
used by some against jaundice and dropsy."
V
_Dian's Bud and Monk's-hood Blue_
DIAN'S BUD (_Artemesia_). This plant is nothing more nor less than
absinthe, or wormwood. It is mentioned under its poetic name by
Shakespeare in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" when _Oberon_ bids _Puck_
find him the "little purple flower called Love in Idleness," the
juice of which placed on sleeping eyelids would make man, or woman,
madly dote on the first object beheld on awakening, and with which he
intended to anoint the eyelids of the sleeping _Titania_. He also told
the mischievous sprite that the charm could be removed with another
herb--Dian's bud, the flower sacred to the goddess Diana. Later in the
play, touching the eyes of the spellbound fairy with this second herb,
_Oberon_ pronounces the following incantation:
Be as thou was wont to be,
See as thou was wont to see;
Dian's bud on Cupid's flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
From the earliest times absinthe was associated with sorcery and was
used for incantations. Pliny says the traveler who carried it about him
would never grow weary and that it would drive away any lurking devils
and counteract the evil eye. Ovid calls it _absinthium_ and speaks of
its bitterness.
The Greeks also called it _artemesia_ after the goddess Artemis,
or Diana, and made it a moon-plant. Very poetically, therefore,
Shakespeare alludes to it as "Dian's Bud,"--and most appropriately does
it appear in the moon-lit forest. Gerard, however, quaintly says that
is was named for Queen Artemesia, wife of Mausolus, King of Caria, who
built the Mausoleum, which was one of the "Seven Wonders of the World."
The ancients liked its flavor in their wine as many people still like
vermouth, one of its infusions.
In Shakespeare's time people hung up sprays of wormwood to drive away
moths and fleas; and there was a homely verse:
Whose chamber is swept and wormwood is thrown
No flea for his life dare abide to be known.
Wormwood was also kept in drawers and closets. To dream of the plant
was of good augury: happiness and domestic enjoyment were supposed to
result. Mugwort is another old name for the plant.
MONK'S-HOOD (_Aconitum Napellus_). This plant has three names:
monk's-hood, wolf's-bane, and aconite. Aconite is the "dram of poison"
that _Romeo_ calls for,[83] and Shakespeare alludes to _aconitum_ in
"King Henry IV," where the king, addressing _Thomas of Clarence_,
compares its strength and that of gunpowder. "Though it do work as
strong as aconitum or rash gunpowder."[84] Aconite was supposed in
Elizabethan days to be an antidote against the most deadly poison. Ben
Jonson in "Sejanus" makes one of his characters remark:
I have heard that aconite
Being timely taken hath a healing might
Against the scorpion's sting.[85]
Lord Bacon in "Sylva" calls _Napellus_ "the most powerful poison of all
vegetables."
[83] "Romeo and Juliet"; Act V, Scene I.
[84] Part II, Act IV, Scene IV.
[85] Act III, Scene III.
Yet despite its poisonous qualities, an English garden lover writes,
"the plant has always held, and deservedly, a place among the
ornamental plants of our gardens; its stately habit and its handsome
leaves and flowers make it a favorite."
The ancients, who were unacquainted with mineral poisons, regarded
aconite as the most deadly of all poisons and believed that Hecate had
caused the plant to spring from the venomous foam frothing from the
mouth of the three-headed dog, Cerberus, when Hercules took him from
Pluto's dark realm on one of his Twelve Labors. Ovid describes the
aconite as
A weed by sorcerers renowned
The strongest constitution to compound
Called aconite, because it can unlock
All bars and force its passage through a rock.
In Greece it was also known as Wolf's-bane (_Lycoctonum_), and it was
thought that arrow-heads rubbed with it would kill wolves. Turner
quaintly writes in his "Herbal" (1568):
"This of all poisons is the most hastie poison, howbeit Pliny saith
this herb will kill a man if he take it, except it find in a man
something to kill. Let our Londoners which have of late received this
blue Wolf's-bane, otherwise called Monk's Cane, take heed that the
poison of the root of this herb do not more harm than the freshness of
the flower hath done pleasure. Let them not say but they are warned."
Parkinson's name for it is _Napellus verus flore cœruleo_ (Blue
Helmet-Flower, or Monk's-hood).
"The Helmet Flower," he writes, "hath divers leaves of a fresh green
color on the upper side and grayish underneath, much spread abroad
and cut into many slits and notches. The stalk riseth up two or three
foot high, beset to the top with the like leaves, but smaller. The top
is sometimes divided into two or three branches, but more usually
without, whereon stand many large flowers one above another, in form
very like a hood, or open helmet, being composed of five leaves, the
uppermost of which and the greatest is hollow, like unto a helmet,
or headpiece: two other small leaves are at the sides of the helmet,
closing it like cheeks, and come somewhat under, and two other which
are the smallest hang down like labels, or as if a close helmet were
opened and some pieces hung by, of a perfect, or fair, blue color (but
grow darker having stood long) which causeth it to be so nourished up
in Gardens that their flowers, as was usual in former times (and yet is
in many country places) may be laid among green herbs in windows and
rooms for the Summertime; but although their beauty may be entertained
for the uses aforesaid, yet beware they come not near your tongue or
lips, lest they tell you to your cost, they are not so good as they
seem to be. In the middest of the flower, when it is open and gapeth
wide, are seen certain small threads like beards, standing about a
middle head, which, when the flower is past, groweth into three or
four, or more, small blackish pods, containing in them black seeds. The
roots are brownish on the outside and white within, somewhat big and
round about and small downwards, somewhat like unto a small, short
carrot root, sometimes two being joined at the head together. It is the
true _Napellus_ of the ancient writers, which they so termed from the
form of a turnip called _Napus_ in Latin."
Generally speaking the leaf and flower of the monk's-hood resemble
the larkspur; and, like the larkspur and the columbine, the plant has
wandered away from its original family, the buttercup tribe. The upper
sepal has developed from a spur into a hood.
Winter
"WHEN ICICLES HANG BY THE WALL"
I
_Holly and Ivy_
HOLLY (_Ilex aquifolium_). Holly, with its beautiful red berries and
unique leaf, stiff and prickly, but highly decorative, is the chief
emblem of Christmas. We are continuing very ancient traditions when
we hang up our Christmas wreaths and garlands. The earliest records
of the human race contain references to the custom of decorating
houses and temples and evergreens on occasions of rejoicing. Holly
comes to us from pagan usage. Five hundred years before the birth of
Christ the Romans had been celebrating their midwinter festival--the
Saturnalia--commemorating the equality supposed to have existed on
earth in the golden reign of Saturn. The Saturnalia was a period of
general merry-making and relaxation. People gave each other presents,
wished each other "Io Saturnalia," just as we wish each other "Merry
Christmas," and decorated their houses and temples with evergreens,
among which holly was conspicuous. The early Christians, who celebrated
the birth of Christ during the Saturnalia, adorned their homes with
holly for the purpose of safety. They would have been unpleasantly
noticed had they left their homes undecorated. After a time holly
became associated with the Christian festival itself. As the Christmas
celebration spread throughout Europe and into Great Britain, local
observances naturally became added to the original rites; and gradually
to certain features taken over from the Saturnalia were added customs
which the Germanic tribes, the Scandinavians, the Gauls, the Celts,
and early Britons practised for the midwinter festival. "Thus," says
a modern writer, "all the pagan winter festivals were transmuted
and sanctified by the Christian Church into the beautiful Christmas
festival that keeps the world's heart young and human. The Church also
brought from ancient observances a number of lovable customs, such
as the giving of presents, the lighting of candles, the burning of
the Yule-log, the Boar's Head, the Christmas Tree, the mistletoe, the
holly, laurel and other greens and the mince-pies."
At a season when everything was chosen to commemorate, or invoke,
the spirit of growth, or fertility, the holly, mistletoe and ivy--all
of which bear fruit in the winter--become particularly precious.
Beautiful, cheery holly, with its glossy, prickly leaves and its
coral bells, was a sacred plant in the childhood of the world and
will continue to be a sacred plant as long as the world lasts. We may
make garlands of laurel or bay-leaves, we may bind together ropes
of crow's-foot or smilax, and we may bring into our rooms pots of
poinsettia; but nothing takes, or will ever take, the place the holly
occupies in our affections. In our literature holly is honored. It now
symbolizes the spirit of Christmas as nothing else does.
One of the earliest Christmas carols, dating from the Fifteenth
Century, describes a contest of Holly and Ivy for the chief place in
the hall. Holly is the man and Ivy the woman. They have an argument
(which is a kind of duet), each setting forth his or her claim to
superiority. Finally, it is decided that Holly, with his beautiful red
berries, shall reign in the hall instead of Ivy, whose berries are
black. Moreover, many sweet birds are attracted to Holly; but only the
owl loves Ivy.
Holly is, of course, the subject of many carols. A typical one of the
Fifteenth Century is as follows:
Here comes Holly, that is so gent,
Alleluia!
To please all men is his intent,
Alleluia!
But lord and lady of the hall,
Alleluia!
Whosoever against Holly call,
Alleluia!
Whosoever against Holly do cry,
Alleluia!
In a lepe shall he hang full high.
Alleluia!
Whosoever against Holly do sing,
Alleluia!
He may weep and his handys wring,
Alleluia!
From the above it will be seen that it was a crime to say a derogatory
word about holly. Holly was not only loved for its beauty but it was a
holy plant. Witches detested it and it was a charm against their evil
machinations. The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon _holegn_. The Norse
word is _hulf_, or _hulver_; and as Chaucer calls it "Hulfeere" we may
conclude that holly was familiar to the people of Chaucer's time under
that name.
It is somewhat singular that Shakespeare has written a song of wintry
wind and holly berries to be sung in the Forest of Arden. It affords,
however, a delightful contrast to the sun-lit summer woodland.
[Illustration: TUDOR MANOR HOUSE WITH MODERN ARRANGEMENT OF GARDENS]
While in it holly is not actually described, _Amiens's_ song will
always remain the song of songs to holly:
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh ho the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot;
Though thou the waters warp
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then, heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.
IVY (_Hedera Helix_). Shakespeare mentions ivy twice: in "A Midsummer
Night's Dream" where _Titania_, bidding _Bottom_ sleep, says:
Sleep thou and I will wind thee in my arms ...
the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.[86]
and in "The Tempest," when _Prospero_ compares his false brother with
the ivy:
The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck'd my verdure out on 't.[87]
[86] Act IV, Scene I.
[87] Act I, Scene II.
In the old carols and plays Ivy is always represented as a woman,
and yet, although beloved, was used for the outside decorations and
doorways. Ivy never had the place within that holly occupied.
As ivy clings and embraces the object near it, the plant was chosen as
an emblem of confiding love and friendship. Tusser's commands are as
follows: "Get Ivy and Holly, women, deck up thy house." Ivy was also
used in the church decorations at Christmas-tide. In the Middle Ages
ivy was a favored and most auspicious plant. An old carol says:
Ivy is soft and meke of speech,
Against all bale she is bliss,
Well is he that her may reach:--
_Veni, coronaberis_.
Ivy is green with color bright,
Of all trees best she is,
And that I prove will now be right:-
_Veni, coronaberis_.
Ivy beareth berries black,
God grant us all His bliss,
For there we shall nothing lack:--
_Veni, coronaberis_.
Ivy was the crown of the Greek and Roman poets, whose myths proclaimed
the plant sacred to Bacchus. Indeed the plant took its name from
Bacchus (_kissos_) for it was said that the child was hidden under
ivy when abandoned by his mother, Semele. The ivy was mingled with
the grape in the crown of Bacchus and it enwreathed his thyrsus. Ivy
berries eaten before wine was swallowed prevented intoxication, so
Pliny says. Perhaps because of its association with Bacchus ivy was
hung at the vintners' doors in England as well as on the Continent, and
a reference to this custom is contained in Nash's "Summer's Last Will
and Testament" (1600).
In Shakespeare's time ivy was considered a remedy against plague, which
gave another reason for veneration.
England would almost cease to be England without the ivy that so
luxuriantly covers the walls of old buildings and adds its soft beauty
to the crumbling ruins. Everybody loves it--strangers as well as
natives; and every one loves the poem that Dickens inserted into "The
Pickwick Papers":