The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespear by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe (top 20 books to read txt) 📖
- Author: Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
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[69:1] The bent head of the Crown Imperial could not well escape notice—
The Crown Imperial, ever bent on earth,
Favouring her secret rites, and pearly sweets."—Forster.
CUCKOO-BUDS AND FLOWERS. (1) Song of Spring. When Daisies pied, and Violets blue,
And Lady-smocks all silver-white,
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight. Love's Labour's Lost, act v, sc. 2 (904). (2) Cordelia. He was met even now
As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;
Crown'd with rank Fumiter and Furrow-weeds,
With Burdocks, Hemlock, Nettles, Cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining Corn. King Lear, act iv, sc. 4 (1).
There is a difficulty in deciding what flower Shakespeare meant by Cuckoo-buds. We now always give the name to the Meadow Cress (Cardamine pratensis), but it cannot be that in either of these passages, because that flower is mentioned under its other name of Lady-smocks in the previous line (No. 1), nor is it "of yellow hue;" nor does it grow among Corn, as described in No. 2. Many plants have been suggested, and the choice seems to me to lie between two. Mr. Swinfen Jervis[70:1] decides without hesitation in favour of Cowslips, and the yellow hue painting the meadows in spring time gives much force to the decision; Schmidt gives the same interpretation; but I think the Buttercup, as suggested by Dr. Prior, will still better meet the requirements.
FOOTNOTES:[70:1] "Dictionary of the Language of Shakespeare," 1868.
CUPID'S FLOWER, see Pansies. CURRANTS. (1) Clown. What am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast?Three pound of Sugar, five pound of Currants. Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 3 (39). (2) Theseus. I stamp this kisse upon thy Currant lippe. Two Noble Kinsmen, act i, sc. 1 (241).
The Currants of (1) are the Currants of commerce, the fruit of the Vitis Corinthiaca, whence the fruit has derived its name of Corans, or Currants.
The English Currants are of an entirely different family; and are closely allied to the Gooseberry. The Currants—black, white, and red—are natives of the northern parts of Europe, and are probably wild in Britain. They do not seem to have been much grown as garden fruit till the early part of the sixteenth century, and are not mentioned by the earlier writers; but that they were known in Shakespeare's time we have the authority of Gerard, who, speaking of Gooseberries, says: "We have also in our London gardens another sort altogether without prickes, whose fruit is very small, lesser by muche than the common kinde, but of a perfect red colour." This "perfect red colour" explains the "currant lip" of No. 2.
CYME, see Senna. CYPRESS.[71:1] (1) Suffolk. Their sweetest shade, a grove of Cypress trees! 2nd Henry VI, act iii, sc. 2 (322). (2) Aufidius. I am attended at the Cypress grove. Coriolanus, act i, sc. 10 (30). (3) Gremio. In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns,In Cypress chests my arras counterpoints. Taming of the Shrew, act ii, sc. 1 (351).
The Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), originally a native of Mount Taurus, is found abundantly through all the South of Europe, and is said to derive its name from the Island of Cyprus. It was introduced into England many years before Shakespeare's time, but is always associated in the old authors with funerals and churchyards; so that Spenser calls it the "Cypress funereal," which epithet he may have taken from Pliny's description of the Cypress: "Natu morosa, fructu supervacua, baccis torva, foliis amara, odore violenta, ac ne umbrâ quidem gratiosa—Diti sacra, et ideo funebri signo ad domos posita" ("Nat. Hist.," xvi. 32).
Sir John Mandeville mentions the Cypress in a very curious way: "The Cristene men, that dwellen beyond the See, in Grece, seyn that the tree of the Cros, that we callen Cypresse, was of that tree that Adam ete the Appule of; and that fynde thei writen" ("Voiage," &c., cap. 2). And the old poem of the "Squyr of lowe degre," gives the tree a sacred pre-eminence—
The fyrst tre that Iesu chese."
Ritson's Ear. Eng. Met. Romances, viii. (31).
"In the Arundel MS. 42 may be found an alphabet of plants. . . . The author mentions his garden 'by Stebenhythe by syde London,' and relates that he brought a bough of Cypress with its Apples from Bristol 'into Estbritzlond,' fresh in September, to show that it might be propagated by slips."—Promptorium Parvulorum, app. 67.
The Cypress is an ornamental evergreen, but stiff in its growth till it becomes of a good age; and for garden purposes the European plant is becoming replaced by the richer forms from Asia and North America, such as C. Lawsoniana, macrocarpa, Lambertiana, and others.
FOOTNOTES:[71:1] Cypress, or Cyprus (for the word is spelt differently in the different editions), is also mentioned by Shakespeare in the following—
(1) Clown. In sad Cypress let me be laid. Twelfth Night, act ii, sc. 4. (2) Olivia. To one of your receivingEnough is shown; and Cyprus, not a bosom,
Hides my poor heart. Ibid., act iii, sc. 1. (3) Autolycus. Lawn as white as driven snow,
Cyprus, black as e'er was crow. Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 3.
But in all these cases the Cypress is not the name of the plant, but is the fabric which we now call crape, the "sable stole of Cypre's lawn" of Milton's "Penseroso."
DAFFODILS.[73:1] (1) Autolycus. When Daffodils begin to peer,With heigh! the doxy o'er the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year. Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 3 (1). (2) Perdita. Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty. Ibid., act iv, sc. 4 (118). (3) Wooer. With chaplets on their heads of Daffodillies. Two Noble Kinsmen, act iv, sc. 1 (94).
See also Narcissus, p. 175.
Of all English plants there have been none in such constant favour as the Daffodil, whether known by its classical name of Narcissus, or by its more popular names of Daffodil, or Daffadowndilly, and Jonquil. The name of Narcissus it gets from being supposed to be the same as the plant so named by the Greeks first and the Romans afterwards. It is a question whether the plants are the same, and I believe most authors think they are not; but I have never been able to see very good reasons for their doubts. The name Jonquil comes corrupted through the French, from juncifolius or "rush-leaf," and is properly restricted to those species of the family which have rushy leaves. "Daffodil" is commonly said to be a corruption of Asphodel ("Daffodil is Ασφοδελον, and has capped itself with a letter which eight hundred years ago did not belong to it."—Cockayne, Spoon and Sparrow, 19), with which plant it was confused (as it is in Lyte's "Herbal"), but Lady Wilkinson says very positively that "it is simply the old English word 'affodyle,'[73:2] which signifies 'that which cometh early.'" "Daffadowndilly," again is supposed to be but a playful corruption of "Daffodil," but Dr. Prior argues (and he is a very safe authority) that it is rather a corruption of "Saffron Lily." Daffadowndilly is not used by Shakespeare, but it is used by his contemporaries, as by Spenser frequently, and by H. Constable, who died in 1604—
White as the sun, fair as the Lilly,
Heigh, ho! how I do love thee!"
But however it derived its pretty names, it was the favourite flower of our ancestors as a garden flower, and especially as the flower for making garlands, a custom very much more common then than it is now. It was the favourite of all English poets. Gower describes the Narcissus—
The flowres ben, which is contraire
To kind, and so was the folie
Which fell of his surquedrie"—i.e., of Narcissus.
Confes. Aman. lib. prim. (1. 121 Paulli).
Shakespeare must have had a special affection for it, for in all his descriptions there is none prettier or more suggestive than Perdita's short but charming description of the Daffodil (No. 2). A small volume might be filled with the many poetical descriptions of this "delectable and sweet-smelling flower," but there are some which are almost classical, and which can never be omitted, and which will bear repetition, however well we know them. Milton says, "The Daffodillies fill their cups with tears."[74:1] There are Herrick's well-known lines—
You haste away so soon,
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon;
Stay, stay,
Until the hastening day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have as short a spring,
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain,
Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again."
And there are Keats' and Shelley's well-known and beautiful lines which bring down the praises of the Daffodil to our own day. Keats says—
Its loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness. . . . .
. . . . . . In spite of all
Some shape of beauty moves away the pale
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are Daffodils
With the green world they live in."
Shelley is still warmer in his praise—
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