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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[236:1] This was a very old use for the Quince. Wynkyn de Worde, in the "Boke of Kervynge" (p. 266), speaks of "char de Quynce;" and John Russell, in the "Boke of Nurture" (l. 75), speaks of "chare de Quynces." This was Quince marmalade.
RADISH. (1) Falstaff. When a' was naked, he was, for all the world, like a fork'd Radish. 2nd Henry IV, act iii, sc. 2 (333). (2) Falstaff. If I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of Radish. 1st Henry IV, act ii, sc. 4 (205).There can be no doubt that the Radish was so named because it was considered by the Romans, for some reason unknown to us, the root par excellence. It was used by them, as by us, "as a stimulus before meat, giving an appetite thereunto"—
Rapula, lactucæ, Radices, qualia lassum
Pervellunt stomachum."—Horace.
But it was cultivated, or allowed to grow, to a much larger size than we now think desirable. Pliny speaks of Radishes weighing 40lb. each, and others speak even of 60lb. and 100lb. But in Shakespeare's time the Radish was very much what it is now, a pleasant salad vegetable, but of no great value. We read, however, of Radishes being put to strange uses. Lupton, a writer of Shakespeare's day, says: "If you would kill snakes and adders strike them with a large Radish, and to handle adders and snakes without harm, wash your hands in the juice of Radishes and you may do without harm" ("Notable Things," 1586).
We read also of great attempts being made to procure oil from the seed, but to no great effect. Hakluyt, in describing the sufficiency of the English soil to produce everything necessary in the manufacture of cloth, says: "So as there wanteth, if colours might be brought in and made naturall, but onely oile; the want whereof if any man could devise to supply at the full with anything that might become naturall in this realme, he, whatsoever he were that might bring it about, might deserve immortal fame in this our Commonwealth, and such a devise was offered to Parliament and refused, because they denied to allow him a certain liberty, some others having obtained the same before that practised to work that effect by Radish seed, which onely made a trial of small quantity, and that went no further to make that oile in plenty, and now he that offered this devise was a merchant, and is dead, and withal the devise is dead with him" ("Voiages," vol. ii.).
The Radish is not a native of Britain, but was probably introduced by the Romans, and was well-known to the Anglo-Saxon gardener under its present name, but with a closer approach to the Latin, being called Rædic, or Radiolle.[237:1]
A curious testimony to the former high reputation of the Radish survives in the "Annual Radish Feast at Levens Hall, a custom dating from time immemorial, and supposed by some to be a relic of feudal times, held on May 12th at Levens Hall, the seat of the Hon. Mrs. Howard, and adjoining the high road about midway between Kendal and Milnthorpe. Tradition hath it that the Radish feast arose out of a rivalry between the families of Levens Hall and Dallam Tower, as to which should entertain the Corporation with their friends and followers, and in which Levens Hall eventually carried the palm. The feast is provided on the bowling green in front of the Hall, where several long tables are plentifully spread with Radishes and brown bread and butter, the tables being repeatedly furnished with guests" ("Gardener's Chronicle").
FOOTNOTES:[237:1] "Catholicon Anglicum."
RAISINS. Clown. Four pounds of Prunes and as many of Raisins o' the sun. Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 3 (51).Raisins are alluded to, if not actually named, in "1st Henry IV.," act ii, sc. 4, when Falstaff says: "If reasons were as plentiful as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I——" "It seems that a pun underlies this, the association of reasons with Blackberries springing out of the fact that reasons sounded like raisins."—Earle, Philology, &c.
Bearing in mind that Raisin is a corruption of racemus, a bunch of Grapes, we can understand that the word was not always applied, as it is now, to the dried fruit, but was sometimes applied to the bunch of Grapes as it hung ripe on the tree—
He may not felle down an Oke;
Nor of the Reisins have the wyne
Till Grapes be ripe and welle afyne."
Romaunt of the Rose.
The best dried fruit were Raisins of the sun, i.e., dried in the sun, to distinguish them from those which were dried in ovens. They were, of course, foreign fruit, and were largely imported. The process of drying in the sun is still the method in use, at least, with "the finer kinds, such as Muscatels, which are distinguished as much by the mode of drying as by the variety and soil in which they are grown, the finest being dried on the Vines before gathering, the stalk being partly cut through when the fruits are ripe, and the leaves being removed from near the clusters, so as to allow the full effect of the sun in ripening."
The Grape thus becomes a Raisin, but it is still further transformed when it reaches the cook; it then becomes a Plum, for Plum pudding has, as we all know, Raisins for its chief ingredient and certainly no Plums; and the Christmas pie into which Jack Horner put in his thumb and pulled out a Plum must have been a mince-pie, also made of Raisins; but how a cooked Raisin came to be called a Plum is not recorded. In Devonshire and Dorsetshire it undergoes a further transformation, for there Raisins are called Figs, and a Plum pudding is called a Fig pudding.
REEDS. (1) 2nd Servant. I had as lief have a Reed that will do me no service, as a partizan I could not heave. Antony and Cleopatra, act ii, sc. 7 (13). (2) Arviragus. Fear no more the frown o' the great,Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the Reed is as the Oak;
The sceptre, learning, physick, must
All follow this, and come to dust. Cymbeline, act iv, sc. 2 (264). (3) Ariel. His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of Reeds. Tempest, act v, sc. 1 (16). (4) Ariel. With hair up-staring—then like Reeds, not hair— Ibid., act i, sc. 2 (213). (5) Hotspur. Swift Severn's flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling Reeds. 1st Henry IV, act 1, sc. 3 (103). (6) Portia. And speak between the change of man and boy
With a Reed voice. Merchant of Venice, act iii, sc. 4 (66). (7) Wooer. In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace
From the far shore thick set with Reeds and Sedges. * * * * * The Rushes and the Reeds
Had so encompast it. Two Noble Kinsmen, act iv, sc. 1 (71, 80). (8) To Simois' Reedy banks the red blood ran. Lucrece (1437).
Reed is a general term for almost any water-loving, grassy plant, and so it is used by Shakespeare. In the Bible it is perhaps possible to identify some of the Reeds mentioned, with the Sugar Cane in some places, with the Papyrus in others, and in others with the Arundo donax. As a Biblical plant it has a special interest, not only as giving the emblem of the tenderest mercy that will be careful even of "the bruised Reed," but also as entering largely into the mockery of the Crucifixion: "They put a Reed in His right hand," and "they filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it upon a Reed and gave Him to drink." The Reed in these passages was probably the Arundo donax, a very elegant Reed, which was used for many purposes in Palestine, and is a most graceful plant for English gardens, being perfectly hardy, and growing every year from 12ft. to 14ft. in height, but very seldom flowering.[240:1]
But in Shakespeare, as in most writers, the Reed is simply the emblem of weakness, tossed about by and bending to a superior force, and of little or no use—"a Reed that will do me no service" (No. 1). It is also the emblem of the blessedness of submission, and of the power that lies in humility to outlast its oppressor—
Where wind doth bear the stroke,
Much safer stands the bowing Reed
Then doth the stubborn Oak."
Shakespeare mentions but two uses to which the Reed was applied, the thatching of houses (No. 3), and the making of Pan or Shepherd's pipes (No. 6). Nor has he anything to say of its beauty, yet the Reeds of our river sides (Arundo phragmites) are most graceful plants, especially when they have their dark plumes of flowers, and this Milton seems to have felt—
The swelling Gourd, up stood the Cornie Reed
Embattled in her field."
Paradise Lost, book vii.
FOOTNOTES:[240:1] I have only been able to find one record of the flowering of Arundo donax in England—"Mem: Arundo donax in flower, 15th September, 1762, the first time I ever saw it, but this very hot dry summer has made many exotics flower. . . . It bears a handsome tassel of flowers."—P. Collinson's Hortus Collinsonianus.
RHUBARB. Macbeth. What Rhubarb, Cyme, or what purgative drugWould scour these English hence? Macbeth, act v, sc. 3 (55).
Andrew Boorde writing from Spayne in 1535, to Thomas Cromwell, says, "I have sent to your Mastershipp the seeds of Reuberbe the whiche come forth of Barbary in this parte ytt ys had for a grett tresure."[241:1] But
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