_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE
ACONITUM, ALMOND, ALOES
Perdita. Here's flowers for you.
Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 4.
Duke. Away before me to sweet beds of flowers.
-- Twelfth Night, act i, sc. 1.
ACONITUM.
K. Henry. The united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion--
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in--
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As Aconitum or rash gunpowder.
---
2nd King Henry IV, act iv, sc. 4 (44).
There is another place in which it is probable that Shakespeare alludes to the Aconite; he does not name it, but he compares the effects of the poison to gunpowder, as in the passage above.
Romeo. Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead
And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently as hasty powder fired
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.
---
Romeo and Juliet, act v, sc. 1 (59).
The plant here named as being as powerful in its action as gunpowder is the Aconitum Napellus (the Wolf's bane or Monk's-hood). It is a member of a large family, all of which are more or less poisonous, and the common Monk's-hood as much so as any. Two species are found in America, but, for the most part, the family is confined to the northern portion of the Eastern Hemisphere, ranging from the Himalaya through Europe to Great Britain. It is now found wild in a few parts of England, but it is certainly not indigenous; it was, however, very early introduced into England, being found in all the English vocabularies of plants from the tenth century downwards, and frequently mentioned in the early English medical recipes.
Its names are all interesting. In the Anglo-Saxon Vocabularies it is called
thung, which, however, seems to have been a general name for any very poisonous plant;[10:1] it was then called Aconite, as the English form of its Greek and Latin name, but this name is now seldom used, being, by a curious perversion, solely given to the pretty little early-flowering Winter Aconite (
Eranthis hyemalis), which is not a true Aconite, though closely allied; it then got the name of Wolf's-bane, as the direct translation of the Greek
lycoctonum, a name which it had from the idea that arrows tipped with the juice, or baits anointed with it, would kill wolves and other vermin; and, lastly, it got the expressive names of Monk's-hood[10:2] and the Helmet-flower, from the curious shape of the upper sepal overtopping the rest of the flower.
As to its poisonous qualities, all authors agree that every species of the family is very poisonous, the A. ferox of the Himalaya being probably the most so. Every part of the plant, from the root to the pollen dust, seems to be equally powerful, and it has the special bad quality of being, to inexperienced eyes, so like some harmless plant, that the poison has been often taken by mistake with deadly results. This charge against the plant is of long standing, dating certainly from the time of Virgil--
miseros fallunt aconita legentes--and, no doubt, from much before his time. As it was a common belief that poisons were antidotes against other poisons, the Aconite was supposed to be an antidote against the most deadly one--
"I have heard that Aconite
Being timely taken hath a healing might
Against the scorpion's stroke."
---BEN JONSON,
Sejanus, act iii, sc. 3.
Yet, in spite of its poisonous qualities, 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 favourite. Nearly all the species are worth growing, the best, perhaps, being A. Napellus, both white and blue, A. paniculatum, A. japonicum, and A. autumnale. All the species grow well in shade and under trees. In Shakespeare's time Gerard grew in his London garden four species--A. lycoctonum, A. variegatum, A. Napellus, and A. Pyrenaicum.
FOOTNOTES:
[10:1] "
Aconita, thung." AElfric's "Vocabulary," 10th century.
"
Aconitum, thung." Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary, 11th century.
"
Aconita, thung." "Durham Glossary of the names of Worts," 11th century.
The ancient Vocabularies and Glossaries, to which I shall frequently refer, are printed in
I. Wright's "Volume of Vocabularies," 1857.
II. "Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England," by Rev. O. Cockayne, published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, 3 vols., 1866.
III. "Promptorium Parvulorum," edited by Albert Way, and published by the Camden Society, 3 vols., 1843-65.
IV. "Catholicon Anglicum," edited by S. J. Hertage, and published by the Early English Text Society, 1881, and by the Camden Society, 1882.
[10:2] This was certainly its name in Shakespeare's time--
"And with the Flower Monk's-hood makes a coole."
---CUTWODE, Caltha Poetarum, 1599 (st. 117).
ACORN,
see OAK.
ALMOND. Thersites.
The parrot will not do more for an Almond.
---Troilus and Cressida, act v, sc. 2 (193).
"An Almond for a parrot" seems to have been a proverb for the greatest temptation that could be put before a man. The Almond tree is a native of Asia and North Africa, but it was very early introduced into England, probably by the Romans. It occurs in the Anglo-Saxon lists of plants, and in the "Durham Glossary" (11th century) it has the name of the "Easterne nutte-beam." The tree was always a favourite both for the beauty of its flowers, which come very early in the year, and for its Biblical associations, so that in Shakespeare's time the trees were "in our London gardens and orchards in great plenty" (Gerard). Before Shakespeare's time, Spenser had sung its praises thus--
"Like to an Almond tree ymounted hye
On top of greene Selinis all alone
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily;
Whose tender locks do tremble every one
At everie little breath that under Heaven is blowne."
---
F. Q., i. 7, 32.
The older English name seems to have been Almande--
"And Almandres gret plente,"
---Romaunt of the Rose;
"Noyz de l'almande, nux Phyllidis,"
---ALEXANDER NECKAM;
and both this old name and its more modern form of Almond came to us through the French
amande (Provencal,
amondala), from the Greek and Latin
amygdalus. What this word meant is not very clear, but the native Hebrew name of the plant (
shaked) is most expressive. The word signifies "awakening," and so is a most fitting name for a tree whose beautiful flowers, appearing in Palestine in January, show the wakening up of Creation. The fruit also has always been a special favourite, and though it is strongly imbued with prussic acid, it is considered a wholesome fruit. By the old writers many wonderful virtues were attributed to the fruit, but I am afraid it was chiefly valued for its supposed virtue, that "five or six being taken fasting do keepe a man from being drunke" (Gerard).[12:1] This popular error is not yet extinct.
As an ornamental tree the Almond should be in every shrubbery, and, as in Gerard's time, it may still be planted in town gardens with advantage. There are several varieties of the common Almond, differing slightly in the colour and size of the flowers; and there is one little shrub (Amygdalus nana) of the family that is very pretty in the front row of a shrubbery. All the species are deciduous.
FOOTNOTES:
[12:1] "Plutarch mentions a great drinker of wine who, by the use of bitter almonds, used to escape being intoxicated."--
Flora Domestica, p. 6.
ALOES.
And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
The Aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.
---A Lover's Complaint, st. 39.
Aloes have the peculiarity that they are the emblems of the most intense bitterness and of the richest and most costly fragrance. In the Bible Aloes are mentioned five times, and always with reference to their excellence and costliness.[13:1] Juvenal speaks of it only as a bitter--
"Animo corrupta superbo
Plus Aloes quam mellis habet" (vi. 180).
Pliny describes it very minutely, and says, "Strong it is to smell unto, and bitter to taste" (xxvii. 4, Holland's translation). Our old English writers spoke of it under both aspects. It occurs in several recipes of the Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, as a strong and bitter purgative. Chaucer notices its bitterness only--
"The woful teres that they leten falle
As bittre weren, out of teres kynde,
For peyne, as is ligne Aloes or galle."
---
Troilus and Cryseide, st. 159.
But the author of the "Remedie of Love," formerly attributed to Chaucer, says--
"My chambre is strowed with myrrhe and incense
With sote savouring Aloes and sinnamone,
Breathing an aromaticke redolence."
Shakespeare only mentions the bitter quality.
The two qualities are derived from two very different plants. The fragrant ointment is the product of an Indian shrub, Aquilaria agallochum; and the bitter purgative is from the true Aloes, A. Socotrina, A. vulgaris, and others. These plants were well known in Shakespeare's time, and were grown in England. Turner and Gerard describe them as the Sea Houseleek; and Gerard tells us that they were grown as vegetable curiosities, for "the herbe is alwaies greene, and likewise sendeth forth branches, though it remaine out of the earth, especially if the root be covered with lome, and now and then watered; for so being hanged on the seelings and upper posts of dining-roomes, it will not onely continue a long time greene, but it also groweth and bringeth forth new leaves."[14:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[13:1] Numbers xxiv. 6; Psalms xlv. 8; Proverbs vii. 17; Canticles iv. 14; John xix. 39.
[14:1] In the emblems of Camerarius (No. 92) is a picture of a room with an Aloe suspended. _