_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE
MEDLAR, MINTS, MISTLETOE, MOSS
MEDLAR.
(1) Apemantus.
There's a Medlar for thee, eat it.
Timon.
On what I hate I feed not.
Apemantus.
Dost hate a Medlar?
Timon.
Ay, though it looks like thee.
Apemantus.
An thou hadst hated Meddlers sooner, thou shouldst have loved
thyself better now.
--- Timon of Athens, act iv, sc. 3 (305).
(2) Lucio.
They would have married me to the rotten Medlar.
--- Measure for Measure, act iv, sc. 3 (183).
(3) Touchstone.
Truly the tree yields bad fruit.
Rosalind.
I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a
Medlar; then it will be the earliest fruit in the country,
for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the
right virtue of the Medlar.
--- As You Like It, act iii, sc. 2 (122).
(4) Mercutio.
Now will he sit under a Medlar tree.
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call Medlars when they laugh alone.
--- Romeo and Juliet, act ii, sc. 1 (80).[160:1]
The Medlar is an European tree, but not a native of England; it has, however, been so long introduced as to be now completely naturalized, and is admitted into the English flora. It is mentioned in the early vocabularies, and Chaucer gives it a very prominent place in his description of a beautiful garden--
"I was aware of the fairest Medler tree
That ever yet in alle my life I sie,
As ful of blossomes as it might be;
Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile
Fro' bough to bough, and as him list, he eet
Here and there of buddes and floweres sweet."
---
The Flower and the Leaf (240).
And certainly a fine Medlar tree "ful of blossomes" is a handsome ornament on any lawn. There are few deciduous trees that make better lawn trees. There is nothing stiff about the growth even from its early youth; it forms a low, irregular, picturesque tree, excellent for shade, with very handsome white flowers, followed by the curious fruit; it will not, however, do well in the North of England or Scotland.
It does not seem to have been a favourite fruit with our forefathers. Bullein says "the fruite called the Medler is used for a medicine and not for meate;" and Shakespeare only used the common language of his time when he described the Medlar as only fit to be eaten when rotten. Chaucer said just the same--
"That ilke fruyt is ever lenger the wers
Till it be rote in mullok or in stree--
We olde men, I drede, so fare we,
Till we be roten, can we not be rype."
---
The Reeves Tale. And many others writers to the same effect. But, in fact, the Medlar when fit to be eaten is no more rotten than a ripe Peach, Pear, or Strawberry, or any other fruit which we do not eat till it has reached a certain stage of softness. There is a vast difference between a ripe and a rotten Medlar, though it would puzzle many of us to say when a fruit (not a Medlar only) is ripe, that is, fit to be eaten. These things are matters of taste and fashion, and it is rather surprising to find that we are accused, and by good judges, of eating Peaches when rotten rather than ripe. "The Japanese always eat their Peaches in an unripe state. In the 'Gartenflora' Dr. Regel says, in some remarks on Japanese fruit trees, that the Japanese regard a ripe Peach as rotten."
There are a few varieties of the Medlar, differing in the size and flavour of the fruits, which were also cultivated in Shakespeare's time.
FOOTNOTES:
[160:1] So Chester speaks of it as "the Young Man's Medlar" ("Love's Martyr," p. 96, New Sh. Soc.).
MINTS.
(1) Perdita.
Here's flowers for you;
Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.
--- Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 4 (103).
(2) Armado.
I am that flower,
Dumain.
That Mint.
Longaville.
That Columbine.
--- Love's Labour's Lost, act v, sc. 2 (661).
The Mints are a large family of highly-perfumed, strong-flavoured plants, of which there are many British species, but too well known to call for any further description.
MISTLETOE.
Tamora.
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with Moss and baleful Mistletoe.
--- Titus Andronicus, act ii, sc. 3 (94).
The Mistletoe was a sore puzzle to our ancestors, almost as great a mystery as the Fern. While they admired its fresh, evergreen branches, and pretty transparent fruit, and used it largely in the decoration of their houses at Christmas, they looked on the plant with a certain awe. Something of this, no doubt, arose from its traditional connection with the Druids, which invested the plant with a semi-sacred character, as a plant that could drive away evil spirits; yet it was also looked upon with some suspicion, perhaps also arising from its use by our heathen ancestors, so that, though admitted into houses, it was not (or very seldom) admitted into churches. And this character so far still attaches to the Mistletoe, that it is never allowed with the Holly and Ivy and Box to decorate the churches, and Gay's lines were certainly written in error--
"Now with bright Holly all the temples strow,
With Laurel green and sacred Mistletoe."
The mystery attaching to the Mistletoe arose from the ignorance as to its production. It was supposed not to grow from its seeds, and how it was produced was a fit subject for speculation and fable. Virgil tells the story thus--
"Quale solet sylvis brumali frigore viscum
Fronde virere nova, quod non sua seminat arbos,
Et croceo foetu teretes circumdare truncos."
---
AEneid, vi, 205.
In this way Virgil elegantly veils his ignorance, but his commentator in the eighteenth century (Delphic Classics) tells the tale without any doubts as to its truth. "Non nascitur e semine proprio arboris, at neque ex insidentum volucrum fimo, ut putavere veteres, sed ex ipso arborum vitali excremento." This was the opinion of the great Lord Bacon; he ridiculed the idea that the Mistletoe was propagated by the operation of a bird as an idle tradition, saying that the sap which produces the plant is such as "the tree doth excerne and cannot assimilate," and Browne ("Vulgar Errors") was of the same opinion. But the opposite opinion was perpetuated in the very name ("Mistel: fimus, muck," Cockayne),[163:1] and was held without any doubt by most of the writers in Shakespeare's time--
"Upon the oak, the plumb-tree and the holme,
The stock-dove and the blackbird should not come,
Whose mooting on the trees does make to grow
Rots-curing hyphear, and the Mistletoe."
--- BROWNE,
Brit. Past. i, 1.
So that we need not blame Gerard when he boldly said that "this excrescence hath not any roote, neither doth encrease himselfe of his seed, as some have supposed, but it rather commethe of a certaine moisture gathered together upon the boughes and joints of the trees, through the barke whereof this vaporous moisture proceeding bringeth forth the Misseltoe." We now know that it is produced exclusively from the seeds probably lodged by the birds, and that it is easily grown and cultivated. It will grow and has been found on almost any deciduous tree, preferring those with soft bark, and growing very seldom on the Oak.[163:2] Those who wish for full information upon the proportionate distribution of the Mistletoe on different British trees will find a good summary in "Notes and Queries," vol. iii. p. 226.
FOOTNOTES:
[163:1] "
Mistel est a
mist stercus, quod ex stercore avium pronascitur, nec aliter pronasci potest."--WACHTER,
Glossary (quoted in "Notes and Queries," 3rd series, vii. 157. In the same volume are several papers on the origin of the word). Dr. Prior derives it from
mistl (different), and
tan (twig), being so unlike the tree it grows upon.
[163:2] Mistletoe growing on an oak had a special legendary value. Its rarity probably gave it value in the eyes of the Druids, and much later it had its mystic lore. "By sitting upon a hill late in a evening, near a Wood, in a few nights a fire drake will appeare, mark where it lighteth, and then you shall find an oake with Mistletoe thereon, at the Root whereof there is a Misle-childe, whereof many strange things are conceived.
Beati qui non crediderunt."--PLAT.,
Garden of Eden, 1659, No. 68.
MOSS.
(1) Adriana.
If ought possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping Ivy, Brier, or idle Moss.
--- Comedy of Errors, act ii, sc. 2 (179).
(2) Tamora.
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with Moss and baleful Mistletoe.
--- Titus Andronicus, act ii, sc. 3 (94).
(3) Apemantus.
These Moss'd trees
That have outlived the eagle.
--- Timon of Athens, act iv, sc. 3 (223).
(4) Hotspur.
Steeples and Moss-grown towers.
--- 1st Henry IV, act iii, sc. 1 (33).
(5) Oliver.
Under an Oak whose boughs were Moss'd with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity.
--- As You Like It, act iv, sc. 3 (105).
(6) Arviragus.
The ruddock would,
With charitable bill,
* * * * *
bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr'd Moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.
--- Cymbeline, act iv, sc. 2 (224).[164:1]
If it were not for the pretty notice of Moss in the last passage (6), we should be inclined to say that Shakespeare had as little regard for "idle Moss" as for the "baleful Mistletoe." In his day Moss included all the low-growing and apparently flowerless carpet plants which are now divided into the many families of Mosses, Lichens, Club Mosses, Hepaticae, Jungermanniae, &c., &c. And these plants, though holding no rank in the eyes of a florist, are yet deeply interesting, perhaps no family of plants more so, to those who have time and patience to study them. The Club Mosses, indeed, may claim a place in the garden if they can only be induced to grow, but that is a difficult task, and the tenderer Lycopodiums are always favourites when well grown among greenhouse Ferns; but for the most part, the Mosses must be studied in their native haunts, and when so studied, they are found to be full of beauty and of wonderful construction. Nor are they without use, and it is rather strange that Shakespeare should have so markedly called them "idle," or useless, considering that in his day many medical virtues were attributed to them. This reputation for medical virtues they have now all lost, except the Iceland Moss, which is still in use for invalids; but the Mosses have other uses. The Reindeer Moss (
Cladonia rangiferina) and Roch-hair (
Alectoria jubata) are indispensable to the Laplander as food for his reindeer, and Usnea florida is used in North America as food for cattle; the Iceland Moss (
Cetraria Islandica) is equally indispensable as an article of food to all the inhabitants of the extreme North; and the Tripe de la Roche (
Gyrophora cylindrica) has furnished food to the Arctic explorers when no other food could be obtained; while many dyes are produced from the Lichens, especially the Cudbear (a most discordant corruption of the name of the discoverer, Mr. Cuthbert), which is the produce of the Rock Moss (
Lecanora tartarea). So that even to us the Mosses have their uses, even if they do not reach the uses that they have in North Sweden, where, according to Miss Bremer, "the forest, which is the countryman's workshop, is his storehouse, too. With the various Lichens that grow upon the trees and rocks, he cures the virulent diseases with which he is sometimes afflicted, dyes the articles of clothes which he wears, and poisons the noxious and dangerous animals which annoy him."
As to the beauty of Mosses and Lichens we have only to ask any artist or go into any exhibition of pictures. Their great beauty has been so lovingly described by Ruskin ("Modern Painters"), that no one can venture to do more than quote his description. It is well known to many, but none will regret having it called to their remembrance--"placuit semel--decies repetita placebit"--space, however, will oblige me somewhat to curtail it. "Meek creatures! the first mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its dentless rocks: creatures full of pity, covering with strange and tender honour the sacred disgrace of ruin, laying quiet fingers on the trembling stones to teach them rest. No words that I know of will say what these Mosses are; none are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough.. . . . They will not be gathered like the flowers for chaplet or love token; but of these the wild bird will make its nest and the wearied child its pillow, and as the earth's first mercy so they are its last gift to us. When all other service is vain from plant and tree, the soft Mosses and grey Lichens take up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing Grasses have done their parts for a time, but these do service for ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, Corn for the granary, Moss for the grave."
FOOTNOTES:
[164:1] There may be special appropriateness in the selection of the "furr'd Moss" to "winter-ground thy corse." "The final duty of Mosses is to die; the main work of other leaves is in their life, but these have to form the earth, out of which other leaves are to grow."--RUSKIN,
Proserpina, p. 20. _