_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE
BLACKBERRIES, BOX, BRIER
BLACKBERRIES.
(1) Falstaff.
Give you a reason on compulsion!--if reasons were as plentiful
as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon
compulsion, I.[37:1]
--- 1st Henry IV, act ii, sc. 4 (263).
(2) Falstaff.
Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat
Blackberries?
--- Ibid. (450).
(3) Thersites.
That same dog-fox Ulysses is not proved worth a Blackberry.
--- Troilus and Cressida, act v, sc. 4 (12).
(4) Rosalind.
There is a man . . . . hangs odes upon Hawthorns and elegies
on Brambles.
--- As You Like it, act iii, sc. 2 (379).
(5)
The thorny Brambles and embracing bushes,
As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.
--- Venus and Adonis (629).
I here join together the tree and the fruit, the Bramble (
Rubus fruticosus) and the Blackberry. There is not much to be said for a plant that is the proverbial type of a barren country or untidy cultivation, yet the Bramble and the Blackberry have their charms, and we could ill afford to lose them from our hedgerows. The name Bramble originally meant anything thorny, and Chaucer applied it to the Dog Rose--
"He was chaste and no lechour,
And sweet as is the Bramble flower
That bereth the red hepe."
But in Shakespeare's time it was evidently confined to the Blackberry-bearing Bramble.
There is a quaint legend of the origin of the plant which is worth repeating. It is thus pleasantly told by Waterton: "The cormorant was once a wool merchant. He entered into partnership with the Bramble and the bat, and they freighted a large ship with wool; she was wrecked, and the firm became bankrupt. Since that disaster the bat skulks about till midnight to avoid his creditors, the cormorant is for ever diving into the deep to discover its foundered vessel, while the Bramble seizes hold of every passing sheep to make up his loss by stealing the wool."
As a garden plant, the common Bramble had better be kept out of the garden, but there are double pink and white-blossomed varieties, and others with variegated leaves, that are handsome plants on rough rockwork. The little Rubus saxatilis is a small British Bramble that is pretty on rockwork, and among the foreign Brambles there are some that should on no account be omitted where ornamental shrubs are grown. Such are the R. leucodermis from Nepaul, with its bright silvery bark and amber-coloured fruit; R. Nootkanus, with very handsome foliage, and pure white rose-like flowers; R. Arcticus, an excellent rockwork plant from Northern Europe, with very pleasant fruit, but difficult to establish; R. Australis (from New Zealand), a most quaint plant, with leaves so depauperated that it is apparently leafless, and hardy in the South of England; and R. deliciosus, a very handsome plant from the Rocky Mountains. There are several others well worth growing, but I mention these few to show that the Bramble is not altogether such a villainous and useless weed as it is proverbially supposed to be.
FOOTNOTES:
[37:1]
See RAISINS, p. 238.
BOX.
Maria. Get ye all three into the Box tree.
--- Twelfth Night, act ii, sc. 5 (18).
The Box is a native British tree, and in the sixteenth century was probably much more abundant as a wild tree than it is now. Chaucer notes it as a dismal tree. He describes Palamon in his misery as--
"Like was he to byholde,
The Boxe tree or the Asschen deed and colde."
---
The Knightes Tale. Spenser noted it as "The Box yet mindful of his olde offence," and in Shakespeare's time there were probably more woods of Box in England than the two which still remain at Box Hill, in Surrey, and Boxwell, in Gloucestershire. The name remains, though the trees are gone, in Box in Wilts, Boxgrove, Boxley, Boxmoor, Boxted, and Boxworth.[39:1] From its wild quarters the Box tree was very early brought into gardens, and was especially valued, not only for its rich evergreen colour, but because, with the Yew, it could be cut and tortured into all the ungainly shapes which so delighted our ancestors in Shakespeare's time, though one of the most illustrious of them, Lord Bacon, entered his protest against such barbarisms: "I, for my part, do not like images cut out in Juniper or other garden stuff; they be for children" ("Essay of Gardens").
The chief use of the Box now is for blocks for wood-carving, for which its close grain makes it the most suitable of all woods.[39:2]
FOOTNOTES:
[39:1] In Boxford, and perhaps in some of the other names, the word has no connection with the tree, but marks the presence of water or a stream.
[39:2] In some parts of Europe almost a sacred character is given to the Box. For a curious record of blessing the Box, and of a sermon on the lessons taught by the Box, see "Gardener's Chronicle," April 19, 1873.
BRAMBLE,
see BLACKBERRIES.
BRIER.
(1) Ariel.
So I charm'd their ears,
That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through
Tooth'd Briers, sharp Furzes, pricking Goss, and Thorns.
--- Tempest, act iv, sc. 1 (178).
(2) Fairy.
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough Bush, thorough Brier.
--- Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii, sc. 1 (2).
(3) Thisbe.
Of colour like the red Rose on triumphant Brier.
--- Ibid., act iii, sc. 1 (90).
(4) Puck.
I'll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through Brake, through Brier.
--- Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii, sc. 1 (10).
(5) Puck.
For Briers and Thorns at their apparel snatch.
--- Ibid., act iii, sc. 2 (29).
(6) Hermia.
Never so weary, never so in woe,
Bedabbled with the dew and torn with Briers.
--- Ibid., act iii, sc. 2 (443).
(7) Oberon.
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from Brier.
--- Ibid., act v, sc. 1 (400).
(8) Adriana.
If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
Usurping Ivy, Brier, or idle Moss.
--- Comedy of Errors, act ii, sc. 2 (179).
(9) Plantagenet.
From off this Brier pluck a white Rose with me.
--- 1st Henry IV, act ii, sc. 4 (30).
(10) Rosalind.
O! how full of Briers is this working-day world!
--- As You Like It, act i, sc. 3 (12).
(11) Helena.
The time will bring on summer,
When Briers shall have leaves as well as Thorns,
And be as sweet as sharp.
--- All's Well, act iv, sc. 4 (32).
(12) Polyxenes.
I'll have thy beauty scratched with Briers.
--- Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 4 (436).
(13) Timon.
The Oaks bear mast, the Briers scarlet hips.
--- Timon of Athens, act iv, sc. 3 (422).
(14) Coriolanus.
Scratches with Briers,
Scars to move laughter only.
--- Coriolanus, act iii, sc. 3 (51).
(15) Quintus.
What subtle hole is this,
Whose mouth is cover'd with rude-growing Briers?
--- Titus Andronicus, act iii, sc. 3 (198).
In Shakespeare's time the "Brier" was not restricted to the Sweet Briar, as it usually is now; but it meant any sort of wild Rose, and even it would seem from No. 9 that it was applied to the cultivated Rose, for there the scene is laid in the Temple Gardens. In some of the passages it probably does not allude to any Rose, but simply to any wild thorny plant. That this was its common use then, we know from many examples. In "Le Morte Arthur," the Earl of Ascolot's daughter is described--
"Hyr Rode was rede as blossom or Brere
Or floure that springith in the felde" (179).
And in "A Pleasant New Court Song," in the Roxburghe Ballads--
"I stept me close aside
Under a Hawthorn Bryer."
It bears the same meaning in our Bibles, where "Thorns," "Brambles," and "Briers," stand for any thorny and useless plant, the soil of Palestine being especially productive of thorny plants of many kinds. Wickliffe's translation of Matthew vii. 16, is--"Whether men gaderen grapis of thornes; or figis of Breris?" and Tyndale's translation is much the same--"Do men gaddre grapes of thornes, or figges of Bryeres?"[41:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[41:1] "Brere--Carduus, tribulus, vepres, veprecula."--
Catholicon Anglicum. _