Plant－Lore ＆ Garden－Craft of Shakespeare， The
Part 1. The Plant-Lore Of Shakespeare Part 1. The Plant-Lore Of Shakespeare - Broom, Bulrush, Burdock And Burs
Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
下载：Plant－Lore ＆ Garden－Craft of Shakespeare， The.txt
_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE
BROOM, BULRUSH, BURDOCK AND BURS
BROOM.
(1) Iris.
And thy Broom groves,
Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
Being lass-lorn.
--- Tempest, act iv, sc. 1 (66).
(2) Puck.
I am sent with Broom before
To sweep the dust behind the door.
--- Midsummer Night's Dream, act v, sc. 1 (396).
(3) Man.
I made good my place; at length they came to the Broomstaff
with me.
--- Henry VIII, act v, sc. 4 (56).
The Broom was one of the most popular plants of the Middle Ages. Its modern Latin name is
Cytisus scoparius, but under its then Latin name of
Planta genista it gave its name to the Plantagenet family, either in the time of Henry II., as generally reported, or probably still earlier. As the favourite badge of the family it appears on their monuments and portraits, and was embroidered on their clothes and imitated in their jewels. Nor was it only in England that the plant was held in such high favour; it was the special flower of the Scotch, and it was highly esteemed in many countries on the Continent, especially in Brittany. Yet, in spite of all this, there are only these three notices of the plant in Shakespeare, and of those three, two (2 and 3) refer to its uses when dead; and the third (1), though it speaks of it as living, yet has nothing to say of the remarkable beauties of this favourite British flower. Yet it has great beauties which cannot easily be overlooked. Its large, yellow flowers, its graceful habit of growth, and its fragrance--
"Sweet is the Broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough"--
--- SPENSER, Sonnet xxvi.
at once arrest the attention of the most careless observer of Nature. We are almost driven to the conclusion that Shakespeare could not have had much real acquaintance with the Broom, or he would not have sent his "dismissed bachelor" to "Broom-groves."[42:1] I should very much doubt that the Broom could ever attain to the dimensions of a grove, though Steevens has a note on the passage that "near Gamlingay, in Cambridgeshire, it grows high enough to conceal the tallest cattle as they pass through it; and in places where it is cultivated still higher." Chaucer speaks of the Broom, but does not make it so much of a tree--
"Amid the Broom he basked in the sun."
And other poets have spoken of the Broom in the same way--thus Collins--
"When Dan Sol to slope his wheels began
Amid the Broom he basked him on the ground."
---
Castle of Indolence, canto i.
And a Russian poet speaks of the Broom as a tree--
"See there upon the Broom tree's bough
The young grey eagle flapping now."
---
Flora Domestica, p. 68.
As a garden plant it is perhaps seen to best advantage when mixed with other shrubs, as when grown quite by itself it often has an untidy look. There is a pure white variety which is very beautiful, but it is very liable to flower so abundantly as to flower itself to death. There are a few other sorts, but none more beautiful than the British.
FOOTNOTES:
[42:1] Yet Bromsgrove must be a corruption of Broom-grove, and there are other places in England named from the Broom.
BULRUSH. Wooer. Her careless tresses
A wreake of Bulrush rounded.
---
Two Noble Kinsmen, act iv, sc. 1 (104).
See RUSH, p. 262.
BURDOCK AND BURS.
(1) Celia.
They are but Burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday
foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths our very
petticoats will catch them.
Rosalind.
I could shake them off my coat; these Burs are in my heart.
--- As You Like It, act i, sc. 3 (13).
(2) Lucio.
Nay, friar, I am a kind of Bur; I shall stick.
--- Measure for Measure, act iv, sc. 3 (149).
(3) Lysander.
Hang oft, thou cat, thou Burr.
--- Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii, sc. 2 (260).
(4) Pandarus.
They are Burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where
they are thrown.
--- Troilus and Cressida, act iii, sc. 2 (118).
(5) Burgundy.
And nothing teems
But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs.
--- Henry V, act v, sc. 2 (51).
(6) Cordelia.
Crown'd with rank Fumiter and Furrow-weeds,
With Burdocks, Hemlock, Nettles, Cuckoo-flowers.
--- King Lear, act iv, sc. 4 (3).
The Burs are the unopened flowers of the Burdock (
Arctium lappa), and their clinging quality very early obtained for them expressive names, such as
amor folia, love leaves, and philantropium. This clinging quality arises from the bracts of the involucrum being long and stiff, and with hooked tips which attach themselves to every passing object. The Burdock is a very handsome plant when seen in its native habitat by the side of a brook, its broad leaves being most picturesque, but it is not a plant to introduce into a garden.[44:1] There is another tribe of plants, however, which are sufficiently ornamental to merit a place in the garden, and whose Burs are even more clinging than those of the Burdock. These are the Acaenas; they are mostly natives of America and New Zealand, and some of them (especially A. sarmentosa and A. microphylla) form excellent carpet plants, but their points being furnished with double hooks, like a double-barbed arrow, they have double powers of clinging. _