_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE
Gerard gives a very fair description of the Nutmeg tree under the names of Nux moschata or Myristica; but it is certain that he had not any personal knowledge of the tree, which was not introduced into England or Europe for nearly 200 years after. Shakespeare could only have known the imported Nut and the Mace which covers the Nut inside the shell, and they were imported long before his time. Chaucer speaks of it as--
(1) Prospero. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an Oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails,
--- Tempest, act i, sc. 2 (294).
(2) Prospero.
To the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout Oak
With his own bolt.
--- Ibid., act v, sc. 1 (44).
(3) Quince.
At the Duke's Oak we meet.
--- Midsummer Night's Dream, act i, sc. 2 (113).
(4) Benedick.
An Oak with but one green leaf on it would have answered her.
--- Much Ado About Nothing, act ii, sc. 1 (247).
(5) Isabella.
Thou split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled Oak.
--- Measure for Measure, act ii, sc. 2 (114).
(See MYRTLE.)
(6) 1st Lord.
He lay along
Under an Oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood.
--- As You Like It, act ii, sc. 1 (30).
(7) Oliver.
Under an Oak, whose boughs were Mossed with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity.
--- Ibid., act iv, sc. 3 (156).
(8) Paulina.
As ever Oak or stone was sound.
--- Winter's Tale, act ii, sc. 3 (89).
(9) Messenger.
And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd Oak.
--- 3rd Henry VI, act ii, sc. 1 (54).
(10) Mrs. Page.
There is an old tale goes that Herne the Hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter time at still midnight
Walk round about an Oak, with great ragg'd horns.
* * * * *
Page.
Why yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne's Oak.
* * * * *
Mrs. Ford.
That Falstaff at that Oak shall meet with us.
--- Merry Wives of Windsor, act iv, sc. 4 (28).
Fenton.
To night at Herne's Oak.
--- Merry Wives of Windsor, act iv, sc. 6 (19).
Falstaff.
Be you in the park about midnight at Herne's Oak, and you
shall see wonders.
--- Ibid., act v, sc. 1 (11).
Mrs. Page.
They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's Oak.
* * * * *
Mrs. Ford.
The hour draws on. To the Oak, to the Oak!
--- Ibid., act v, sc. 3 (14).
Quickly.
Till 'tis one o'clock
Our dance of custom round about the Oak
Of Herne the Hunter, let us not forget.
--- Ibid., act v, sc. 5 (78).
(11) Timon.
That numberless upon me stuck as leaves
Do on the Oak, have with one winter's brush
Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare
For every storm that blows.
--- Timon of Athens, act iv, sc. 3 (263).
(12) Timon.
The Oaks bear mast, the Briers scarlet hips.
--- Ibid. (422).
(13) Montano.
What ribs of Oak, when mountains melt on them,
Can hold the mortise?
--- Othello, act ii, sc. 1 (7).
(14) Iago.
She that so young could give out such a seeming
To seel her father's eyes up close as Oak.
--- Ibid., act iii, sc. 3 (209).
(15) Marcius.
He that depends
Upon your favours swims with fins of lead
And hews down Oaks with rushes.
--- Coriolanus, act i, sc. 1 (183).
(16) Arviragus.
To thee the Reed is as the Oak.
--- Cymbeline, act iv, sc. 2 (267).
(17) Lear.
Oak-cleaving thunderbolts.
--- King Lear, act iii, sc. 2 (5).
(18) Nathaniel.
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;
Those thoughts to me were Oaks, to thee like Osiers bow'd.
--- Love's Labour's Lost, act iv, sc. 2 (111).
[The same lines in the "Passionate Pilgrim."]
(19) Nestor.
When the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted Oaks.
--- Troilus and Cressida, act i, sc. 3 (49).
(20) Volumnia.
To a cruel war I sent him, from whence he returned, his brows
bound with Oak.
--- Coriolanus, act i, sc. 3 (14).
Volumnia.
He comes the third time home with the Oaken garland.
--- Ibid., act ii, sc. 1 (137).
Cominius.
He proved best man i' the field, and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the Oak.
--- Ibid., act ii, sc. 2 (101).
2nd Senator.
The worthy fellow is our general; he's the rock, the Oak, not
to be wind-shaken.
--- Ibid., act v, sc. 2 (116).
Volumnia.
To charge thy sulphur with a bolt
That should but rive an Oak.
--- Ibid., act v, sc. 3 (152).
(21) Casca.
I have seen tempests when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty Oaks.
--- Julius Caesar, act i, sc. 3 (5).
(22) Celia.
I found him under a tree like a dropped Acorn.
Rosalind.
It may well be called Jove's tree, when it drops forth such
fruit.
--- As You Like It, act iii, sc. 2 (248).
(23) Prospero.
Thy food shall be
The fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots, and husks
Wherein the Acorn cradled.
--- Tempest, act i, sc. 2 (462).
(24) Puck.
All their elves for fear
Creep into Acorn-cups, and hide them there.
--- Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii, sc. 1 (30).
(25) Lysander.
Get you gone, you dwarf--you beed--you Acorn!
--- Ibid., act iii, sc. 2 (328).
(26) Posthumus.
Like a full-Acorned boar--a German one.
--- Cymbeline, act ii, sc. 5 (16).
(27) Messenger.
About his head he weares the winner's Oke.
--- Two Noble Kinsmen, act iv, sc. 2 (154).
(28)
Time's glory is . . . .
To dry the old Oak's sap.
--- Lucrece (950).
Here are several very pleasant pictures, and there is so much of historical and legendary lore gathered round the Oaks of England that it is very tempting to dwell upon them. There are the historical Oaks connected with the names of William Rufus, Queen Elizabeth, and Charles II.; there are the wonderful Oaks of Wistman's Wood (certainly the most weird and most curious wood in England, if not in Europe); there are the many passages in which our old English writers have loved to descant on the Oaks of England as the very emblems of unbroken strength and unflinching constancy; there is all the national interest which has linked the glories of the British navy with the steady and enduring growth of her Oaks; there is the wonderful picturesqueness of the great Oak plantations of the New Forest, the Forest of Dean, and other royal forests; and the equally, if not greater, picturesqueness of the English Oak as the chief ornament of our great English parks; there is the scientific interest which suggested the growth of the Oak for the plan of our lighthouses, and many other interesting points. It is very tempting to stop on each and all of these, but the space is too limited, and they can all be found ably treated of and at full length in any of the books that have been written on the English forest trees.
