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The Plant-Lore & Garden-Craft of Shakespeare, a non-fiction book by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe |
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Part 1. The Plant-Lore Of Shakespeare - Pinks, Piony, Plane |
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_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE PINKS, PIONY, PLANE
To these may perhaps be added the following, from the second verse sung by Mariana in "Measure for Measure," act iv, sc. 1 (337)--
The Pink or Pincke was, as now, the name of the smaller sorts of Carnations, and was generally applied to the single sorts. It must have been a very favourite flower, as we may gather from the phrase "Pink of courtesy," which means courtesy carried to its highest point; and from Spenser's pretty comparison--
--- Amoretti, Sonnet 64.
--- Antony and Cleopatra, act ii, sc. 7.[210:1]
--- Romeo and Juliet, act ii, sc. 4.
--- Taming of the Shrew, act iv, sc. 1.
--- Henry VIII, act v, sc. 3.
--- Merry Wives of Windsor, act ii, sc. 7.
[210:1] It is very probable that this does not refer to the colour--"Pink = winking, half-shut."--SCHMIDT. And see Nares, s.v. Pinke eyne.
There is much dispute about this passage, the dispute turning on the question whether "Pioned" has reference to the Peony flower or not. The word by some is supposed to mean only "digged," and it doubtless often had this meaning,[211:1] though the word is now obsolete, and only survives with us in "pioneer," which, in Shakespeare's time, meant "digger" only, and not as now, "one who goes before to prepare the way"--thus Hamlet--
--- Hamlet, act i, sc. 5 (161).
--- Lucrece (1380).
The Paeony (P. corallina) is sometimes allowed a place in the British flora, having been found apparently wild at the Steep Holmes in the Bristol Channel and a few other places, but it is now considered certain that in all these places it is a garden escape. Gerard gave one such habitat: "The male Peionie groweth wilde upon a Coneyberry in Betsome, being in the parish of Southfleet, in Kent, two miles from Gravesend, and in the ground sometimes belonging to a farmer there, called John Bradley;" but on this his editor adds the damaging note: "I have been told that our author himselfe planted that Peionee there, and afterwards seemed to find it there by accident; and I do believe it was so, because none before or since have ever seen or heard of it growing wild since in any part of this kingdome." But though not a native plant, it had been cultivated in England long before Shakespeare's and Gerard's time. It occurs in most of the old vocabularies from the tenth century downwards, and in Shakespeare's time the English gardens had most of the European species that are now grown, including also the handsome double-red and white varieties. Since his time the number of species and varieties has been largely increased by the addition of the Chinese and Japanese species, and by the labours of the French nurserymen, who have paid more attention to the flower than the English. In the hardy flower garden there is no more showy family than the Paeony. They have flowers of many colours, from almost pure white and pale yellow to the richest crimson; and they vary very much in their foliage, most of them having large fleshy leaves, "not much unlike the leaves of the Walnut tree," but some of them having their leaves finely cut and divided almost like the leaves of Fennel (P. tenuifolia). They further vary in that some are herbaceous, disappearing entirely in winter, while others, Moutan or Tree Paeonies, are shrubs; and in favourable seasons, when the shrub is not injured by spring frosts, there is no grander shrub than an old Tree Paeony in full flower. Of the many different species the best are the Moutans, which, according to Chinese tradition, have been grown in China for 1500 years, and which are now produced in great variety of colour; P. corallina, for the beauty of its coral-like seeds; P. Cretica, for its earliness in flowering; P. tenuifolia, single and double, for its elegant foliage; P. Whitmaniana, for its pale yellow but very fleeting flowers, which, before they are fully expanded, have all the appearance of immense Globe-flowers (trollius); P. lobata, for the wonderful richness of its bright crimson flowers; and P. Whitleji, a very old and very double form of P. edulis, of great size, and most delicate pink and white colour.
"Which to outbarre, with painful pyonings, ---SPENSER, F. Q., ii, 10, 46. [211:2] The name was variously spelt, e.g.-- "And other trees there was mane one --- The Squyr of Lowe Degre, 39.
--- CUTWODE, Caltha Poetarum, 1599, st. 24.
There is no certain record how long the Plane has been introduced into England; it is certainly not a native tree, nor even an European tree, but came from the East, and was largely planted and much admired both by the Greeks and Romans. We know from Pliny that it was growing in France in his day on the part opposite Britain, and the name occurs in the old vocabularies. But from Turner's evidence in 1548 it must have been a very scarce tree in the sixteenth century. He says: "I never saw any Plaine tree in Englande, saving once in Northumberlande besyde Morpeth, and an other at Barnwell Abbey besyde Cambryge." And more than a hundred years later Evelyn records a special visit to Lee to inspect one as a great curiosity. The Plane is not only a very handsome tree, and a fast grower, but from the fact that it yearly sheds its bark it has become one of the most useful trees for growing in towns. The wood is of very little value. To the emblem writers the Plane was an example of something good to the eye, but of no real use. Camerarius so moralizes it (Pl. xix.), and, quoting Virgil's "steriles platanos," he says of it, "umbram non fructum platanus dat." _ |
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