The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 99

SYCAMORE.

(1) _Desdemona_ (singing).

The poor soul sat sighing by a Sycamore tree.

_Oth.e.l.lo_, act iv, sc. 3 (41).

(2) _Benvolio._

Underneath the grove of Sycamore That westward rooteth from the city's side, So early walking did I see your son.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 1 (130).

(3) _Boyet._

Under the cool shade of a Sycamore I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (89).

In its botanical relations.h.i.+p, the Sycamore is closely allied to the Maple, and was often called the Great Maple, and is still so called in Scotland. It is not indigenous in Great Britain, but it has long been naturalized among us, and has taken so kindly to our soil and climate that it is one of our commonest trees. It is one of the best of forest trees for resisting wind; it "scorns to be bia.s.sed in its mode of growth even by the prevailing wind, but shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no weatherside to the storm, and may be broken, but never can be bended."-_Old Mortality_, c. i.

The history of the name is curious. The Sycomore, or Zicamine tree of the Bible and of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, is the Fig-mulberry, a large handsome tree indigenous in Africa and Syria, and largely planted, partly for the sake of its fruit, and especially for the delicious shade it gives. With this tree the early English writers were not acquainted, but they found the name in the Bible, and applied it to any shade-giving tree. Thus in aelfric's Vocabulary in the tenth century it is given to the Aspen--"Sicomorus vel celsa aeps." Chaucer gives the name to some hedge shrub, but he probably used it for any thick shrub, without any very special distinction--

"The hedge also that yedde in compas And closed in all the greene herbere With Sicamour was set and Eglateere, Wrethen in fere so well and cunningly That every branch and leafe grew by measure Plaine as a bord, of an height by and by."

_The Flower and the Leaf._

Our Sycamore would be very ill suited to make the sides and roof of an arbour, but before the time of Shakespeare it seems certain that the name was attached to our present tree, and it is so called by Gerard and Parkinson.

The Sycamore is chiefly planted for its rapid growth rather than for its beauty. It becomes a handsome tree when fully grown, but as a young tree it is stiff and heavy, and at all times it is so infested with honeydew as to make it unfit for planting on lawns or near paths. It grows well in the north, where other trees will not well flourish, and "we frequently meet with the tree apart in the fields, or unawares in remote localities amidst the Lammermuirs and the Cheviots, where it is the surviving witness of the former existence of a hamlet there. Hence to the botanical rambler it has a more melancholy character than the Yew. It throws him back on past days, when he who planted the tree was the owner of the land and of the Hall, and whose name and race are forgotten even by tradition. . . . And there is reasonable pride in the ancestry when a grove of old gentlemanly Sycamores still shadows the Hall."--JOHNSTON. But these old Sycamores were not planted only for beauty: they were sometimes planted for a very unpleasant use. "They were used by the most powerful barons in the West of Scotland for hanging their enemies and refractory va.s.sals on, and for this reason were called _dool_ or grief trees. Of these there are three yet standing, the most memorable being one near the fine old castle of Ca.s.silis, one of the seats of the Marquis of Ailsa, on the banks of the River Doon. It was used by the family of Kennedy, who were the most powerful barons of the West of Scotland, for the purpose above mentioned."--JOHNS.

The wood of the Sycamore is useful for turning and a few other purposes, but is not very durable. The sap, as in all the Maples, is full of sugar, and the pollen is very curious; "it appears globular in the microscope, but if it be touched with anything moist, the globules burst open with four valves, and then they appear in the form of a cross."--MILLER.

THISTLE (_see also_ HOLY THISTLE).

(1) _Burgundy._

And nothing teems But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs.

_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (51).

(2) _Bottom._

Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons ready in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble bee on the top of a Thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (10).

Thistle is the old English name for a large family of plants occurring chiefly in Europe and Asia, of which we have fourteen species in Great Britain, arranged under the botanical families of Carlina, Carduus, and Onopordon. It is the recognized symbol of untidiness and carelessness, being found not so much in barren ground as in good ground not properly cared for. So good a proof of a rich soil does the Thistle give, that a saying is attributed to a blind man who was choosing a piece of land--"Take me to a Thistle;" and Tusser says--

"Much wetnes, hog-rooting, and land out of hart makes Thistles a number foorthwith to upstart. If Thistles so growing proove l.u.s.tie and long, It signifieth land to be hartie and strong."

_October's Husbandry_ (13).

If the Thistles were not so common, and if we could get rid of the a.s.sociations they suggest, there are probably few of our wild plants that we should more admire: they are stately in their foliage and habit, and some of their flowers are rich in colour, and the Thistledown, which carries the seed far and wide, is very beautiful, and was once considered useful as a sign of rain, for "if the down flyeth off Coltsfoot, Dandelyon, or Thistles when there is no winde, it is a signe of rain."--COLES.

It had still another use in rustic divination--

"Upon the various earth's embroidered gown, There is a weed upon whose head grows down, Sow Thistle 'tis y'clept, whose downy wreath If anyone can blow off at a breath We deem her for a maid."--BROWNE'S _Brit. Past._, i, 4.

But it is owing to these pretty Thistledowns that the plant becomes a most undesirable neighbour, for they carry the seed everywhere, and wherever it is carried, it soon vegetates, and a fine crop of Thistles very quickly follows. In this way, if left to themselves, the Thistles will soon monopolize a large extent of country, to the extinction of other plants, as they have done in parts of the American prairies, and as they did in Australia, till a most stringent Act of Parliament was pa.s.sed about twenty years ago, imposing heavy penalties upon all who neglected to destroy the Thistles on their land. For these reasons we cannot admit the Thistle into the garden, at least not our native Thistles; but there are some foreigners which may well be admitted.

There are the handsome yellow Thistles of the South of Europe (_Scolymus_), which besides their beauty have a cla.s.sical interest.

"Hesiod elegantly describing the time of year, says,

??? de s?????? t'a??e?,

when the Scolymus flowers, _i.e._, in hot weather or summer ("Op. et dies," 582). This plant crowned with its golden flowers is abundant throughout Sicily."--HOGG'S _Cla.s.sical Plants of Sicily_. There is the Fish-bone Thistle (_Chamaepeuce diacantha_) from Syria, a very handsome plant, and, like most of the Thistles, a biennial; but if allowed to flower and go to seed, it will produce plenty of seedlings for a succession of years. And there is a grand scarlet Thistle from Mexico, the Erythrolena conspicua ("Sweet," vol. ii. p. 134), which must be almost the handsomest of the family, and which was grown in England fifty years ago, but has been long lost. There are many others that may deserve a place as ornamental plants, but they find little favour, for "they are only Thistles."

Any notice of the Thistle would be imperfect without some mention of the Scotch Thistle. It is the one point in the history of the plant that protects it from contempt. We dare not despise a plant which is the honoured badge of our neighbours and relations, the Scotch; which is enn.o.bled as the symbol of the Order of the Thistle, that claims to be the most ancient of all our Orders of high honour; and which defies you to insult it or despise it by its proud mottoes, "Nemo me impune lacessit," "Ce que Dieu garde, est bien garde." What is the true Scotch Thistle even the Scotch antiquarians cannot decide, and in the uncertainty it is perhaps safest to say that no Thistle in particular can claim the sole honour, but that it extends to every member of the family that can be found in Scotland.[292:1]

Shakespeare has noticed the love of the bee for the Thistle, and it seems that it is for other purposes than honey gathering that he finds the Thistle useful. For "a beauty has the Thistle, when every delicate hair arrests a dew-drop on a showery April morning, and when the purple blossom of a roadside Thistle turns its face to Heaven and welcomes the wild bee, who lies close upon its flowerets on the approach of some storm cloud until its shadow be past away. For with unerring instinct the bee well knows that the darkness is but for a moment, and that the sun will s.h.i.+ne out again ere long."--LADY WILKINSON.

FOOTNOTES:

[292:1] See an interesting and fanciful account of the fitness of the Thistle as the emblem of Scotland in Ruskin's "Proserpina," pp. 135-139.

THORNS.

(1) _Ariel._

Tooth'd Briers, sharp Furzes, p.r.i.c.king Goss, and Thorns, Which entered their frail skins.

_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (180).

(2) _Quince._