The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 5

(19) _Shallow._

Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year's Pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of Caraways, and so forth.

_Davey._

There's a dish of Leather-coats for you.

_Ibid._, act v, sc. 3 (1, 44).

(20) _Evans._

I pray you be gone; I will make an end of my dinner. There's Pippins and cheese to come.

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act i, sc. 2 (11).

(21) _Holofernes._

The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_, in blood; ripe as the Pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of _clo_--the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a Crab on the face of _terra_--the soil, the land, the earth.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act iv, sc. 2 (3).

(22) _Mercutio._

Thy wit is a very Bitter Sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.

_Romeo._

And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?

_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii, sc. 4 (83).

(23) _Petruchio._

What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.

What! up and down, carved like an Apple-tart?

_Taming of the Shrew_, act iv, sc. 3 (88).

(24)

How like Eve's Apple doth thy beauty grow, If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!

_Sonnet_ xciii.

Here Shakespeare names the Apple, the Crab, the Pippin, the Pomewater, the Apple-john, the Codling, the Caraway, the Leathercoat, and the Bitter-Sweeting. Of the Apple generally I need say nothing, except to notice that the name was not originally confined to the fruit now so called, but was a generic name applied to any fruit, as we still speak of the Love-apple, the Pine-apple,[20:1] &c. The Anglo-Saxon name for the Blackberry was the Bramble-apple; and Sir John Mandeville, in describing the Cedars of Lebanon, says: "And upon the hills growen Trees of Cedre, that ben fulle hye, and they beren longe Apples, and als grete as a man's heved"[20:2] (cap. ix.). In the English Bible it is the same.

The Apple is mentioned in a few places, but it is almost certain that it never means the Pyrus malus, but is either the Orange, Citron, or Quince, or is a general name for a tree fruit. So that when Shakespeare (24) and the other old writers speak of Eve's Apple, they do not necessarily a.s.sert that the fruit of the temptation was our Apple, but simply that it was some fruit that grew in Eden. The Apple (_pomum_) has left its mark in the language in the word "pomatum," which, originally an ointment made of Apples, is now an ointment in which Apples have no part.

The Crab was held in far more esteem in the sixteenth century than it is with us. The roasted fruit served with hot ale (9 and 10) was a favourite Christmas dish, and even without ale the roasted Crab was a favourite, and this not for want of better fruit, for Gerard tells us that in his time "the stocke or kindred of Apples was infinite," but because they were considered pleasant food.[20:3] Another curious use of Crabs is told in the description of Crab-wake, or "Crabbing the Parson,"

at Halesowen, Salop, on St. Kenelm's Day (July 17), in Brand's "Popular Antiquities" (vol. i. p. 342, Bohn's edition). Nor may we now despise the Crab tree, though we do not eat its fruit. Among our native trees there is none more beautiful than the Crab tree, both in flower and in fruit. An old Crab tree in full flower is a sight that will delight any artist, nor is it altogether useless; its wood is very hard and very lasting, and from its fruit verjuice is made, not, however, much in England, as I believe nearly all the verjuice now used is made in France.

The Pippin, from being originally a general name for any Apple raised from pips and not from grafts, is now, and probably was in Shakespeare's time, confined to the bright-coloured, long-keeping Apples (Justice Shallow's was "last year's Pippin"), of which the Golden Pippin ("the Pippin burnished o'er with gold," Phillips) is the type.

The Bitter-Sweeting (22) was an old and apparently a favourite Apple. It is frequently mentioned in the old writers, as by Gower, "Conf. Aman."

viii. 174--

"For all such time of love is lore, And like unto the Bitter-swete,[21:1]

For though it think a man fyrst swete He shall well felen at laste That it is sower."

By Chaucer--

"Yet of that art they conne nought wexe sadde, For unto hem it is a Bitter Swete."

_Prologue of the Chanoune's Yeman._

And by Ben Jonson--

"That love's a Bitter-sweet I ne'er conceive Till the sour minute comes of taking leave, And then I taste it."[21:2]

_Underwoods._

Parkinson names it in his list of Apples, but soon dismisses it--"Twenty sorts of Sweetings, and none good." The name is now given to an Apple of no great value as a table fruit, but good as a cider apple, and for use in silk dyeing.

It is not easy to identify the Pomewater (21). It was highly esteemed both by Shakespeare ("it hangeth like a jewel in the ear of _clo_") and many other writers. In Gerard's figure it looks like a Codling, and its Latin name is _Malus carbonaria_, which probably refers to its good qualities as a roasting Apple. The name Pomewater (or Water Apple) makes us expect a juicy but not a rich Apple, and with this agrees Parkinson's description: "The Pomewater is an excellent, good, and great whitish Apple, full of sap or moisture, somewhat pleasant sharp, but a little bitter withall; it will not last long, the winter frosts soon causing it to rot and perish." It must have been very like the modern Lord Suffield Apple, and though Parkinson says it will not last long, yet it is mentioned as lasting till the New Year in a tract ent.i.tled "Vox Graculi," 1623. Speaking of New Year's Day, the author says: "This day shall be given many more gifts than shall be asked for; and apples, egges, and oranges shall be lifted to a lofty rate; when a Pomewater bestuck with a few rotten cloves shall be worth more than the honesty of a hypocrite" (quoted by Brand, vol. i. 17, Bohn's edition).

We have no such difficulty with the "dish of Apple-johns" (17 and 18).

Hakluyt recommends "the Apple John that dureth two years to make show of our fruit" to be carried by voyagers.[22:1] "The Deusan (_deux ans_) or Apple-john," says Parkinson, "is a delicate fine fruit, well rellished when it beginneth to be fit to be eaten, and endureth good longer than any other Apple." With this description there is no difficulty in identifying the Apple-john with an Apple that goes under many names, and is figured by Maund as the Easter Pippin. When first picked it is of a deep green colour, and very hard. In this state it remains all the winter, and in April or May it becomes yellow and highly perfumed, and remains good either for cooking or dessert for many months.

The Codling (2) is not the Apple now so called, but is the general name of a young unripe Apple.

The "Leathercoats" (19) are the Brown Russets; and though the "dish of Caraways" in the same pa.s.sage may refer to the Caraway or Caraway-russet Apple, an excellent little apple, that seems to be a variety of the Nonpareil, and has long been cultivated in England, yet it is almost certain that it means a dish of Caraway Seeds. (_See_ CARRAWAYS.)

FOOTNOTES:

[20:1] See PINE, p. 208.

[20:2] "A peche appulle." "The appulys of a peche tre."--_Porkington MSS. in Early English Miscellany._ (Published by Warton Club.)

[20:3] "As for Wildings and Crabs . . . their tast is well enough liked, and they carrie with them a quicke and a sharp smell; howbeit this gift they have for their harsh sournesse, that they have many a foule word and shrewd curse given them."--PHILEMON HOLLAND'S _Pliny_, book xv. c.

14.

[21:1] "Amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus."--PLAUTUS.