The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 79

The Poppy had of old a few other names, such as Corn-rose and Cheese-bowls (a very old name for the flower), and being "of great beautie, although of evil smell, our gentlewomen doe call it Jone Silverpin." This name is difficult of explanation, even with Parkinson's help, who says it meanes "faire without and foule within," but it probably alludes to its gaudy colour and worthlessness. But these names are scarcely the common names of the plant, but rather nicknames; the usual name is, and always has been, Poppy, which is an easily traced corruption from the Latin _papaver_, the Saxon and Early English names being variously spelt, _popig_ and _papig_, _popi_ and _papy_; so that the Poppy is another instance of a very common and conspicuous English plant known only or chiefly by its Latin name Anglicised.

Our common English Poppy, "being of a beautiful and gallant red colour,"

is certainly one of the handsomest of our wild flowers, and a Wheat field with a rich undergrowth of scarlet Poppies is a sight very dear to the artist,[223:1] while the weed is not supposed to do much harm to the farmer. But this is not the Poppy mentioned by Iago, for its narcotic qualities are very small; the Poppy that he alludes to is the Opium Poppy (_P. somniferum_). This Poppy was well known and cultivated in England long before Shakespeare's day, but only as a garden ornament; the Opium was then, as now, imported from the East. Its deadly qualities were well known. Gower describes it--

"There is growend upon the ground Popy that bereth the sede of slepe."

_Conf. Aman._, lib. quint. (2, 102 Paulli).

Spenser speaks of the plant as the "dull Poppy," and describing the Garden of Proserpina, he says--

"There mournful Cypress grew in greatest store, And trees of bitter gall, and Heben sad, Dead-sleeping Poppy, and black h.e.l.lebore, Cold Coloquintida."

_F. Q._, ii, 7, 52.

And Drayton similarly describes it--

"Here Henbane, Poppy, Hemlock here, Procuring deadly sleeping."

_Nymphal_ v.

The name of opium does not seem to have been in general use, except among the apothecaries. Chaucer, however, uses it--

"A claire made of a certayn wyn, With necotykes, and opye of Thebes fyn."

_The Knightes Tale._

And so does Milton--

"Which no cooling herb Or medicinal liquor can a.s.swage, Nor breath of vernal air from Snowy Alp; Sleep hath forsook and given me o'er To death's benumming opium as my only cure."

_Samson Agonistes._

Many of the Poppies are very ornamental garden plants. The pretty yellow Welsh Poppy (_Meconopsis Cambrica_), abundant at Cheddar Cliffs, is an excellent plant for the rockwork where, when once established, it will grow freely and sow itself; and for the same place the little Papaver Alpinum, with its varieties, is equally well suited. For the open border the larger Poppies are very suitable, especially the great Oriental Poppy (_P. orientale_) and the grand scarlet Siberian Poppy (_P.

bracteatum_), perhaps the most gorgeous of hardy plants: while among the rarer species of the tribe we must reckon the Meconopses of the Himalayas (_M. Wallichi_ and _M. Nepalensis_), plants of singular beauty and elegance, but very difficult to grow, and still more difficult to keep, even if once established; for though perfectly hardy, they are little more than biennials. Besides these Poppies, the large double garden Poppies are very showy and of great variety in colour, but they are only annuals.

FOOTNOTES:

[223:1] "We usually think of the Poppy as a coa.r.s.e flower; but it is the most transparent and delicate of all the blossoms of the field. The rest, nearly all of them, depend on the texture of their surface for colour. But the Poppy is painted _gla.s.s_; it never glows so brightly as when the sun s.h.i.+nes through it. Wherever it is seen, against the light or with the light, always it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby."--RUSKIN, _Proserpina_, p. 86.

POTATO.

(1) _Thersites._

How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and Potato-finger, tickles these together.

_Troilus and Cressida_, act v, sc. 2 (55).

(2) _Falstaff._

Let the sky rain Potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits, and snow Eringoes.

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act v, sc. 5 (20).

The chief interest in these two pa.s.sages is that they contain almost the earliest notice of Potatoes after their introduction into England. The generally received account is that they were introduced into Ireland in 1584 by Sir Walter Raleigh, and from thence brought into England; but the year of their first planting in England is not recorded. They are not mentioned by Lyte in 1586. Gerard grew them in 1597, but only as curiosities, under the name of Virginian Potatoes (_Battata Virginianorum_ and _Pappas_), to distinguish them from the Spanish Potato, or Convolvulus Battatas, which had been long grown in Europe, and in the first edition of his "Herbal" is his portrait, showing him holding a Potato in his hand. They seem to have grown into favour very slowly, for half a century after their introduction, Waller still spoke of them as one of the tropical luxuries of the Bermudas--

"With candy'd Plantains and the juicy Pine, On choicest Melons and sweet Grapes they dine, And with Potatoes fat their wanton swine."

_The Battel of the Summer Islands._

Potato is a corruption of Batatas or Patatas.

As soon as the Potato arrived in England, it was at once invested with wonderful restorative powers, and in a long exhaustive note in Steevens'

Shakespeare, Mr. Collins has given all the pa.s.sages in the early writers in which the Potato is mentioned, and in every case they have reference to these supposed virtues. These pa.s.sages, which are chiefly from the old dramatists, are curious and interesting in the early history of the Potato, and as throwing light on the manners of our ancestors; but as in every instance they are all more or less indelicate, I refrain from quoting them here.

As a garden plant, we now restrict the Potato to the kitchen garden and the field, but it belongs to a very large family, the Solanaceae or Nightshades, of which many members are very ornamental, though as they chiefly come from the tropical regions, there are very few that can be treated as entirely hardy plants. One, however, is a very beautiful climber--the Solanum jasminoides from South America--and quite hardy in the South of England. Trained against a wall it will soon cover it, and when once established will bear its handsome trusses of white flowers with yellow anthers in great profusion during the whole summer. A better known member of the family is the Petunia, very handsome, but little better than an annual. The pretty Winter Cherry (_Physalis alkekengi_) is another member of the family, and so is the Mandrake (_see_ MANDRAKE). The whole tribe is poisonous, or at least to be suspected, yet it contains a large number of most useful plants, as the Potato, Tomato, Tobacco, Datura, and Cayenne Pepper.

PRIMROSE.

(1) _Queen._

The Violets, Cowslips, and the Primroses, Bear to my closet.

_Cymbeline_, act i, sc. 5 (83).

(2) _Queen._

I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans, Look pale as Primrose with blood-drinking sighs, And all to have the n.o.ble duke alive.

_2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 2 (62).

(3) _Arviragus._

Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose.

_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (220).