The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 116

A. WEEDS.

(1) _Hamlet._

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fye on it, ah fye! 'tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely.

_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 2 (133).

(2) _t.i.tus._

Such withered herbs as these Are meet for plucking up.

_t.i.tus Andronicus_, act iii, sc. 1 (178).

(3) _York._

Grandam, one night, as we did sit at supper, My Uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow More than my brother. "Ay," quoth my Uncle Glo'ster, "Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace;"

And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast, Because sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.

_Richard III_, act ii, sc. 4 (10).

(4) _Queen._

Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted; Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden, And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.

_2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 1 (31).

(5)

Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring, Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers.

_Lucrece_ (869).

(6) _K. Henry._

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds.

_2nd Henry IV_, act iv, sc. 4 (54).

The weeds of Shakespeare need no remark; they were the same as ours; and, in spite of our improved cultivation, our fields and gardens are probably as full of weeds as they were three centuries ago.

B. BLIGHTS, FROSTS, ETC.

(1) _York._

Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud, And caterpillars eat my leaves away.

_2nd Henry VI_, act iii, sc. 1 (89).

(2) _Montague._

But he, his own affection's counsellor, Is to himself--I will not say, how true-- But to himself so sweet and close, So far from sounding and discovery, As is the bud bit with an envious worm, Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 1 (153).

(3) _Imogene._

Comes in my father, And like the tyrannous breathing of the north Shakes all our buds from growing.

_Cymbeline_, act i, sc. 3 (35).

(4) _Bardolph._

A cause on foot Lives so in hope as in an early spring We see the appearing buds--which to prove fruit, Hope gives not so much warrant as despair That frost will bite them.

_2nd Henry IV_, act i, sc. 3 (37).

(5) _Violet._

She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek.

_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 4 (113).

(6) _Proteus._

Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

_Valentine._

And writers say as the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime And all the fair effects of future hopes.

_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, act i, sc. 1 (42).

(7) _Capulet._