The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 75

_Taming of the Shrew_, act iv, sc. 1.

And thirdly, as the pinked ornament in muslin--

There's a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that railed upon me till her Pink'd porringer fell off her head.

_Henry VIII_, act v, sc. 3.

And as applied to the flower in the pa.s.sage quoted above. He also uses it in another sense--

This Pink is one of Cupid's carriers; Clap on more sail--pursue!

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act ii, sc. 7.

where pink means a small country vessel often mentioned under that name by writers of the sixteenth century.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.

PIONY.

_Iris._

Thy banks with Pioned and twilled brims, Which spongy April at thy best betrims, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns.

_Tempest_, act iv, sc. 1 (65).

There is much dispute about this pa.s.sage, 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--

Well said, old mole! cans't work i' the earth so fast?

A worthy pioner?

_Hamlet_, act i, sc. 5 (161).

and again--

There might you see the labouring pioner Begrim'd with sweat, and smeared all with dust.

_Lucrece_ (1380).

But this reading seems very tame, tame in itself, and doubly tame when taken in connection with the context, and "Certainly savours more of the commentators' prose than of Shakespeare's poetry" ("Edinburgh Review,"

1872, p. 363). I shall a.s.sume, therefore, that the flower is meant, spelt in the form of "Piony," instead of Peony or Paeony.[211:2]

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 j.a.panese 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[211:1]

"Which to outbarre, with painful pyonings, From sea to sea, he heapt a mighty mound!"

SPENSER, _F. Q._, ii, 10, 46.

[211:2] The name was variously spelt, _e.g._--

"And other trees there was mane one The Pyany, the Poplar, and the Plane."

_The Squyr of Lowe Degre_, 39.

"The pretie Pinke and purple Pianet."

CUTWODE, _Caltha Poetarum_, 1599, st. 24.

"A Pyon (Pyion A.) dionia, herba est."--_Catholicon Anglic.u.m._

PIPPIN, _see_ APPLE.

PLANE.

_Daughter._

I have sent him where a Cedar, Higher than all the rest, spreads like a Plane Fast by a brook.

_Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, act ii, sc. 6 (4).