354 SHAKESPEARE'S NATURAL HISTORY. [WORTS. 



WHILE Wormwood hath seed, get a handful or twain, 

 To save against March, to make flea to refrain, 

 Where chamber is sweeped, and Wormwood is strown, 

 No flea for his life dare abide to be known. 

 What savour is better, if physic be true, 

 For places infected, than Wormwood and rue ? 

 It is as a comfort for heart, and the brain, 

 And therefore to have it, it is not in vain. 



Tusser, "July's Husbandry," st. 10 and 11. 



Worts. 



MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, i. I, 124. 



How to make long Worts : Take a good quantity of 

 coleworts, and seethe them in water whole a good while, 

 then take the fattest of powdered beef-broth, and put it to 

 the Worts, and let them seethe a good while after ; then 

 put them in a platter, and lay your powdered beef upon it. 



" The Good Huswife's Handmaid," p. 8, b. 



V. Cabbage. 

 Wren. 



MACBETH, iv. 2, 9. 



IT is much to be marvelled at the little bird called a 

 Wren, being fastened to a little stick of hazel newly 

 gathered, doth turn about and roast himself. 



Lupton, "Notable Things," bk. vii. 57. 



Yew. 



MACBETH, iv. I, 27. 



A YEW-TREE is a tree with venom and poison, and is 

 a strong tree and an high, with great boughs pliant and 

 long ; such trees are burnt and bows made thereof. The 

 shadow thereof is grievous, and slayeth such as sleep there- 

 under. Bartholomew (Berthelet], bk. xvii. 161. 



THE birds that eat the red berries either die or cast 

 their feathers. Batman's addition to Bartholomew, loc. cit. 



[Gerard denies that the Yew-berries are poisonous, and that 

 its shadow is dangerous; but to this day the Yew is held to 

 be poisonous among country-folk.] 



