XXII 



ON THE HONEYSUCKLE 



THE lover of popular names is in high feather with 

 Lonicera peridymenum, for he has two English names 

 for it, and both are charming. " Honeysuckle " and 

 "Woodbine" are used indiscriminately alike by many 

 old and modern writers, but Shakespeare perhaps re- 

 garded the former as belonging to the flower and the 

 latter to the plant. Note Titania's injunction in Act iv. 

 scene i of " Midsummer Night's Dream " 



" Sleep, then, and I Avill wind thee in my arms. 

 So doth the Woodbine the Sweet Honeysuckle gently entwist. . . ." 



Some writers boggle at the difficulty of making Wood- 

 bine and Honeysuckle mean the same plant here. Shake- 

 speare clearly refers, they declare, to two ; and they 

 conjecture that by Woodbine he must mean Convolvulus. 

 They probably base the opinion on Ben Jonson's 



figure 



"Behold 



How the blue bindwood doth itself enfold 

 With Honeysuckle, and both these entwine 

 Themselves with Briony and Jessamine." 



Would Shakespeare, however, have spoken of the Bind- 

 weed as " luscious " ? Note those other famous lines in 

 " Midsummer Night's Dream " 



" I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows, 

 Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows, 

 Quite over canopied with luscious Woodbine.'* 



