92 ERYNGO AND ERUCA 



these plants were believed to possess aphrodisiac pro- 

 perties. The sea-holly found its way into the same 

 category of stimulants by sheer accident, and it seems 

 possible that the mistake that caused it arose with 

 Shakespeare or his contemporaries. It is certain that 

 eryngo acquired its reputation through being con- 

 founded with a cruciferous plant bearing the somewhat 

 similar name Eruca. The N.E.D. gives Falstaff's 

 speech above quoted as the earliest occurrence of 

 ' eringo ' in English literature. 



Pliny, discoursing of Erynge sive Eryngion, 1 men- 

 tions it as an effective remedy against the venom of 

 snakes and other poisons, but has not a word to say 

 about it as an aphrodisiac, which he would assuredly 

 have done had it been so accounted in popular leech- 

 craft or folk-lore, for he was utterly uncritical in 

 recording current beliefs in the properties of herbs. 

 Nor do I know of any other Latin or Greek writer who 

 attributes that quality to the sea-holly. Pliny, how- 

 ever, in the next chapter 2 describes a plant he calls 

 Centum capita, and repeats what he has heard reported 

 about it as portentosum marvellous, namely, that if a 

 man finds the root thereof, it acts as a powerful charm 

 in his favour with women. He goes on to recommend 

 a decoction of the root, not as an aphrodisiac, but as a 

 remedy for sundry maladies of the heart, stomach, and 

 liver. On the other hand, he writes confidently of 

 Eruca as concitatrix veneris* and allusions to that 

 plant (now known to botanists as Eruca sativa) occur 



1 Nat. Hist., pars. i. lib. xxii. cap. 7. 2 Ibid., xxii. cap. 8. 



* Ibid., xix. cap. 8. 



