grace, which though they scorned in their youth, they might wear in their age, and that it was never too late 
to say miserere 
The gardener in Richard II. says of the Queen : — 
Here did she drop a tear ; here in this place, 
I’ll set a hank of rue, sour herb of grace ; 
Rue even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen 
In the remembrance of a weeping Queen. 
Here the gardener plays upon the name, and might mislead an etymologist who knew no better. He 
might, with more truth, have called rue bitter than sour, and he whimsically enough makes it take the place 
of rosemary, which was the emblem of remembrance, as rue was of grace. Thus Perdita, in the Winter’s Tale : 
“Reverend sirs, 
For you there’s rosemary and rue, these keep 
Seeming and favour all the winter long, 
Grace and remembrance be to you both.” 
They are both evergreens, retaining their appearance and taste during the whole year, and therefore 
are proper emblems of remembrance and grace. Rue seems to have been used formerly in nosegays ; for 
the Clown in All’s Well that End’s Well, having said of the Countess, “she was the sweet marjoram of the 
salad, or rather the herb of grace Lafeu replies, “ they are not salad herbs, you knave ; they are nose 
herbs upon which the clown in character, remarks, “ I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not 
much skill in grass thus punning upon the name of grace, as the gardener (lid upon the other name of rue. 
Rue is used by some as a tea, and also externally in discutient and antiseptic fomentations. Among 
the common people the leaves are sometimes taken with treacle, on an empty stomach, as an anthelmintic. 
A conserve, made by beating the fresh leaves with thrice their weight of fine sugar, is the most commodious 
form for using the herb in substance : The dose of the powdered leaves may be 15 to 20 grs: given twice or 
thrice a day. The officinal preparations are the oil and an extract. The former is procured in 
the quantity of 59 grains of oil from 21 pounds of rue, and has the strong ungrateful odour and 
taste of the plant. When recently drawn, the colour is yellow, but by age it deepens to a brown, and de- 
posits a brownish resinous sediment. It congeals at 40° Fahrenheit." The extract of rue is prepared like 
other simple extracts : it is inodorous, but has a bitter acrid taste. The medicinal properties are different 
from those of the plant, the stimulant and narcotic powers of which depend on the volatile oil it contains, 
which is dissipated during the inspissation of the extract. 
Gerard says, “The herb a little boiled or skalded, and kept in pickle as Sampier, and eaten, quickens 
the sight. The leaves of Rue beaten and drunke with wine are an antidote against poisons, as Pliny saith. 
Dioscorides writeth, that a twelve penny weight of the seed drunke in wine is a counterpoison against deadly 
medicines or the poison of Wolf s-bane, Mushrooms or Toad-stools, the biting of Serpents, the stinging of 
Scorpions, Bees, Hornets, and Wasps ; and is reported, that if a man bee anointed with the juice of Rue, 
these will not hurt him, and that the serpent is driuen away at the smell thereof when it is burned : inso- 
much that when the Weesell is to fight with the serpent, shee armeth her selfe by eating Rue, against the 
might of the serpent.” 
In the Language of Flowers Rue represents Purification. 
