6 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
HSoes. 
And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears, 
The Aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears. 
A Lover's Complaint , st. 39. 
Aloes have the peculiarity that they are the emblems of the 
most intense bitterness and of the richest and most costly 
fragrance. In the Bible Aloes are mentioned five times, and 
always with reference to their excellence and costliness. 1 
Juvenal speaks of it only as a bitter—• 
“ Animo corrupta superbo 
Plus Aloes quam mellis habet” (vi. 180). 
Pliny describes it very minutely, and says, “ Strong it is to 
smell unto, and bitter to taste ” (xxvii. 4, Holland’s translation). 
Our old English writers spoke of it under both aspects. It 
occurs in several recipes of the Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, as a 
strong and bitter purgative. Chaucer notices its bitterness 
only— 
“The woful teres that they leten falle 
As bittre weren, out of teres kynde, 
For peyne, as is ligne Aloes orgalle.” 
Troilus and Cryseide , st. 159. 
But the author of the Remedie of Love , formerly attributed 
to Chaucer, says— 
“My chambre is strowed with myrrhe and incense, 
With sote savouring Aloes and sinnamone, 
Breathing an aromaticke redolence. 55 
Shakespeare only mentions the bitter quality. 
The two qualities are derived from two very different plants. 
The fragrant ointment is the product of an Indian shrub, 
Aquilaria agallochum; and the bitter purgative is from the 
true Aloes, A. Soeo/rma, A. vulgaris , and others. These 
1 Numbers xxiv. 6 ; Psalms xlv, 8; Proverbs vii, 17,' Canticles iv, 14; 
John xix. 39. 
