PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
51 
Chestnuts* 
(1) A sailor’s wife had Chestnuts in her lap, 
And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d. 
Macbeth, i. 3, 4. 
(2) And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue 
That gives not half so great a blow to hear 
As will a Chestnut in a farmer’s fire ? 
Taming of the Shrew, i. 2, 2oS t 
(3) Rosalind. I’ faith, his hair is of a good colour. 
Celia. An excellent colour; your Chestnut was ever the only colour. 
As You Like It , iii. 4, 11. 
This is the Spanish or Sweet Chestnut, a fruit which seems 
to have been held in high esteem in Shakespeare’s time, 
for Lyte, in 1578, says of it, “Amongst all kindes of wilde 
fruites the Chestnut is best and meetest for to be eaten.” The 
tree cannot be regarded as a 
true native, but it has been so 
long introduced, probably by 
the Romans, that grand speci¬ 
mens are to be found in all 
parts of England; the oldest 
known specimen being at Tort- 
worth, in Gloucestershire, which 
was spoken of as an old tree 
in the time of King Stephen; 
while the tree that is said to 
be the oldest and the largest 
in Europe is the Spanish Chest¬ 
nut tree on Mount Etna, the 
famous Castagni du Centu 
Cavalli, which measures near 
the root 160 feet in circumference. It is one of our hand¬ 
somest trees, and very useful for timber, and at one time it 
was supposed that many of our oldest buildings were roofed 
with Chestnut. This was the current report of the grand roof 
