68 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
Currants* 
(1) What am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of 
Sugar, five pound of Currants. — Winter’s Tale, iv. 3, 39. 
(2) I stamp this kisse upon thy Currant lippe. 
Two Noble Kinsmen, i. 1, 241. 
The Currants of (1) are the Currants of commerce, the fruit 
of the Vitis Corinthiaca , whence the fruit has derived its name 
of Corans, or Currants. 
The English Currants are of an entirely different family, and 
are closely allied to the Gooseberry. The Currants—black, 
white, and red—are natives of the northern parts of Europe, 
and are probably wild in Britain. They do not seem to have 
been much grown as garden fruit till the early part of the 
sixteenth century, and are not mentioned by the earlier writers ; 
but that they were known in Shakespeare’s time we have the 
authority of Gerard, who, speaking of Gooseberries, says : “ We 
have also in our London gardens another sort altogether with¬ 
out prickes, whose fruit is very small, lesser by muche than 
the common kinde, but of a perfect red colour.” This “ perfect 
red colour” explains the “currant lip” of No. 2. 
Crane, see Senna. 
Cypress. 
(1) Their sweetest shade, a grove of Cypress trees ! 
2 nd Henry VI, iii. 2, 322. 
(2) I am attended at the Cypress grove. 
Coriolanus, i. 10, 30. 
(3) In ivory coffers I have stuff’d my crowns, 
In Cypress chests my arras counterpoints. 
Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1, 351. 
