PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
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And curd, like eager droppings into milk, 
The thin and wholesome blood; so did'it mine ; 
And a most instant tetter bark’d about, 
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, 
All my smooth body.— Hamlet , i. 5, 61. 
Before and in the time of Shakespeare other writers had 
spoken of the narcotic and poisonous effects of Heben, 
Plebenon, or Hebona. Gow r er says—■ 
“ Ful of delite, 
Slepe hath his hous, and of his couche, 
Within his chambre if I shall touche, 
Of Hebenus that slepy tre 
The bordes all aboute be.” 
Conf. Aman ., lib. quart, (ii. 103, Paulli). 
Spenser says—■ 
“ Faire Venus sonne, . . . 
Lay now thy deadly Heben bow apart.” 
F. Q., introd., st. 3. 
“ There (in Mammon’s garden) Cypresse grew in greatest store, 
And trees of bitter gall and Heben sad.” 
F. Q., book ii, c. viij, st. 17. 
And he speaks of a “ speare of Heben wood,” and “ a Heben 
launce.” Marlow r e, a contemporary and friend of Shakespeare, 
makes Barabas curse his daughter with— 
“ In few the blood of Hydra, Lerna’s bane, 
The juice of Hebon, and Cocytus breath, 
And all the poison of the Stygian pool.” 
Jew of Malta, iii. 4. 
It may be taken for granted that all these authors allude to 
the same tree, but what tree is meant has sorely puzzled the 
commentators. Some naturally suggested the Ebony, and this 
view is supported by the respectable names of Archdeacon 
Nares, Douce, Schmidt, and Dyce. A larger number pro¬ 
nounced with little hesitation in favour of Henbane {Hyos- 
cyamus niger ), the poisonous qualities of which were familiar to 
the contemporaries of Shakespeare, and were supposed by 
most of the botanical writers of his day (and on the authority 
of Pliny) to be communicated by being poured into the ears. 
But the Henbane is not a tree, as Gower’s “ Hebenus ” and 
