PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
127 
put to death, though this is not quite certain. It is not, how¬ 
ever, altogether a useless plant—“ It is a valuable medicinal 
plant, and in autumn the ripened stem is cut into pieces to make 
reeds for worsted thread.”— Johnston. 
fjemp. 
(1) Let gallows gape for dog ; let man go free, 
And let not Hemp his windpipe suffocate.— Henry V, iii. 6, 45. 
(2) And in them behold 
Upon the Hempen tackle ship-boys climbing.— Ibid, iii. 7. 
(3) What Hempen homespuns have we swaggering here? 
Midsummer Nights Dream, iii. 1, 79. 
(4) Ye shall have a Hempen candle then, and the pap of a hatchet. 
2 nd Henry VI, iv. 7, 95. 
(5) Thou Hemp-seed.— 2 nd Henry IV, ii. 1, 64. 
In all these passages, except the last, the reference is to rope 
made from Hemp, and not to the Hemp plant, and it is 
very probable that Shakespeare never saw the plant. It was 
introduced into England long before his time, and largely 
cultivated, but only in few parts of England, and chiefly in the 
eastern counties. I do not find that it was cultivated in gardens 
in his time, but it is a plant well deserving a place in any 
garden,’and is especially suitable, from its height and regular 
growth, for the central plant of a flower-bed. It is supposed 
to be a native of India, and seems capable of cultivation in 
almost any climate. 1 
The name has a curious history. “The Greek KavrafiiQ, and 
Latin cannabis , are both identical with the Sanscrit kanam , as 
well as with the German hanf, and the English hemp . More 
directly from cannabis comes canvas, made up of hemp or flax, 
and canvass, to discuss— i. e. sift a question ; metaphorically 
from the use of hempen sieves or sifters.”— Birdwocd’s Hand¬ 
book to the Indian Court , p. 23. 
1 In Shakespeare’s time the vulgar name for Hemp was Neckweed; and 
there is a curious account of it under that name by William Bullein, in 
“ The Booke of Compounds,” f. 68. 
