PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
iboitesaucftle. 
(1) And bid her steal into the pleached bower 
Where Honeysuckles, ripen’d by the sun, 
Forbid the sun to enter.— Much Ado About Nothing, iii. i, 7. 
(2) So angle we for Beatrice ; who even now 
Is couched in the Woodbine coverture.— Ibid., 29. 
(3) Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. 
So doth the Woodbine the sweet Honeysuckle 
Gently entwist; the Female Ivy so 
Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm. 
Midsummer Night's Dream, iv. 1, 47. 
(4) O thou Honeysuckle villain.— 2 nd Henry IV, ii. 1, 52. 
(5) I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows, 
Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows, 
Quite over-canopied with luscious Woodbine. 
Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1, 249. 
I have joined together here the Woodbine and the Honey¬ 
suckle, because there can be little 
doubt that in Shakespeare’s 
time the two names belonged to 
the same plant, 1 and that the 
Woodbine was (where the two 
names were at all discriminated, 
as in No. 3), applied to the plant 
generally, and Honeysuckle to 
the flower. This seems very 
clear by comparing together Nos. 
1 and 2. In earlier writings the 
name was applied very loosely 
to almost any creeping or climb¬ 
ing plant. In an Anglo-Saxon 
Vocabulary of the eleventh cent¬ 
ury it is applied to the Wild 
Clematis (“ Viticella—VVeoden-binde ”); while in Archbishop 
1 “ Woodbines of sweet honey full.” 
Beaumont and Fletcher, Tragedy of Valentinian. 
