148 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
lettuce. 
If we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce. {See Hyssop.) 
Othello, i. 3, 324. 
This excellent vegetable with its Latin name probably came 
to us from the Romans. 
‘ ‘ Letuce of lac derivyed is perchaunce ; 
For milk it hath or yeveth abundaunce.” 
Palladius on Hushandrie , ii. 216 (15th cent.), E. E. Text Soc. 
It was cultivated by the Anglo-Saxons, who showed their 
knowledge of its narcotic qualities by giving it the name of 
Sleepwort; it is mentioned by Spenser as “ cold Lettuce ” 
(“Muiopotmos”). And in Shakespeare’s time the sorts culti¬ 
vated were very similar to, and probably as good as, ours. 
2Ul£. 
(1) Thy banks with Pioned and Lilied 1 brims— Tempest, iv. 1, 64. 
(2) Look you, she is as white as a Lily and as small as a wand. 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 3, 22. 
(3) The air hath starved the Roses in her cheeks, 
And pinch’d the Lily-tincture of her face.— Ibid., iv. 4, 160. 
(4) Most radiant Pyramus, most Lily-white of hue. 
Midsummer Night's Dream , iii. 1, 94. 
( 5 ) These Lily lips— Ibid. , v. 1, 337. 
(6) Lilies of all kinds, 
The Flower-de-luce being one!— Winter's Tale, iv. 4, 126. 
1 This is a modern reading, the older and more correct reading is “ twilled.” 
But Milton uses the same epithet— 
“ Nymphs and shepherds dance no more 
By sandy Ladon’s Lillied banks.”— Arcades, 96. 
