PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
209 
And in another place he speaks of the “ Paunces trim ”— 
F. Q ., iii. 1. Milton places it in Eve’s couch—• 
“ Flowers were the couch, 
Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel, 
And Hyacinth, earth’s freshest, softest lap.” 
He names it also as part of the wreath of Sabrina— 
“ Pansies, Pinks, and gaudy Daffodils ; ” 
and as one of the flowers to strew the hearse of Lycidas— 
“ The White Pink and the Pansie streaked with jet, 
The glowing Violet.” 
Hbarsleg. 
I knew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to the garden for 
Parsley to stuff a rabbit. — Taming of the Shrew, iv. 4, 99. 
Parsley is the abbreviated form of Afiium fietroselmum , and 
is a common name to many umbelliferous plants, but the 
garden parsley is the one meant here. This well-known little 
plant has the curious botanic history that no one can tell what 
is its native country. In 1548 Turner said, “ Perseley groweth 
nowhere that I knowe, but only in gardens.” 1 It is found 
apparently wild in many countries, but is considered an escape 
from cultivation. Probably the plant has been so altered by 
cultivation as to have lost all likeness to its original self. 
Our forefathers seem to have eaten the parsley root as well as 
the leaves— 
“ Quinces and Peris ciryppe with Parcely rotes 
Right so bygyn your mele.”— Russell’s Boke of Nurture. 
“ Peres and Quynces in syrupe with Percely rotes.” 
Wynkyn de Worde’s Boke of Kervynge. 
P 
1 “Names of Herbes,” s.v, Apiurn. 
