230 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
(9) Longing (saving your honour’s presence) for stewed Primes. 
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And longing, as I said, for Prunes. 
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You being then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones of the 
foresaid Prunes.— Measure for Measure, ii. 1, 92. 
(10) Four pounds of Prunes, and as many of Raisins of the sun.— Winter's 
Tale , iv. 3, 51. 
(11) Hang him, rogue; he lives upon mouldy stewed Prunes and dried 
cakes.— 2 nd Henry IV, ii. 4, 158. 
Plums, Damsons, and Prunes may conveniently be joined 
together, Plums and Damsons being often used synonymously 
(as in No. 3), and Prunes being the dried Plums. The 
Damsons were originally, no doubt, a good variety from the 
East, and nominally from Damascus. 1 They seem to have 
been considered great delicacies, as in a curious allegorical 
drama of the fifteenth century, called “ La Nef de.Sante,” of 
which an account is given by Mr. Wright: “ Bonne-Compagnie, 
to begin the day, orders a collation, at which; among other 
things, are served Damsons ( Prunes de Mamas), which appear 
at this time to have been considered as delicacies. There is 
here a marginal direction to the purport that if the morality 
should be performed in the season when real Damsons could 
not be had, the performers must have some made of wax to 
look like real ones ” (“ History of Domestic Manners,” &c.). 
The garden Plums are a good cultivated variety of our own 
wild Sloe, but a variety that did not originate in England, and 
may very probably have been introduced by the Romans. 
The Sloe and Bullace are, speaking botanically, two sub-species 
of Primus communis, while the Plum is a third sub-species 
(p- communis domestica). The garden Plum is occasionally 
found wild in England, but is certainly not indigenous. It is 
somewhat strange that our wild plant is not mentioned by 
Shakespeare under any of it's well-known names of Sloe, 
1 Bullein, in his “Government of Health,” 1588, calls them “Damaske 
Primes.” 
