254 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
IReefcs* 
(1) I had as.lief have a Reed that will do me no service, as a partizan 
I could not heave .—Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 7, 13. 
(2) Fear no more the frown o’ the great. 
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke ; 
Care no more to clothe and eat; 
To thee the Reed is as the Oak ; 
The sceptre, learning, physick, must 
All follow this, and come to dust. 
Cymbeline , iv. 2, 264. 
(3) His tears run down his beard, like winter’s drops 
From eaves of Reeds.— Tempest , v. 1, 16. 
( 4 ) 
( 5 ) 
( 6 ) 
( 7 ) 
( 8 ) 
With hair up-staring—then like Reeds, not hair. 
Ibid., i. 2, 213. 
Swift Severn’s flood; 
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, 
Ran fearfully among the trembling Reeds. 
1 st Henry IV, i. 3, 103. 
And speak between the change of man and boy 
With a Reed voice .—Merchant of Venice , iii. 4, 66. 
In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace 
From the far shore thick set with Reeds and Sedges. 
0 0 4 ^ • • • 
The Rushes and the Reeds 
Had so encompast it .—Two Noble Kinsmen , iv. i, 71, 80. 
To Simois’ Reedy banks the red blood ran.— Lucrece, 1437. 
Reed is a general term for almost any water-loving, grassy 
plant, and so it is used by Shakespeare. In the Bible it is 
perhaps possible to identify some of the Reeds mentioned, 
with the Sugar Cane in some places, with the Papyrus in 
others, and in others with the Arundo donax . As a Biblical 
plant it has a special interest, not only as giving the emblem 
of the tenderest mercy that will be careful even of “ the 
bruised Reed,” but also as entering largely into the mockery 
