272 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
(6) Dry up your tears, and stick your Rosemary 
On this fair corse .—Romeo and Juliet, iv. 5, 79. 
The Rosemary is not a native of Britain, but of the sea- 
coast of the South of Europe, where it is very abundant. It 
was very early introduced into England, and is mentioned in an 
Anglo-Saxon Herbarium under its Latin name of Ros marinus , 
and is there translated by Bothen, i. e. Thyme ; also in an 
Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the eleventh century, where it is 
translated Feld-madder and Sun-dew. In these places our 
present plant may or may not be meant, but there is no doubt 
that it is the one referred to in an ancient English poem of the 
fourteenth century, on the virtues of herbs, published in Wright 
and Halliwell’s “ Reliquiae Antiquae.” The account of “ The 
Gloriouse Rosemaryne ” is long, but the beginning and ending 
is worth quoting— 
“ This herbe is call it Rosemaryn 
Of vertu that is gode and fyne ; 
But alle the vertues tell I ne cane, 
No I trawe no erthely man. 
Of thys herbe telles Galiene 
That in hys contree was a quene, 
Gowtus and Crokyt as he hath tolde, 
And eke sexty yere olde ; 
S01* and febyl, where men hyr sey 
Scho semyth wel for to dey ; 
Of Rosmaryn scho toke sex powde, 
And grownde hyt wel in a stownde, 
And bathed hir threyes everi day, 
Nine mowthes, as I herde say, 
And afterwarde anoynitte wel hyr hede 
With good barne as I rede ; 
Away fel alle that olde flessche, 
And yowge i-sprong tender and nessche; 
So fresshe to be scho then began 
Scho coveytede couplede be to man. ” (Vol. i. 196.) 
We can now scarcely understand the high favour in which 
Rosemary was formerly held; we are accustomed to see it 
neglected, oronlyBolerated in some corner of the kitchen-garden, 
