288 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
the Saffron are the sweet-scented stigmata, the “ Crocei odores ” 
of Virgil; but the use of Saffron has now so gone out of 
fashion, that it may be well to say something of its uses in the 
time of Shakespeare, as a medicine, a dye, and a confection. 
On all three points its virtues were so many that there is a 
complete literature on Crocus. I need not name all the books 
on the subject, but the title-page of one (a duodecimo of 
nearly three hundred pages) may be quoted as an example : 
“Crocologia seu curiosa Croci Regis Vegetabilium enucleatio 
continens Illius etymologiam, differencias, tempus quo viret 
et floret, culturam, collectionem, usum mechanicum, Pharma- 
ceuticum, Chemico-medicum, omnibus pene humani corporis 
partibus destinatum additis diversis observationibus et questi- 
onibus Crocum concernentibus ad normam et formam S. R. I. 
Academic Naturse curiosorum congesta a Dan: Ferdinando 
Hertodt, Phys. et Med. Doc., &c., &c. Jenae. 1671.” After 
this we may content ourselves with Gerard’s summary of its 
virtues: “ The moderate use of it is good for the head, and 
maketh sences more quicke and lively, shaketh off heavy and 
drowsie sleep and maketh a man mery.” For its use in con¬ 
fections this will suffice from the “Apparatus Plantarum” of 
Laurembergius, 1632: “In re familiari vix ullus est telluris 
habitatus angulus ubi non sit Croci quotodiana usurpatio, 
aspersi vel incocti cibis.” And as to its uses as a dye, its 
penetrating powers were proverbial, of which Luther’s Sermons 
will supply an instance: “As the Saffron bag that hath bene 
ful of Saffron, or hath had Saffron in it, doth ever after savour 
and smel of the swete Saffron that it contayneth; so our 
blessed Ladye which conceived and bare Christe in her wombe, 
dyd ever after resemble the maners and vertues of that precious 
babe which she bare” (“Fourth Sermon,” 1548). One of the 
uses to which Saffron was applied in the Middle Ages was for 
the manufacture of the beautiful gold colour used in the 
illumination of missals, &c., where the actual gold was not 
used. This is the recipe from the work of Theophilus in the 
eleventh century : “ If ye wish to decorate your work in some 
manner take tin pure and finely scraped; melt it and wash it 
