SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 67 
bean, it has continued a favourite ever since. It is 
said to occur in a wild state in Southern Europe. 
Shakespeare refers not only to the plant itself, but 
to various names for its legumes. Thus, the young 
pods are called squashes, from the French esquacher, 
as in Twelfth Night , I. v. 165 : 
Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a 
boy, as a squash is before ’tis a peascod. 
And again in Midsummer-Night’s Dream : 
Commend me to squash your mother. 
Peascod was applied only when the legume 
approached maturity, and in one place, 2 Henry IV., 
II. iv. 412, it is given as a synonym for summer : 
I have known thee these twenty-five years come peascod 
time. 
In As You Like It, II. iv. 51, we read : 
I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her: 
from whom I took two cods, and giving her them again, said 
with weeping tears, “ Wear these for my sake.” 
The reference is to a curious old lovers* custom of 
reading good or evil fortune with a pea-pod, which 
gave birth to a Devonshire proverb quoted in 
Brand : 
Winter time for shoeing, peascod time for wooing. 
The divination of a peascod was obtained by 
selecting one growing on the stem, snatching it away 
quickly, and if the good omen of the peas remain¬ 
ing in the husk were preserved, then presenting it 
to the lady of one’s choice (Brand, “ Pop. Ant,” 
ii. 99). 
The carrot, Daucus carota, L., is a native plant, 
5—2 
