SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
157 
“ The wine wherein the roote of mandrage hath 
been stieped or boyled, swageth all paine ; where¬ 
fore men to geve it, very wel, to such as they 
intende to cut, sawe, or burne in any part of their 
bodies, because they shall feel no payne.” 
From the roots images were made called “pup- 
pettes and mammettes/’ and these fetched high 
prices among the superstitious. Shakespeare in¬ 
directly refers to these in 2 Henry VI., I. ii. 16, and 
III. ii. 338. Its use as an opiate is also not for¬ 
gotten. Thus we get: 
Cleo. Give me to drink mandragora. 
Char. Why, madam ? 
Cleo . That I might sleep out this great gap of time. 
Antony and Cleopatra, I. v. 4. 
And, again, in Othello, III. iii. 330: 
Not poppy nor mandragora, 
Not all the drowsy syrups of the world, 
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 
Which thou owedst yesterday. 
As an uncomplimentary epithet we have it in 
2 Henry IV., I. ii. 16, when Falstaff calls his page — 
Thou whoreson mandrake. 
And, again, III. ii. 338 , when Justice Shallow is 
described in terms hardly fit for repetition: 
For all the world like a forked radish with a head fantas¬ 
tically carved upon it with a knife. 
This mention of radish reminds us of that very 
pleasant early vegetable of the same name (Raphanns 
sativns, L.). Beyond the quotation just given, the 
plant is but once referred to, namely—in 1 Henry IV ., 
II. iv. 205, where we find: 
If I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish. 
It was used by the Romans much as we use melons 
