Part 44 (1/2)

HONEYSUCKLE.

(1) _Hero._

And bid her steal into the pleached bower Where Honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, act iii, sc. 1 (7).

(2) _Ursula._

So angle we for Beatrice; who even now Is couched in the Woodbine coverture.

_Ibid._ (29).

(3) _t.i.tania._

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

So doth the Woodbine the sweet Honeysuckle Gently entwist; the Female Ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (47).

(4) _Hostess._

O thou Honeysuckle villain.

_2nd Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 1 (52).

(5) _Oberon._

I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows, Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious Woodbine.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (249).

I have joined together here the Woodbine and the Honeysuckle, because there can be little doubt that in Shakespeare's time the two names belonged to the same plant,[126:1] and that the Woodbine was (where the two names were at all discriminated, as in No. 3), applied to the plant generally, and Honeysuckle to the flower. This seems very clear by comparing together Nos. 1 and 2. In earlier writings the name was applied very loosely to almost any creeping or climbing plant. In an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the eleventh century it is applied to the Wild Clematis (”Viticella--Weoden-binde”); while in Archbishop aelfric's ”Vocabulary” of the tenth century it is applied to the Hedera nigra, which may be either the Common or the Ground Ivy (”Hedera nigra--Wude-binde”); and in the Herbarium and Leechdom books of the twelfth century it is applied to the Capparis or Caper-plant, by which, however (as Mr. c.o.c.kayne considers), the Convolvulus Sepium is meant.

After Shakespeare's time again the words began to be used confusedly.

Milton does not seem to have been very clear in the matter. In ”Paradise Lost” he makes our first parents ”wind the Woodbine round this arbour”

(perhaps he had Shakespeare's arbour in his mind); and in ”Comus” he tells us of--

”A bank With ivy-canopied, and interwove With flaunting Honeysuckle.”[126:2]

While in ”Lycidas” he tells of--

”The Musk Rose and the well-attired Woodbine.”