Part 82 (2/2)

[237:1] ”Catholicon Anglic.u.m.”

RAISINS.

_Clown._

Four pounds of Prunes and as many of Raisins o' the sun.

_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 3 (51).

Raisins are alluded to, if not actually named, in ”1st Henry IV.,” act ii, sc. 4, when Falstaff says: ”If reasons were as plentiful as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I----” ”It seems that a pun underlies this, the a.s.sociation of reasons with Blackberries springing out of the fact that _reasons_ sounded like _raisins_.”--EARLE, _Philology_, &c.

Bearing in mind that Raisin is a corruption of _racemus_, a bunch of Grapes, we can understand that the word was not always applied, as it is now, to the dried fruit, but was sometimes applied to the bunch of Grapes as it hung ripe on the tree--

”For no man at the firste stroke He may not felle down an Oke; Nor of the Reisins have the wyne Till Grapes be ripe and welle afyne.”

_Romaunt of the Rose._

The best dried fruit were Raisins of the sun, _i.e._, dried in the sun, to distinguish them from those which were dried in ovens. They were, of course, foreign fruit, and were largely imported. The process of drying in the sun is still the method in use, at least, with ”the finer kinds, such as Muscatels, which are distinguished as much by the mode of drying as by the variety and soil in which they are grown, the finest being dried on the Vines before gathering, the stalk being partly cut through when the fruits are ripe, and the leaves being removed from near the cl.u.s.ters, so as to allow the full effect of the sun in ripening.”

The Grape thus becomes a Raisin, but it is still further transformed when it reaches the cook; it then becomes a Plum, for Plum pudding has, as we all know, Raisins for its chief ingredient and certainly no Plums; and the Christmas pie into which Jack Horner put in his thumb and pulled out a Plum must have been a mince-pie, also made of Raisins; but how a cooked Raisin came to be called a Plum is not recorded. In Devons.h.i.+re and Dorsets.h.i.+re it undergoes a further transformation, for there Raisins are called Figs, and a Plum pudding is called a Fig pudding.

REEDS.

(1) _2nd Servant._

I had as lief have a Reed that will do me no service, as a partizan I could not heave.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii, sc. 7 (13).

(2) _Arviragus._

Fear no more the frown o' the great, Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the Reed is as the Oak; The sceptre, learning, physick, must All follow this, and come to dust.

_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (264).

(3) _Ariel._

His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops From eaves of Reeds.

_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (16).

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