SEDGE.
| (1) | 2nd Servant. | And Cytherea all in Sedges hid, Which seem to move and wanton with her breath, Even as the waving Sedges play with wind. |
| Taming of the Shrew, Induction, sc. 2. (53). | ||
| (2) | Iris. | You nymphs, called Naiads, of the winding brooks, With your Sedged crowns and ever-harmless looks. |
| Tempest, act iv, sc. 1 (128). | ||
| (3) | Julia. | The current that with gentle murmur glides, Thou knowest, being stopped, impatiently doth rage; But when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every Sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage; And so by many winding nooks he strays With willing sport to the wild ocean. |
| Two Gentlemen of Verona, act ii, sc. 7 (25). | ||
| (4) | Benedick. | Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into Sedges. |
| Much Ado About Nothing, act ii, sc. 1 (209). | ||
| (5) | Hotspur. | The gentle Severn's Sedgy bank. |
| 1st Henry IV, act i, sc. 3 (98). | ||
| (6) | See Reeds, No. [7]. | |
Sedge is from the Anglo-Saxon Secg, and meant almost any waterside plant. Thus we read of the Moor Secg, and the Red Secg, and the Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum) is called the Holly Sedge. And so it was doubtless used by Shakespeare. In our day Sedge is confined to the genus Carex, a family growing in almost all parts of the world, and containing about 1000 species, of which we have fifty-eight in Great Britain; they are most graceful ornaments both of our brooks and ditches; and some of them will make handsome garden plants. One very handsome species—perhaps the handsomest—is C. pendula, with long tassel-like flower-spikes hanging down in a very beautiful form, which is not uncommon as a wild plant, and can easily be grown in the garden, and the flower-spikes will be found very handsome additions to tall nosegays. There is another North American species, C. Fraseri, which is a good plant for the north side of a rock-work: it is a small plant, but the flower is a spike of the purest white, and is very curious, and unlike any other flower.
SENNA.
| Macbeth. | What Rhubarb, Senna, or what purgative drug Would scour these English hence?[277:1] | |
| Macbeth, act v, sc. 3 (55). | ||
Even in the time of Shakespeare several attempts were made to grow the Senna in England, but without success; so that he probably only knew it as an important "purgative drug." The Senna of commerce is made from the leaves of Cassia lanceolata and Cassia Senna, both natives of Africa, and so unfitted for open-air cultivation in England. The Cassias are a large family, mostly with handsome yellow flowers, some of which are very ornamental greenhouse plants; and one from North America, Cassia Marylandica, may be considered hardy in the South of England.
FOOTNOTES:
[277:1] In this passage the old reading for "Senna" is "Cyme," and this is the reading of the Globe Shakespeare; but I quote the passage with "Senna" because it is so printed in many editions.