[164:1] There may be special appropriateness in the selection of the "furr'd Moss" to "winter-ground thy corse." "The final duty of Mosses is to die; the main work of other leaves is in their life, but these have to form the earth, out of which other leaves are to grow."—Ruskin, Proserpina, p. 20.
MULBERRIES.
| (1) | Titania. | Feed him with Apricocks and Dewberries, With purple Grapes, green Figs, and Mulberries. |
| Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii, sc. 1 (169). | ||
| (2) | Volumnia. | Thy stout heart, Now humble as the ripest Mulberry That will not bear the handling. |
| Coriolanus, act iii, sc. 2 (78). | ||
| (3) | Prologue. | Thisby tarrying in Mulberry shade. |
| Midsummer Night's Dream, act v, sc. 1 (149). | ||
| (4) | Wooer. | Palamon is gone Is gone to the wood to gather Mulberries. |
| Two Noble Kinsmen, act iv, sc. 1 (87). | ||
| (5) | The birds would bring him Mulberries and ripe-red Cherries. | |
| Venus and Adonis (1103). (See [Cherries].) | ||
We do not know when the Mulberry, which is an Eastern tree, was introduced into England, but probably very early. We find in Archbishop Ælfric's "Vocabulary," "morus vel rubus, mor-beam," but it is doubtful whether that applies to the Mulberry or Blackberry, as in the same catalogue Blackberries are mentioned as "flavi vel mori, blace-berian." There is no doubt that Morum was a Blackberry as well as a Mulberry in classical times. Our Mulberry is probably the fruit mentioned by Horace—
"Ille salubres
Æstates peraget, qui nigris prandia Moris
Finiet ante gravem quæ legerit arbore solem."
Sat. ii, 4, 24.
And it certainly is the fruit mentioned by Ovid—
"In duris hærentia mora rubetis."
Metam., i, 105.