[253:1] The York and Lancaster Roses were a frequent subject for the epigram writers; and gave occasion for one of the happiest of English epigrams. On presenting a White Rose to a Lancastrian lady—
"If this fair Rose offend thy sight,
It in thy bosom wear;
'Twill blush to find itself less white,
And turn Lancastrian there."
[255:1] "A Rose beside his beauty is a cure."—G. Herbert, Providence.
ROSEMARY.
| (1) | Perdita. | Reverend Sirs, For you there's Rosemary and Rue; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long; Grace and remembrance be to you both.[256:1] |
| Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 4 (73). | ||
| (2) | Bawd. | Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with Rosemary and bays. |
| Pericles, act iv, sc. 6 (159). | ||
| (3) | Edgar. | Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms Pins, wooden pricks, and sprigs of Rosemary. |
| Lear, act ii, sc. 3 (14). | ||
| (4) | Ophelia. | There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember. |
| Hamlet, act iv, sc. 5 (175). | ||
| (5) | Nurse. | Doth not Rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter? |
| Romeo. | Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R. | |
| Nurse. | Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for the ——.No; I know it begins with some otherletter:—and she hath the prettiest sententiousof it, of you and Rosemary, that it would do yougood to hear it. | |
| Romeo and Juliet, act ii, sc. 4 (219). | ||
| (6) | Friar. | Dry up your tears, and stick your Rosemary On this fair corse. |
| Ibid., act iv, sc. 5 (79). | ||
The Rosemary is not a native of Britain, but of the sea-coast of the South of Europe, where it is very abundant. It was very early introduced into England, and is mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon Herbarium under its Latin name of Ros marinus, and is there translated by Bothen, i.e. Thyme; also in an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the eleventh century, where it is translated Feld-madder and Sun-dew. In these places our present plant may or may not be meant, but there is no doubt that it is the one referred to in an ancient English poem of the fourteenth century, on the virtues of herbs, published in Wright and Halliwell's "Reliquiæ Antiquæ." The account of "The Gloriouse Rosemaryne" is long, but the beginning and ending are worth quoting—
"This herbe is callit Rosemaryn
Of vertu that is gode and fyne;
But alle the vertues tell I ne cane,
No I trawe no erthely man.