As a mention of a vegetable product, I could not omit this passage, but the reference is only to the imported spice and not to the tree from which then, as now, the Clove was gathered. The Clove of commerce is the unexpanded flower of the Caryophyllus aromaticus, and the history of its discovery and cultivation by the Dutch in Amboyna, with the vain attempts they made to keep the monopoly of the profitable spice, is perhaps the saddest chapter in all the history of commerce. See a full account with description and plate of the plant in "Bot. Mag.," vol. 54, No. 2749.
FOOTNOTES:
[56:1] "But then 'tis as full of drollery as ever it can hold; 'tis like an orange stuck with Cloves as for conceipt."—The Rehearsal, 1671, act iii, sc. 1.
COCKLE.
| (1) | Biron. | Allons! allons! sowed Cockle reap'd no Corn. |
| Love's Labour's Lost, act iv, sc. 3 (383). | ||
| (2) | Coriolanus. | We nourish 'gainst our senate The Cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition, Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd, and scatter'd, By mingling them with us. |
| Coriolanus, act iii, sc. 1 (69). | ||
In Shakespeare's time the word "Cockle" was becoming restricted to the Corn-cockle (Lychnis githago), but both in his time, and certainly in that of the writers before him, it was used generally for any noxious weed that grew in corn-fields, and was usually connected with the Darnel and Tares.[57:1] So Gower—
"To sowe Cockel with the Corn
So that the tilthe is nigh forlorn,
Which Crist sew first his owne hond—
Now stant the Cockel in the lond
Where stood whilom the gode greine,
For the prelats now, as men sain,
For slouthen that they shoulden tille."
Confessio Amantis, lib. quintus (2-190, Paulli).