[31] Friend.
[32] Parkinson.
Sage (Salvia officinalis).
Sage is for sustenance
That should man’s life sustaine,
For I do stil lie languishing
Continually in paine,
And shall doe still until I die,
Except thou favour show,
My paine and all my grievous smart,
Ful wel you do it know.
Handful of Pleasant Delights.
And then againe he turneth to his playe,
To spoyle the pleasures of the Paradise,
The wholesome saulge and lavender still gray.
Muiopotmos.—Spenser.
Sage is one of those sympathetic plants that feel the fortunes of their owners; and Mr Friend says that a Buckinghamshire farmer told him his recent personal experience. “At one time he was doing badly, and the Sage began to wither, but, as soon as the tide turned, the plant began to thrive again.” Most of the Continental names of the plant are like the botanical one of Salvia, from “Salvo,” to save or heal, and its high reputation in medicine lasted for ages. The Arabians valued it, and the medical school of Salerno summed up its surpassing merits in the line, Cur morietur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto? (How can a man die who grows sage in his garden?) Perhaps this originated the English saying:—
He that would live for aye
Must eat Sage in May.
Parkinson mentions that it is “Much used of many in the month of May fasting,” with butter and parsley, and is “held of most” to conduce to health. “It healeth the pricking of the fishe called in Latine pastinaca marina, whych is like unto a flath, with venomous prickes, about his tayle. It maketh hayre blacke; it is good for woundis.”[33] The “Grete Herball” contains a remedy for Lethargy or Forgetfulness, which consists of making a decoction “of tutsan, of smalage and of sauge,” and bathing the back of the head with it.