Aspen. According to a mediæval legend, the perpetual motion of this tree dates from its having supplied the wood of the Cross, and that its leaves have trembled ever since at the recollection of their guilt. De Quincey, in his essay on “Modern Superstition,” says that this belief is coextensive with Christendom. The following verses,[474] after telling how other trees were passed by in the choice of wood for the Cross, describe the hewing down of the aspen, and the dragging of it from the forest to Calvary:
“On the morrow stood she, trembling
At the awful weight she bore,
When the sun in midnight blackness
Darkened on Judea’s shore.
“Still, when not a breeze is stirring,
When the mist sleeps on the hill,
And all other trees are moveless,
Stands the aspen, trembling still.”
The Germans, says Mr. Henderson, have a theory of their own, embodied in a little poem, which may be thus translated:
“Once, as our Saviour walked with men below,
His path of mercy through a forest lay;
And mark how all the drooping branches show,
What homage best a silent tree may pay.
“Only the aspen stands erect and free,
Scorning to join that voiceless worship pure;
But see! He casts one look upon the tree,
Struck to the heart she trembles evermore!”
Another legend tells us[475] that the aspen was said to have been the tree on which Judas hanged himself after the betrayal of his Master, and ever since its leaves have trembled with shame. Shakespeare twice alludes to the trembling of the aspen. In “Titus Andronicus” (ii. 4) Marcus exclaims:
“O, had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute;”
and in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4) the hostess says: “Feel, masters, how I shake. Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen leaf.”
Bachelor’s Buttons. This was a name given to several flowers, and perhaps in Shakespeare’s time was more loosely applied to any flower in bud. It is now usually understood to be a double variety of ranunculus; according to others, the Lychnis sylvestris; and in some counties it is applied to the Scabiosa succisa.[476] According to Gerarde, this plant was so called from the similitude of its flowers “to the jagged cloathe buttons, anciently worne in this kingdome.” It was formerly supposed, by country people, to have some magical effect upon the fortunes of lovers. Hence it was customary for young people to carry its flowers in their pockets, judging of their good or bad success in proportion as these retained or lost their freshness. It is to this sort of divination that Shakespeare probably refers in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iii. 2), where he makes the hostess say, “What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry ’t, he will carry ’t; ’tis in his buttons; he will carry ’t.” Mr. Warter, in one of his notes in Southey’s “Commonplace Book” (1851, 4th series, p. 244), says that this practice was common in his time, in Shropshire and Staffordshire. The term “to wear bachelor’s buttons” seems to have grown into a phrase for being unmarried.[477]