Rush. Before the introduction of carpets, the floors of churches and houses were strewed with rushes, a custom to which Shakespeare makes several allusions. In “Taming of the Shrew” (iv. 1), Grumio asks: “Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?” and Glendower, in “1 Henry IV.” (iii. 1), says:
“She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down,
And rest your gentle head upon her lap.”
At the coronation of Henry V. (“2 Henry IV.,” v. 5), when the procession is coming, the grooms cry, “More rushes! more rushes!” which seems to have been the usual cry for rushes to be scattered on a pavement or a platform when a procession was approaching.[552] Again, in “Richard II.” (i. 3), the custom is further alluded to by John of Gaunt, who speaks of “the presence strew’d,” referring to the presence-chamber. So, too, in “Cymbeline” (ii. 2), Iachimo soliloquizes:
“Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken’d
The chastity he wounded.”
And in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 4), Romeo says:
“Let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;”
an expression which Middleton has borrowed in his “Blunt Master Constable,” 1602:
“Bid him, whose heart no sorrow feels,
Tickle the rushes with his wanton heels,
I have too much lead at mine.”
In the “Two Noble Kinsmen” (ii. 1) the Gaoler’s Daughter is represented carrying “strewings” for the two prisoners’ chamber.
Rush-bearings were a sort of rural festival, when the parishioners brought rushes to strew the church.[553]