“The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow:
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow:
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur’d her moans,
Sing willow, willow, willow:
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften’d the stones,
Sing willow, willow, willow:
Sing all a green willow must be my garland.”
And further on Emilia says (v. 2):
“I will play the swan,
And die in music.—[Singing] ‘Willow, willow, willow.’”
And, again, Lorenzo, in “Merchant of Venice” (v. 1), narrates:
“In such a night
Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand,
Upon the wild sea-banks.”
It was, too, in reference to this custom that Shakespeare, in “Hamlet” (iv. 7), represented poor Ophelia hanging her flowers on the “willow aslant a brook.” “This tree,” says Douce,[561] “might have been chosen as the symbol of sadness from the cxxxvii. Psalm (verse 2): ‘We hanged our harps upon the willows;’ or else from a coincidence between the weeping-willow and falling tears.” Another reason has been assigned. The Agnus castus was supposed to promote chastity, and “the willow being of a much like nature,” says Swan, in his “Speculum Mundi” (1635), “it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a willow garland.” Bona, the sister of the King of France, on receiving news of Edward the Fourth’s marriage with Elizabeth Grey, exclaimed,
“in hope he’ll prove a widower shortly,
I’ll wear the willow garland for his sake.”
Wormwood. The use of this plant in weaning infants is alluded to in “Romeo and Juliet” (i. 3), by Juliet’s nurse, in the following passage:
“For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
*****
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool.”
Yew. This tree, styled by Shakespeare “the dismal yew” (“Titus Andronicus,” ii. 3), apart from the many superstitions associated with it, has been very frequently planted in churchyards, besides being used at funerals. Paris, in “Romeo and Juliet” (v. 3), says: