“Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew against thy state.”
It has been suggested that the poison intended by the Ghost in “Hamlet” (i. 5), when he speaks of the “juice of cursed hebenon,” is that of the yew, and is the same as Marlowe’s “juice of hebon” (“Jew of Malta,” iii. 4). The yew is called hebon by Spenser and by other writers of Shakespeare’s age; and, in its various forms of eben, eiben, hiben, etc., this tree is so named in no less than five different European languages. From medical authorities, both of ancient and modern times, it would seem that the juice of the yew is a rapidly fatal poison; next, that the symptoms attendant upon yew-poisoning correspond, in a very remarkable manner, with those which follow the bites of poisonous snakes; and, lastly, that no other poison but the yew produces the “lazar-like” ulcerations on the body upon which Shakespeare, in this passage, lays so much stress.[565]
Among the other explanations of this passage is the well-known one which identifies “hebenon” with henbane. Mr. Beisly suggests that nightshade may be meant, while Nares considers that ebony is meant.[566]
From certain ancient statutes it appears that every Englishman, while archery was practised, was obliged to keep in his house either a bow of yew or some other wood.[567]
FOOTNOTES:
[450] Aconitum napellus, Wolf’s-bane or Monk’s-hood.
[451] “Miseros fallunt aconita legentis” (Georgics, bk. ii. l. 152).
[452] See Ellacombe’s “Plant-Lore of Shakespeare,” 1878, pp. 7, 8.
[453] Dr. Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1870, pp. 1, 2.
[454] Phillips, “Flora Historica,” 1829, vol. ii. pp. 122, 128.