P. Not for Cadwallader, and all his goats.
F. There is one goat for you. (strikes him.) Will you be so goot, scald knave, as eat it?
P. Base Trojan, thou shalt die.
F. I desire you to live in the mean time, and eat your victuals; come there is sauce for it.—(strikes him.) If you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.
By beating and taunt, Fluellen forces Pistol to eat the leek, and on its being wholly swallowed, Fluellen exhorts him “when you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you, mock at them, that is all!” Having thus accomplished his purpose, Fluellen leaves Pistol to digestion, and the consolation of Gower, who calls him “counterfeit cowardly knave: will you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable aspect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour, and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words?”
Here we have Gower speaking of the custom of the Welch wearing leeks as “an ancient tradition,” and as “a memorable trophy of predeceased valour.” Thoroughly versed in the history of the few reigns preceding the period wherein he lived, it is not likely that Shakspeare would make a character in the time of Henry V. refer to an occurrence under the black prince, little more than half a century before the battle of Agincourt, as an affair of “ancient tradition.” Its origin may be fairly referred to a very early period.
A contributor to a periodical work[14] rejects the notion, that wearing leeks on St. David’s day originated at the battle between the Welch and the Saxons in the sixth century; and thinks it more probable that leeks were a druidic symbol employed in honour of the British Ceudven or Ceres. In which hypothesis, he thinks, there is nothing strained or far-fetched, presuming that the Druids were a branch of the Phœnician priesthood. Both were addicted to oak worship; and during the funereal rites of Adonis at Byblos, leeks and onions were exhibited in “pots with other vegetables, and called the gardens of that deity.” The leek was worshipped at Ascalon, (whence the modern term of Scallions,) as it was in Egypt. Leeks and onions were also deposited in the sacred chests of the mysteries both of Isis and Ceres, the Ceudven of the Druids; leeks are among the Egyptian hieroglyphics; sometimes a leek is on the head of Osiris; and at other times grasped in an extended hand; and thence, perhaps, the Italian proverb, “Porro che nasce nella mano,” a leek that grows in the hand, for a virtue. Porrus, a leek, is derived by Bryant from the Egyptian god Pi-orus, who is the same as the Beal Peor of the Phœnicians, and the Bel or Bellinis of the Druids. These accordances are worth an ancient Briton’s consideration.
Ridicule of national peculiarities was formerly a pleasantry that the English freely indulged in. They seemed to think that different soil was good ground for a laugh at a person, and that it justified coarse and insolent remarks. In an old satirical tract there is the following sneer at the Welch:
“A WELCHMAN, Is the Oyster that the Pearl is in, for a man may be pickt out of him. He hath the abilities of the mind in potentiâ, and actu nothing but boldnesse. His Clothes are in fashion before his Bodie; and he accounts boldnesse the chiefest vertue. Above all men he loves a Herrald, and speakes pedigrees naturally. He accompts none well descended that call him not Cosen, and prefers Owen Glendower before any of the nine worthies. The first note of his familiaritie is the confession of his valour; and so he prevents quarrels. Hee voucheth Welch a pure, an unconquered language; and courts Ladies with the storie of their Chronicle. To conclude, he is pretious in his own conceit, and upon St. David’s day without comparison.”[15]
Not quite so flouting is a poetical satire called,