Siberia; yet Greene
in his "Philomela," 1615, speaks of "the Hyssop growing in America, that
is liked of strangers for the smell, and hated of the inhabitants for
the operation, being as prejudicial to the one as delightsome to the
other." It is now very little cultivated, for it is not a plant of much
beauty, and its medicinal properties are not much esteemed; yet it is a
plant that must always have an interest to readers of the Bible; for
there it comes before us as the plant of purification, as the plant of
which the study was not beneath the wisdom of Solomon, and especially
as the plant that added to the cruelties of the Crucifixion. Whether
the Hyssop of Scripture is the Hyssopus officinalis is still a question,
but at the present time the most modern research has decided that it is.

FOOTNOTES:

[128:1] It seems likely from the following passage from Lily's "Euphues,
the anatomy of wit," 1617, that the plants were not named at random by
Iago, but that there was some connection between them. "Good gardeners,
in their curious knots, mixe Isope with Time, as aiders the one with the
others; the one being dry, the other moist." The gardeners of the
sixteenth century had a firm belief in the sympathies and antipathies of
plants.

INSANE ROOT.

_Banquo._

Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the Insane Root
That takes the reason prisoner?

_Macbeth_, act i, sc. 3 (83).

It is very possible that Shakespeare had no particular plant in view,
but simply referred to any of the many narcotic plants which, when given
in excess, would "take the reason prisoner." The critics have suggested
many plants--the Hemlock, the Henbane, the Belladonna, the Mandrake,
&c., each one strengthening his opinion from coeval writers. In this
uncertainty I should incline to the Henbane from the following
description by Gerard and Lyte. "This herbe is called . . . of
Apuleia-Mania" (Lyte). "Henbane is called . . . of Pythagoras,
Zoroaster, and Apuleius, Insana" (Gerard).

IVY.

(1) _Titania._

The female Ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv, sc. 1 (48).

(2) _Prospero._

That now he was
The Ivy which had hid my princely trunk
And suck'd my verdure out on't.

_Tempes