ane Root._ There is much doubt as to what plant is meant by Banquo
in "Macbeth" (i. 3):

"have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?"

The origin of this passage is probably to be found in North's
"Plutarch," 1579 ("Life of Antony," p. 990), where mention is made of a
plant which "made them out of their wits." Several plants have been
suggested--the hemlock, belladonna, mandrake, henbane, etc. Douce
supports the last, and cites the following passage:[511] "Henbane ... is
called insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate
or dronke, it breedeth madness, or slow lykenesse of sleepe." Nares[512]
quotes from Ben Jonson ("Sejanus," iii. 2), in support of hemlock:

"well, read my charms,
And may they lay that hold upon thy senses
As thou hadst snufft up hemlock."

[511] Batman's "Upon Bartholomaeus de Proprietate Rerum," lib.
xvii. chap. 87.

[512] "Glossary," vol. i. p. 465.

_Ivy._ It was formerly the general custom in England, as it is still in
France and the Netherlands, to hang a bush of ivy at the door of a
vintner.[513] Hence the allusion in "As You Like It" (v. 4, Epilogue),
where Rosalind wittily remarks: "If it be true that good wine needs no
bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue." This custom is
often referred to by our old writers, as, for instance, in Nash's
"Summer's Last Will and Testament," 1600:

"Green ivy bushes at the vintner's doors."

And in the "Rival Friends," 1632:

"'Tis like the ivy bush unto a tavern."

[513] See Hotten's "History of Sign Boards."

This plant was no doubt chosen from its being sacred to Bacchus. The
practice was observed at statute hirings, wakes, etc., by people who
sold ale at no other time. The manner, says Mr. Singer,[514] in which
they were decorated appears from a passage in Florio's "Italian
Dictionary," in _voce tremola_, "Gold foile, or thin leaves of gold or
silver, namely, thinne plate, as our vintners adorn their bushes with."
We may compare the old sign of "An owl in an ivy bush," which perhaps
denoted the union of wisdom or prudence with conviviality, with the
phrase "be merry and wise."

[514] "Shakespeare," vol. iii. p. 112.

_Kecksies._ These are the dry, hollow stalks of hemlock. In "Henry V."
(v. 2) Burgundy makes use of the word:

"and nothing teems,
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksi