he lads and lasses bore,
While dismally the parson walk'd before."

Rosemary, too, was one of the evergreens with which dishes were
anciently garnished during the season of Christmas, an allusion to which
occurs in "Pericles" (iv. 6): "Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with
rosemary and bays."

_Rush._ Before the introduction of carpets, the floors of churches and
houses were strewed with rushes, a custom to which Shakespeare makes
several allusions. In "Taming of the Shrew" (iv. 1), Grumio asks: "Is
supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?" and
Glendower, in "1 Henry IV." (iii. 1), says:

"She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down,
And rest your gentle head upon her lap."

At the coronation of Henry V. ("2 Henry IV.," v. 5), when the procession
is coming, the grooms cry, "More rushes! more rushes!" which seems to
have been the usual cry for rushes to be scattered on a pavement or a
platform when a procession was approaching.[552] Again, in "Richard II."
(i. 3), the custom is further alluded to by John of Gaunt, who speaks of
"the presence strew'd," referring to the presence-chamber. So, too, in
"Cymbeline" (ii. 2), Iachimo soliloquizes:

"Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd
The chastity he wounded."

[552] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 373.

And in "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 4), Romeo says:

"Let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;"

an expression which Middleton has borrowed in his "Blunt Master
Constable," 1602:

"Bid him, whose heart no sorrow feels,
Tickle the rushes with his wanton heels,
I have too much lead at mine."

In the "Two Noble Kinsmen" (ii. 1) the Gaoler's Daughter is represented
carrying "strewings" for the two prisoners' chamber.

Rush-bearings were a sort of rural festival, when the parishioners
brought rushes to strew the church.[553]

[553] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14.

The "rush-ring" appears to have been a kind of token for plighting of
troth among rustic lovers. It was afterwards vilely used, however, for
mock-marriages, as appears from one of the Constitutions of Salisbury.
In "All's Well that Ends Well" (ii. 2) there seems a covert allusion to
the rush-ring: "As Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger." Spenser, in the
"Shepherd's Kalendar," speaks of

"The knotted rush-rings and gilt Rosemar