ABSTRACT
Spenser was familiar with plants and herbs, flowers, and trees of the classical world as well as with those of his contemporary world. In his day, herbals-books that gave the history of plants and described their botanical, medical, pharmaceutical, medico-magical, horticultural, and aesthetic properties-enjoyed general appeal and acceptance (see *natural history). The principal sixteenth-century writers of herbals on the continent were Otto Brunfels, Jerome Bock (Hieronymus Tragus), Leonhard Fuchs, and Rembert Dodoens. In England, there were William Turner, known as the father of British botany for his New Herball (2 parts 1551-62); Henry Lyte, Niewe Herball (1578), which Spenser may have known (Arber 1931) and which was a modified translation of Charles de l’Ecluse’s French translation of Dodoens’ Cruydeboeck of 1554; and John Gerard, Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597; enl by Thomas Johnson 1633, 1636). Although the English herbalists relied heavily on earlier herbals, they were especially eager to describe plants of the New World, as shown in the 1577 Joyfull Newes out of the Newe Founde Worlde, J.Frampton’s English translation of an herbal by the Spaniard Nicolas Monardes. harmful plants The power of herbs, both which can hurt and ease’ derives from ‘hidden’ qualities (SC, Dec 88, 92). The noxious plants growing in the Garden of Proserpina (FQ ii vii 51-2) show the indirect influence of classical mythology and of botany. The unspecified plants growing in ‘griesly shadowes’ are ‘direfull deadly blacke both leafe and bloom,/Fit to adorne the dead, and decke the drery toombe.’ Among the specified plants are ‘Dead sleeping Poppy’ (cf ‘Dull Poppie’ Muiopotmos 196), a potent soporific which could produce coma and death; ‘Melampode’ (‘blacke Hellebore’), a powerful narcotic which could cause cardiac arrest (cf SC, Julye 85, 106); ‘Cicuta bad,’ a deadly poison which could cause death by paralyzing the motor system (Lyte 1578:451); and ‘Cold Coloquintida,’ a violent and deadly cathartic, the seeds of which were used to preserve dead bodies (Gerard ed 1636:916). Heben may be henbane, known as a narcotic which procures sleep, as a poison which produces blurred vision, drowsiness, delirium, and convulsions, and as a plant used by witches, who made an ointment from its leaves (Gerard ed 1636:353-6). ‘Tetra mad’ has been identified as Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade), tetragonia (euonymus), and tetrabit or tetrabil (balm). It may well be Atropa belladonna, which was regarded as an insanityproducing drug whose bright, shining black berries ‘troubleth the mind, bringeth madnesse if a few of the berries be inwardly taken, but if moe be given they also kill and bring present death’ (Gerard ed 1636:341). Its popular names, Devil’s Cherries, Naughty Man’s Cherries, Devil’s herb (Grieve 1931:583), hint at its diabolic instigation. ‘Mortall Samnitis’ may be the Savine-tree, ‘arbor Sabina’ (see Upton in Var 2:263), a tree in Greece but a shrub in Britain, known as an ‘energetic poison leading to gastro enteritis collapse and death’ (Grieve 1931:718). healing plants In FQ II, Archimago is said to use ‘balmes and herbes’ to heal Pyrochles’ ‘secret wounds’ (vi 51). In seeking to cure the lovesick Britomart, Glauce gathers rue, savine, camphor, calamint, and dill (III ii 49), all of which are standard herbal remedies with refrigerative, healing properties (Ferrand ed 1640:238, 264-73; see amatory *magic). In selecting plants to heal Timias’ thigh wound, Belphoebe searches for three salvific plants ‘whether it divine Tobacco were,/Or Panachaea, or Polygony’ (III v 32).
