Shakespeare's
Medlars
The
Bard seems to have cared not for the fruit of Mespilus
germanica, as evidenced by references to medlars in four of his
plays:
Measure
for Measure, Act IV, Scene III, line 135
(http://education.yahoo.com/reference/shakespeare/plays/1443.html#135)
Lucio. Good
even. Friar, where is the provost?
Duke. Not
within, sir.
Lucio. O
pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine
eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with
water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly;
one fruitful meal would set me to ’t. But they
say the duke will be here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy
brother: if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at
home, he had lived. [Exit ISABELLA.
Duke. Sir,
the duke is marvellous little beholding to
your reports; but the best is, he lives not in them.
Lucio. Friar,
thou knowest not the duke so
well as I do: he’s a better woodman than thou takest
him for.
Duke. Well,
you’ll answer this one day. Fare ye well.
Lucio. Nay,
tarry; I’ll go along with thee: I can tell thee pretty tales of
the duke.
Duke. You
have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not
true, none were enough.
Lucio. I
was once before him for getting a wench with child.
Duke.
Lucio. Yes,
marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it: they would else have
married me to the rotten medlar.
Duke. Sir,
your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.
Lucio. By
my troth, I’ll go with thee to the lane’s end. If bawdy
talk offend you, we’ll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am
a kind of burr; I shall stick. [Exeunt.
As
You Like It, Act III, Scene II, line 44
(http://education.yahoo.com/reference/shakespeare/plays/2032.html#44)
Touchstone. I’ll
rime you so, eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping
hours excepted: it is the right butter-women’s rank to market.
Rosalind. Out,
fool!
Touchstone. For
a taste:—
If a hart do lack a hind,
Let him seek out Rosalind.
If the cat will after kind,
So be sure will Rosalind.
Winter-garments must be lin’d,
So must slender Rosalind.
They that reap must sheaf and bind,
Then to cart with Rosalind.
Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
Such a nut is Rosalind.
He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love’s prick and Rosalind.
This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you infect
yourself with them?
Rosalind. Peace!
you dull fool: I found them on a tree.
Touchstone. Truly,
the tree yields bad fruit.
Rosalind. I’ll
graff it with you, and then I shall graff
it with a medlar: then it will
be the earliest fruit i’ the country;
for you’ll be rotten ere you be
half ripe, and that’s the right virtue of the medlar.
Touchstone. You
have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.
Romeo
and Juliet, Act II, Scene I, line 38 and 40
(http://education.yahoo.com/reference/shakespeare/plays/3821.html#38)
Enter
BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.
BENVOLIO. Romeo!
my cousin Romeo!
MERCUTIO. He
is wise;
And, on my life, hath stol’n
him home to bed.
BENVOLIO. He
ran this way, and leap’d this orchard
wall:
Call, good Mercutio.
MERCUTIO. Nay,
I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! humours!
madman! passion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
Speak but one rime and I am satisfied;
Cry but ‘Ay me!’ couple but ‘love’ and ‘dove;’
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word.
One nickname for
her purblind son and heir,
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim
When King Cophetua lov’d
the beggar-maid.
He heareth not, he stirreth
not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead,
and I must conjure him.
I conjure thee by
Rosaline’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead, and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes
that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness
thou appear to us.
BENVOLIO. An
if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.
MERCUTIO. This
cannot anger him: ’twould anger him
To raise a spirit
in his mistress’ circle
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and conjur’d
it down;
That were some spite: my invocation
Is fair and honest, and in his mistress’ name
I conjure only but to raise up him.
BENVOLIO. Come,
he hath hid himself among these trees,
To be consorted with the humorous night:
Blind is his love
and best befits the dark.
MERCUTIO. If
love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar
tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars,
when they laugh alone.
O Romeo! that she were, O! that
she were
An open et cœtera,
thou a poperin pear.
Romeo, good night: I’ll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is
too cold for me to sleep:
Come, shall we go?
BENVOLIO.
Go, then; for ’tis
in vain
To
seek him here that means not to be found. [Exeunt.
Timon
of Athens, Act IV, Scene III, line 321 and 323
(http://education.yahoo.com/reference/shakespeare/plays/3943.html#321)
Timon. Under
that’s above me.
Where feed’st
thou o’ days, Apemantus?
Apemantus. Where
my stomach finds meat; or, rather, where I eat it.
Timon. Would
poison were obedient and knew my mind!
Apemantus. Where
wouldst thou send it?
Timon. To
sauce thy dishes.
Apemantus. The
middle of humanity thou never knewest, but
the extremity of both ends.
When thou wast in thy gilt and thy
perfume, they mocked thee for too much curiosity;
in thy rags thou knowest
none, but art despised for the contrary. There’s a medlar
for thee; eat it.
Timon. On
what I hate I feed not.
Apemantus. Dost
hate a medlar?
Timon. Ay,
though it look like thee.
Apemantus. An
thou hadst hated meddlers sooner, thou shouldst
have loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift
that was beloved after his means?