The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare

ELM.

(1)	Adriana.	Thou art an Elm, my husband, I a Vine, Whose weakness married to thy stronger state Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
Comedy of Errors, act ii, sc. 2 (176).

(2)	Titania.	The female Ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm.
Midsummer Night's Dream, act iv, sc. 1 (48).

(3)	Poins.	Answer, thou dead Elm, answer![87:1]
2nd Henry IV, act ii, sc, 4 (358).

Though Vineyards were more common in England in the sixteenth century than now, yet I can nowhere find that the Vines were ever trained, in the Italian fashion, to Elms or Poplars. Yet Shakespeare does not stand alone in thus speaking of the Elm in its connection with the Vine. Spenser speaks of "the Vine-prop Elme," and Milton—

"They led the Vine
To wed her Elm; she spoused, about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with her brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves."

And Browne—

"She, whose inclination
Bent all her course to him-wards, let him know
He was the Elm, whereby her Vine did grow."

Britannia's Pastorals, book i, song 1.

"An Elm embraced by a Vine,
Clipping so strictly that they seemed to be
One in their growth, one shade, one fruit, one tree;
Her boughs his arms; his leaves so mixed with hers,
That with no wind he moved, but straight she stirs."

Ibid., ii, 4.

But I should think that neither Shakespeare, nor Browne, nor Milton ever saw an English Vine trained to an Elm; they were simply copying from the classical writers.The Wych Elm is probably a true native, but the more common Elm of our hedgerows is a tree of Southern Europe and North Africa, and is of such modern introduction into England that in Evelyn's time it was rarely seen north of Stamford. It was probably introduced into Southern England by the Romans.

FOOTNOTES:

[87:1] Why Falstaff should be called a dead Elm is not very apparent; but the Elm was associated with death as producing the wood for coffins. Thus Chaucer speaks of it as "the piler Elme, the cofre unto careyne," i.e., carrion ("Parliament of Fowles," 177).

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