The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare

GRASSES.

(1)	Gonzalo.	How lush and lusty the Grass looks! how green!
Tempest, act ii, sc. 1 (52).

(2)	Iris.	Here, on this Grass-plot, in this very place To come and sport.
Ibid., act iv, sc. 1 (73).

(3)	Ceres.	Why hath thy Queen Summon'd me hither to this short-grass'd green?
Ibid. (82).

(4)	Lysander.	When Phoebe doth behold Her silver visage in the watery glass, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed Grass.
Midsummer Night's Dream, act i, sc. 1 (209).

(5)	King.	Say to her, we have measured many miles To tread a measure with her on this Grass.
	Boyet.	They say, that they have measured many miles To tread a measure with her on the Grass.
Love's Labour's Lost, act v, sc. 2 (184).

(6)	Clown.	I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in Grass.
All's Well that Ends Well, act iv, sc. 5 (21).

(7)	Luciana.	If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass.
	Dromio of Syracuse.	'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for Grass.
Comedy of Errors, act ii, sc. 2 (201).

(8)	Bolingbroke.	Here we march Upon the Grassy carpet of the plain.
Richard II, act iii, sc. 3 (49).

(9)	King Richard.	And bedew Her pasture's Grass with faithful English blood.
Ibid. (100).

(10)	Ely.	Grew like the summer Grass, fastest by night, Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
Henry V, act i, sc. 1 (65).

(11)	King Henry.	Mowing like Grass Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
Ibid., act iii, sc. 3 (13).

(12)	Grandpre.	And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit Lies foul with chew'd Grass, still and motionless.
Henry V, act iv, sc. 2 (49).

(13)	Suffolk.	Though standing naked on a mountain top Where biting cold would never let Grass grow.
2nd Henry VI, act iii, sc. 2 (336).

(14)	Cade.	All the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to Grass.
Ibid., act iv, sc. 2 (74).

(15)	Cade.	Wherefore on a brick wall have I climbed into this garden, to see if I can eat Grass or pick a Sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot weather.
Ibid., act iv, sc. 10 (7).

(16)	Cade.	If I do not leave you all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may never eat Grass more.
Ibid. (42).

(17)	1st Bandit.	We cannot live on Grass, on berries, water, As beasts and birds and fishes.
Timon of Athens, act iv, sc. 3 (425).

(18)	Saturninus.	These tidings nip me, and I hang the head As Flowers with frost or Grass beat down with storms.
Titus Andronicus, act iv, sc. 4 (70).

(19)	Hamlet.	Ay but, sir, "while the Grass grows"—the proverb is something musty.
Hamlet, act iii, sc. 2 (358).

(20)	Ophelia.	He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone; At his head a Grass-green turf, At his heels a stone.
Ibid., act iv, sc. 5 (29).

(21)	Salarino.	I should be still Plucking the Grass to know where sits the wind.
Merchant of Venice, act i, sc. 1 (17).

In and before Shakespeare's time Grass was used as a general term for all plants. Thus Chaucer—

The Squyeres Tale.It is used in the same general way in the Bible, "the Grass of the field."

In the whole range of botanical studies the accurate study of the Grasses is, perhaps, the most difficult as the genus is the most extensive, for Grasses are said to "constitute, perhaps, a twelfth part of the described species of flowering plants, and at least nine-tenths of the number of individuals comprising the vegetation of the world" (Lindley), so that a full study of the Grasses may almost be said to be the work of a lifetime. But Shakespeare was certainly no such student of Grasses: in all these passages Grass is only mentioned in a generic manner, without any reference to any particular Grass. The passages in which hay is mentioned, I have not thought necessary to quote.

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