PLUMS, WITH DAMSONS AND PRUNES. |
  | (1) | Constance. | Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
Give it a Plum, a Cherry, and a Fig. | | King John, act ii, sc. 1 (161). | | | (2) | Hamlet. | The satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and Plum-tree gum. | | Hamlet, act ii, sc. 2 (198). | | | (3) | Simpcox. | A fall off a tree. | | Wife. | A Plum-tree, master. | | ***** | | Gloucester. | Mass, thou lovedst Plums well that wouldst venture so. | | Simpcox. | Alas! good master, my wife desired some Damsons,
And made me climb with danger of my life. | | 2nd Henry VI, act ii, sc. 1 (196). | | | (4) | Evans. | I will dance and eat Plums at your wedding. | | Merry Wives of Windsor, act v, sc. 5.[217:1] | | | (5) | | The mellow Plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,
Or, being early pluck'd, is sour to taste. | | Venus and Adonis (527). | | | (6) | | Like a green Plum that hangs upon a tree,
And falls, through wind, before the fall should be. | | Passionate Pilgrim (135). | | | (7) | Slender. | Three veneys for a dish of stewed Prunes. | | Merry Wives of Windsor, act i, sc. 1 (295). | | | (8) | Falstaff. | There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed Prune. | | 1st Henry IV, act iii, sc. 3 (127). | | | (9) | Pompey. | Longing (saving your honour's presence) for stewed Prunes. | | ***** | | And longing, as I said, for Prunes. | | ***** | | You being then, if you he remembered, cracking the stones of the foresaid Prunes. | | Measure for Measure, act ii, sc. 1 (92). | | | (10) | Clown. | Four pounds of Prunes, and as many of Raisins of the sun. | | Winters Tale, act iv, sc. 3 (51). | | (11) | Falstaff. | Hang him, rogue; he lives upon mouldy stewed Prunes and dried cakes. | | 2nd Henry IV, act ii, sc. 4 (158). | Plums, Damsons, and Prunes may conveniently be joined together, Plums and Damsons being often used synonymously (as in No. 3), and Prunes being the dried Plums. The Damsons were originally, no doubt, a good variety from the East, and nominally from Damascus.[217:2] They seem to have been considered great delicacies, as in a curious allegorical drama of the fifteenth century, called "La Nef de Sante," of which an account is given by Mr. Wright: "Bonne-Compagnie, to begin the day, orders a collation, at which, among other things, are served Damsons (Prunes de Damas), which appear at this time to have been considered as delicacies. There is here a marginal direction to the purport that if the morality should be performed in the season when real Damsons could not be had, the performers must have some made of wax to look like real ones" ("History of Domestic Manners," &c.). The garden Plums are a good cultivated variety of our own wild Sloe, but a variety that did not originate in England, and may very probably have been introduced by the Romans. The Sloe and Bullace are, speaking botanically, two sub-species of Prunus communis, while the Plum is a third sub-species (P. communis domestica). The garden Plum is occasionally found wild in England, but is certainly not indigenous. It is somewhat strange that our wild plant is not mentioned by Shakespeare under any of its well-known names of Sloe, Bullace, and Blackthorn. Not only is it a shrub of very marked appearance in our hedgerows in early spring, when it is covered with its pure white blossoms, but Blackthorn staves were indispensable in the rough game of quarterstaff, and the Sloe gave point to more than one English proverb: "as black as a Sloe," was a very common comparison, and "as useless as a Sloe," or "not worth a Sloe," was as common. "Sir Amys answered, 'Tho'
I give thee thereof not one Sloe!
Do right all that thou may!"
Amys and Amylion—Ellis's Romances. "The offecial seyde, Thys ys nowth
Be God, that me der bowthe,
Het ys not worthe a Sclo."
The Frere and His Boy—Ritson's Ancient Popular Poetry. Though even as a fruit the Sloe had its value, and was not altogether despised by our ancestors, for thus Tusser advises— "By thend of October go gather up Sloes,
Have thou in readines plentie of thoes,
And keepe them in bed-straw, or still on the bow,
To staie both the flix of thyselfe and thy cow."
As soon as the garden Plum was introduced, great attention seems to have been paid to it, and the gardeners of Shakespeare's time could probably show as good Plums as we can now. "To write of Plums particularly," said Gerard, "would require a peculiar volume.... Every clymate hath his owne fruite, far different from that of other countries; my selfe have threescore sorts in my garden, and all strange and rare; there be in other places many more common, and yet yearly commeth to our hands others not before knowne."
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