(1)	Viola.	Make me a Willow cabin at your gate.
Twelfth Night, act i, sc. 5 (287).
(2)	Benedick.	Come, will you go with me?
	Claudio.	Whither?
	Benedick.	Even to the next Willow, about your own business.
Much Ado About Nothing, act ii, sc. 1 (192).
	Benedick.	I offered him my company to a Willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.
Ibid. (223).
(3)	Nathaniel.	These thoughts to me were Oaks, to thee like Osiers bow'd.
Love's Labour's Lost, act iv, sc. 2 (112).
(4)	Lorenzo.	In such a night Stood Dido, with a Willow in her hand, Upon the wild sea-banks.
Merchant of Venice, act v, sc. 1 (9).
(5)	Bona.	Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly, I'll wear the Willow garland for his sake.
3d Henry VI, act iii, sc. 3 (227).
	Post.	[The same words repeated.]
Ibid., act iv, sc. 1 (99).
(6)	Queen.	There is a Willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke.
Hamlet, act iv, sc. 7 (167).
(7)	Desdemona (singing)—	The poor soul sat sighing by a Sycamore tree. Sing all a green Willow; Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing Willow, Willow, Willow. The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans; Sing Willow, Willow, Willow. Her salt tears fell from her and soften'd the stones, Sing Willow, Willow, Willow. Sing all a green Willow must be my garland.
Othello, act iv, sc. 3 (41).
(8)	Emilia.	I will play the swan, And die in music. [Singing] Willow, Willow, Willow.
Ibid., act v, sc. 2 (247).
(9)	Wooer.	Then she sang Nothing but Willow, Willow, Willow.
Two Noble Kinsmen, act iv, sc. 1 (100).
(10)	Friar.	I must up-fill this Willow cage of ours With baleful Weeds and precious juiced Flowers.
Romeo and Juliet, act ii, sc. 3 (7).
(11)	Celia.	West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom; The rank of Osiers by the murmuring stream Left on your right hand, brings you to the place.
As You Like It, act iv, sc. 3 (79).
(12)		When Cytherea all in love forlorn A longing tarriance for Adonis made Under an Osier growing by a brook.
Passionate Pilgrim vi.
(13)		Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove; Those thoughts, to me like Oaks, to thee like Osiers bow'd.
Ibid. v.

See also Palm Tree, No. 1, p. 192.

Willow is an old English word, but the more common and perhaps the older name for the Willow is Withy, a name which is still in constant use, but more generally applied to the twigs when cut for basket-making than to the living tree. "Withe" is found in the oldest vocabularies, but we do not find "Willow" till we come to the vocabularies of the fifteenth century, when it occurs as "HÆc Salex, A^e Wyllo-tre;" "HÆc Salix-icis, a Welogh;" "Salix, Welig." Both the names probably referred to the pliability of the tree, and there was another name for it, the Sallow, which was either a corruption of the Latin Salix, or was derived from a common root. It was also called Osier.

The Willow is a native of Britain. It belongs to a large family (Salix), numbering 160 species, of which we have seventeen distinct species in Great Britain, besides many sub-species and varieties. So common a plant, with the peculiar pliability of the shoots that distinguishes all the family, was sure to be made much use of. Its more common uses were for basket-making, for coracles, and huts, or "Willow-cabins" (No. 1), but it had other uses in the elegancies and even in the romance of life. The flowers of the early Willow (S. caprea) did duty for and were called Palms on Palm Sunday (see Palm), and not only the flowers but the branches also seem to have been used in decoration, a use which is now extinct. "The Willow is called Salix, and hath his name À saliendo, for that it quicklie groweth up, and soon becommeth a tree. Heerewith do they in some countries trim up their parlours and dining roomes in sommer, and sticke fresh greene leaves thereof about their beds for coolness."—Newton's Herball for the Bible.[321:1]

But if we only look at the poetry of the time of Shakespeare, and much of the poetry before and after him, we should almost conclude that the sole use of the Willow was to weave garlands for jilted lovers, male and female. It was probably with reference to this that Shakespeare represented poor mad Ophelia hanging her flowers on the "Willow tree aslant the brook" (No. 6), and it is more pointedly referred to in Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. The feeling was expressed in a melancholy ditty, which must have been very popular in the sixteenth century, of which Desdemona says a few of the first verses (No. 7), and which concludes thus—

The ballad is entitled "The Complaint of a Lover Forsaken of His Love—To a Pleasant New Tune," and is printed in the "Roxburghe Ballads." This curious connection of the Willow with forsaken or disappointed lovers stood its ground for a long time. Spenser spoke of the "Willow worne of forlorne paramoures." Drayton says that—

Muse's Elysium.

and though we have long given up the custom of wearing garlands of any sort, yet many of us can recollect one of the most popular street songs, that was heard everywhere, and at last passed into a proverb, and which began—

It has been suggested by many that this melancholy association with the Willow arose from its Biblical associations; and this may be so, though all the references to the Willow that occur in the Bible are, with one notable exception, connected with joyfulness and fertility. The one exception is the plaintive wail in the 137th Psalm—

And this one record has been sufficient to alter the emblematic character of the Willow—"this one incident has made the Willow an emblem of the deepest of sorrows, namely, sorrow for sin found out, and visited with its due punishment. From that time the Willow appears never again to have been associated with feelings of gladness. Even among heathen nations, for what reason we know not, it was a tree of evil omen, and was employed to make the torches carried at funerals. Our own poets made the Willow the symbol of despairing woe."—Johns. This is the more remarkable because the tree referred to in the Psalms, the Weeping Willow (Salix Babylonica), which by its habit of growth is to us so suggestive of crushing sorrow, was quite unknown in Europe till a very recent period. "It grows abundantly on the banks of the Euphrates, and other parts of Asia, as in Palestine, and also in North Africa;" but it is said to have been introduced into England during the last century, and then in a curious way. "Many years ago, the well-known poet, Alexander Pope, who resided at Twickenham, received a basket of Figs as a present from Turkey. The basket was made of the supple branches of the Weeping Willow, the very same species under which the captive Jews sat when they wept by the waters of Babylon. The poet valued highly the small and tender twigs associated with so much that was interesting, and he untwisted the basket, and planted one of the branches in the ground. It had some tiny buds upon it, and he hoped he might be able to rear it, as none of this species of Willow was known in England. Happily the Willow is very quick to take root and grow. The little branch soon became a tree, and drooped gracefully over the river, in the same manner that its race had done over the waters of Babylon. From that one branch all the Weeping Willows in England are descended."—Kirby's Trees.[323:1]

There is probably no tree that contributes so largely to the conveniences of English life as the Willow. Putting aside its uses in the manufacture of gunpowder and cricket bats, we may safely say that the most scantily-furnished house can boast of some article of Willow manufacture in the shape of baskets. British basket-making is, as far as we know, the oldest national manufacture; it is the manufacture in connection with which we have the earliest record of the value placed on British work. British baskets were exported to Rome, and it would almost seem as if baskets were unknown in Rome until they were introduced from Britain, for with the article of import came the name also, and the British "basket" became the Latin "bascauda." We have curious evidence of the high value attached to these baskets. Juvenal describes Catullus in fear of shipwreck throwing overboard his most precious treasures: "precipitare volens etiam pulcherrima," and among these "pulcherrima" he mentions "bascaudas." Martial bears a still higher testimony to the value set on "British baskets," reckoning them among the many rich gifts distributed at the Saturnalia—

Many of the Willows make handsome shrubs for the garden, for besides those that grow into large trees, there are many that are low shrubs, and some so low as to be fairly called carpet plants. Salix ReginÆ is one of the most silvery shrubs we have, with very narrow leaves; S. lanata is almost as silvery, but with larger and woolly leaves, and makes a very pretty object when grown on rockwork near water; S. rosmarinifolia is another desirable shrub; and among the lower-growing species, the following will grow well on rockwork, and completely clothe the surface: S. alpina, S. Grahami, S. retusa, S. serpyllifolia, and S. reticulata. They are all easily cultivated and are quite hardy.

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