SWEET BALM (Melissa officinalis). Sweet Anne Page commanded the elves to bestow good luck throughout Windsor Castle:[81]

The Greek and Latin names, melissa, melissophyllum, and apiastrum, show that this was a bee-plant, which was still the case in Shakespeare's time.

"It is an herb," says Parkinson, "wherein bees do much delight"; and he also tells us that if balm is rubbed on the inside of the hive "it draweth others to resort thither." He goes on to describe it as follows:

"The Garden Balm hath divers square blackish green stalks and round, hard, dark, green pointed leaves growing thereon by couples, a little notched about the edges; of a pleasant sweet scent drawing near to the scent of a Lemon or Citron; and therefore of some called Citrago. The flowers grow about the tops of the stalks at certain distances, being small and gaping, of a pale carnation color, almost White. The roots fasten themselves strongly on the ground and endure many years. It is increased by dividing the roots; for the leaves die down to the ground every year, leaving no show of leaf or stalk in the Winter. Balm is often used among other hot and sweet herbs to make baths and washings for men's bodies in the Summer time. The herb without all question is an excellent help to comfort the heart, as the very smell may induce any so to believe. It is also good to heal green wounds being made into salve. I verily think that our forefathers hearing of the healing and comfortable properties of the true natural Balm and finding this herb to be so effectual gave it the name of Balm in imitation of his properties and virtues."

Arabian physicians recommended balm for affections of the heart and hypochondria.

CAMOMILE (Anthemis nobilis). Falstaff points a moral in the lowly camomile: "Though the Camomile the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth the more it is wasted the sooner it wears."[82] A similar idea occurs in Lyly's "Euphues" (1588): "Though the Camomile the more it is trodden and pressed down the more it spreadeth, yet the violet the oftener it is handled and touched, the sooner it withereth and decayeth."

Emblem of patience, the camomile was often used to point a moral and to teach patience. In "The More the Merrier" (1608), a character observes:

Because its scent was brought out when trodden upon, camomile was planted in and along walks and on the edges of flower-beds. Its low growth and delicious perfume made it a very attractive border plant.

In Lawson's "New Orchard" (about 1616) there are instructions for "Large walks, broad and long, close and open like the Tempe groves in Thessaly, raised with gravel and sand, having seats and banks of Camomile: all this delights the mind and brings health to the body."

In Shakespeare's day camomile grew in "the wild field by Richmond Green."

"Our ordinary Camomill [says Parkinson] is well known to all to have many small trailing branches set with very fine small leaves and spreading thick over the ground taking root as it spreadeth; the tops of the branches have white flowers with yellow thrums in the middle, very like unto the Featherfew, but somewhat greater not so hard but more soft and gentle in handling and the whole herb is to be of a very sweet scent.

"Camomill is called Anthemis Leucanthemis and Leucanthemum of the whiteness of the flowers; and Chamoemoelum of the corrupted Italian name Camomilla. Some call the naked Camomill Chrysanthemum odoratum. The double Camomill is called by some Chamoemoelum Romanum flore multiplici.

"Camomill is put to divers and sundry uses both for pleasure and profit; both for inward and outward diseases, both for the sick and the sound, in bathings to comfort and strengthen the sound and to ease pains in the diseased. The flowers boiled in posset drink provoketh sweat and helpeth to expel colds, aches and other griefs. A syrup made of the juice of the double Camomill with the flowers and white wine is used by some against jaundice and dropsy."