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Shakespeare Descants
on letter "H" Foods

Hare

Romeo and Juliet, II, 4:
MERCUTIO: No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
[Sings] An old hare hoar, And an old hare hoar, Is very good meat in lent But a hare that is hoar Is too much for a score, When it hoars ere it be spent. Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll to dinner, thither.

Hazelnuts

The Taming of the Shrew, II, 1:
PETRUCHIO: ...Why does the world report that Kate doth limp? O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as brown in hue As hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels. O, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.

Romeo and Juliet, I, 4:
MERCUTIO: O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep; Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, The traces of the smallest spider's web, The collars of the moonshine's watery beams, Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, Not so big as a round little worm Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid; Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

Herbs

Richard II, III, 4:
GARDENER: Poor queen! so that thy state might be no worse, I would my skill were subject to thy curse. Here did she fall a tear; here in this place I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace: Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen, In the remembrance of a weeping queen.

A Midsummers Night's Dream, II, 1:
OBERON: Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid Will make or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

OBERON: Having once this juice, I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. The next thing then she waking looks upon, Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, She shall pursue it with the soul of love: And ere I take this charm from off her sight, As I can take it with another herb, I'll make her render up her page to me. (II, 1)

OBERON: Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye; Whose liquor hath this virtuous property, To take from thence all error with his might, And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight. When they next wake, all this derision Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision, And back to Athens shall the lovers wend, With league whose date till death shall never end.

All's Well That Ends Well, IV, 5:
LaFEU: 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb. CLOWN: Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather, the herb of grace [rue].

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, IV, 6:
LYSIMACHUS: Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seeds and roots of shame and iniquity. O, you have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee. Come, bring me to some private place: come, come.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, IV, 5:
OPHELIA: There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end,--[Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

Venus and Adonis (Stanza 174):
And, being open'd, threw unwilling light Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench'd In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench'd: No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed

Herring

Henry IV, part 1, II, 4:
FALSTAFF: You rogue, here's lime in this sack too: there is nothing but roguery to be found in villanous man: yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villanous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring.

Twelfth Night, I, 5:
SIR TOBY BELCH: 'Tis a gentle man here--a plague o' these pickle-herring! How now, sot!

Troilus and Cressida, V, 1:
THERSITES: To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny.

Romeo and Juliet, II, 4:
MERCUTIO: Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a kitchen-wench

King Lear, III, 6:
EDGAR: The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale. Hopdance cries in Tom's belly for two white herring. Croak not, black angel; I have no food for thee.

Honey

King Henry IV, part 1, I, 2:
PRINCE HENRY: As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

HENRY IV: ...The skipping king, he ambled up and down With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state, Mingled his royalty with capering fools, Had his great name profaned with their scorns And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push Of every beardless vain comparative, Grew a companion to the common streets, Enfeoff'd himself to popularity; That, being daily swallow'd by men's eyes, They surfeited with honey and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. (III, 2)

King Henry IV, part 2, :
HENRY IV: ...See, sons, what things you are! How quickly nature falls into revolt When gold becomes her object! For this the foolish over-careful fathers Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care, Their bones with industry; For this they have engrossed and piled up The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold; For this they have been thoughtful to invest Their sons with arts and martial exercises: When, like the bee, culling from every flower The virtuous sweets, Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey, We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees, Are murdered for our pains.

King Henry V, IV, 1:
HENRY V: ...Thus may we gather honey from the weed, And make a moral of the devil himself.

Love's Labour's Lost, V, 2:
PRINCESS: Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.

Titus Andronicus, II, 3:
TAMORA: But when ye have the honey ye desire,
Let not this wasp outlive us both to sting.