NETTLES

CORDELIA

Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,

With burdocks, hemlock, NETTLES,

cuckoo-flowers.

—King Lear [Act IV, sc. 4]

GERTRUDE

Crow-flowers, NETTLES, daisies,

and long purples.

—Hamlet [Act IV, sc. 7]

ANTONIO

He’d sow’t with NETTLE-SEED.

—Tempest [Act II, sc. 1]

SATURNINUS

Look for thy reward

Among the NETTLES at the elder tree.

—Titus Andronicus [Act II, sc. 3]

RICHARD II

Yield STINGING NETTLES to my enemies.

—Richard II [Act III, sc. 2]

HOTSPUR

I tell you, my lord fool, out of this NETTLE,

danger,

we pluck this flower, safety.

—Henry IV, Pt. 1 [Act II, sc. 3]

ELY

The strawberry grows underneath

the NETTLE.

—Henry V [Act 1, sc. 1]

CRESSIDA

I’ll spring up in his tears, an ’twere a NETTLE

against May.

—Troilus and Cressida [Act I, sc. 2]

LEONTES

Sully the purity and whiteness of my sheets?

Which to preserve is sleep; which being spotted

Is goads, thorns, NETTLES, tails of wasps.

—Winter’s Tale [Act I, sc. 2]

MENENIUS

We call a NETTLE but a NETTLE, and

the fault of fools but folly.

—Coriolanus [Act II, sc. 1]

PALAMON

Who do bear thy yoke

As ’twere a wreath of roses, yet is heavier

Than lead itself, stings more than NETTLES.

—Two Noble Kinsmen [Act V, sc. 1]

IAGO

If we will plant NETTLES or sow lettuce.

—Othello [Act I, sc. 3]