GRASSES

*Stover*Fescue*Honey-stalks

HENRY V

Mowing like GRASS

Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.

—Henry V [Act III, sc. 3]

GRANDPRE

And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit

Lies foul with chew’d GRASS,

still and motionless.

—Henry V [Act III, sc. 2]

FIRST BANDIT

We cannot live on GRASS, on berries, water,

As beasts and birds and fishes.

—Timon of Athens [Act IV, sc. 3]

CERES

Why hath thy Queen

Summon’d me hither

to this SHORT-GRASS’D green?

—Tempest [Act IV, sc. 1]

ELY

Grew like the summer GRASS,

fastest by night . . .

—Henry V [Act I, sc. 1]

LAVATCH/CLOWN

I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir,

I have not much skill in GRASS.

—All’s Well That Ends Well [Act IV, sc. 5]

RICHARD II

And bedew

Her pasture’s GRASS

with faithful English blood.

—Richard II [Act III, sc. 3]

TAMORA

I will enchant the old Andronicus

With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,

Than baits to fish,

or HONEY-STALKS to sheep,

When, as the one is wounded with the bait,

The other rotted with delicious feed.

—Titus Andronicus [Act IV, sc. 4]

IRIS

Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,

and flat meads thatch’d with STOVER,

them to keep.

—Tempest [Act IV, sc. 1]

SUFFOLK

Though standing naked on a mountain top

Where biting cold would never let GRASS grow.

—Henry VI, Pt. 2 [Act III, sc. 2]

LYSANDER

When Phœbe doth behold

Her silver visage in the watery glass,

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed GRASS.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act I, sc. 1]

JOHN OF GAUNT

Suppose the singing birds musicians,

The GRASS whereon thou tread’st

the presence strew’d,

The flowers fair ladies.

—Richard II [Act I, sc. 3]

JACK CADE

All the realm shall be in common;

and in Cheapside shall my

palfrey go to GRASS.

—Henry VI, Pt. 2 [Act IV, sc. 2]

JACK CADE

Wherefore on a brick wall have I climbed into

this garden, to see if I can eat GRASS or pick

a sallet another while, which is not amiss to

cool a man’s stomach this hot weather.

—Henry VI, Pt. 2 [Act IV, sc. 10]

KING FERDINAND

Say to her, we have measured many miles

To tread a measure with her on this GRASS.

BOYET

They say, that they have measured

many a mile

To tread a measure with you on the GRASS.

—Love’s Labour’s Lost [Act V, sc. 2]

SATURNINUS

These tidings nip me, and I hang the head

As flowers with frost or GRASS

beat down with storms.

—Titus Andronicus [Act IV, sc. 4]

HAMLET

Ay but, sir, “while the GRASS grows”—the

proverb is something musty.

—Hamlet [Act III, sc. 2]

OPHELIA

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone;

At his head a GRASS-GREEN turf,

At his heels a stone.

—Hamlet [Act IV, sc. 5]

LUCIANA

If thou art changed to aught, ’tis to an ass.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

’Tis true; she rides me, and I long for GRASS.

—Comedy of Errors [Act II, sc. 2]

SALARINO

I should be still

Plucking the GRASS to know where sits

the wind.

—Merchant of Venice [Act I, sc. 1]

GONZALO

How lush and lusty the GRASS looks!

how green!

—Tempest [Act II, sc. 1]

IRIS

Here, on this GRASS-PLOT, in this very place

To come and sport.

—Tempest [Act IV, sc. 1]

BOLINGBROKE

Here we march

Upon the GRASSY carpet of the plain.

—Richard II [Act III, sc. 3]

THIRD COUNTRYMAN

Ay, do, but put

a FESCUE in her fist and you shall see her

take a new lesson out and be a good wench.

Do we all hold against the Maying?

—Two Noble Kinsmen [Act II, sc. 3]

Within this limit is relief enough,

Sweet BOTTOM-GRASS

and high delightful plain,

Round rising hillocks,

BRAKES obscure and rough . . .

—Venus and Adonis

The GRASS stoops not,

she treads on it so light.

—Venus and Adonis

For on the GRASS she lies as she were slain,

Till his breath breatheth life in her again.

—Venus and Adonis