This common body
Like to a vagabond Flag upon the stream
Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act i, sc. 4 (44).

We now commonly call the Iris a Flag, and in Shakespeare's time the Iris
pseudoacorus was called the Water Flag, and so this passage might,
perhaps, have been placed under Flower-de-luce. But I do not think that
the Flower-de-luce proper was ever called a Flag at that time, whereas
we know that many plants, especially the Reeds and Bulrushes, were
called in a general way Flags. This is the case in the Bible, the
language of which is always a safe guide in the interpretation of
contemporary literature. The mother of Moses having placed the infant in
the ark of Bulrushes, "laid it in the Flags by the river's brink," and
the daughter of Pharaoh "saw the ark among the Flags." Job asks, "Can
the Flag grow without water?" and Isaiah draws the picture of desolation
when "the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up, and the Reeds
and the Flags shall wither." But in these passages, not only is the
original word very loosely translated, but the original word itself was
so loosely used that long ago Jerome had said it might mean any marsh
plant, _quidquid in palude virens nascitur_. And in the same way I
conclude that when Shakespeare named the Flag he meant any long-leaved
waterside plant that is swayed to and fro by the stream, and that
therefore this passage might very properly have been placed under
Rushes.

FLAX.

(1) _Ford._

What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of Flax?

_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (159).

(2) _Clifford._

Beauty that the tyrant oft reclaims
Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and Flax.

_2nd Henry VI_, act v, sc. 2 (54).

(3) _Sir Toby._

Excellent; it hangs like Flax in a distaff.

_Twelfth Night_, act i, sc. 3 (108).

(4) _3rd Servant._

Go thou: I'll fetch some Flax and white of eggs
To apply to his bleeding face.[95:1]

_King Lear_, act iii, sc. 7 (106).

(5) _Ophelia._

His beard was as white as snow,
All Flaxen was his poll.

_Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 5 (195).

(6) _Leontes._

My wife deserves a name
As rank as