ay.

_Troilus and Cressida_, act i, sc. 2 (190).

(10) _Menenius._

We call a Nettle but a Nettle, and
The fault of fools but folly.

_Coriolanus_, act ii, sc. 1 (207).

(11) _Laertes._

Goads, Thorns, Nettles, tails of wasps.

_Winter's Tale_, act i, sc. 2 (329).

(12) _Iago._

If we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce.

_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (324).
(_See_ HYSSOP.)

(13) _Palamon._

Who do bear thy yoke
As 'twer a wreath of roses, yet is heavier
Than lead itselfe, stings more than Nettles.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act v, sc. 1 (101).

The Nettle needs no introduction; we are all too well acquainted with
it, yet it is not altogether a weed to be despised. We have two native
species (Urtica urens and U. dioica) with sufficiently strong qualities,
but we have a third (U. pilulifera) very curious in its manner of
bearing its female flowers in clusters of compact little balls, which is
far more virulent than either of our native species, and is said by
Camden to have been introduced by the Romans to chafe their bodies when
frozen by the cold of Britain. The story is probably quite apocryphal,
but the plant is an alien, and only grows in a few places.

Both the Latin and English names of the plant record its qualities.
Urtica is from _uro_, to burn; and Nettle is (etymologically) the same
word as needle, and the plant is so named, not for its stinging
qualities, but because at one time the Nettle supplied the chief
instrument of sewing; not the instrument which holds the thread, and to
which we now confine the word needle, but the thread itself, and very
good thread it made. The poet Campbell says in one of his letters--"I
have slept in Nettle sheets, and dined off a Nettle table-cloth, and I
have heard my mother say that she thought Nettle cloth more durable than
any other linen." It has also been used for making paper, and for both
these purposes, as well as for rope-making, the Rhea fibre of the
Himalaya, which is simply a gigantic Nettle (_Urtica_ or _Boehmeria
nivea_), is very largely cultivated. Nor is the Nettle to be despised as
an article of food.[177:1] In many parts of England the young shoots are
boiled and much relished. In 1596 Cogha