, and a Plum pudding is called a Fig pudding.

REEDS.

(1) _2nd Servant._

I had as lief have a Reed that will do me no service, as a
partizan I could not heave.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii, sc. 7 (13).

(2) _Arviragus._

Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the Reed is as the Oak;
The sceptre, learning, physick, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

_Cymbeline_, act iv, sc. 2 (264).

(3) _Ariel._

His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of Reeds.

_Tempest_, act v, sc. 1 (16).

(4) _Ariel._

With hair up-staring--then like Reeds, not hair--

_Ibid._, act i, sc. 2 (213).

(5) _Hotspur._

Swift Severn's flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling Reeds.

_1st Henry IV_, act 1, sc. 3 (103).

(6) _Portia._

And speak between the change of man and boy
With a Reed voice.

_Merchant of Venice_, act iii, sc. 4 (66).

(7) _Wooer._

In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace
From the far shore thick set with Reeds and Sedges.

* * * * *

The Rushes and the Reeds
Had so encompast it.

_Two Noble Kinsmen_, act iv, sc. 1 (71, 80).

(8)

To Simois' Reedy banks the red blood ran.

_Lucrece_ (1437).

Reed is a general term for almost any water-loving, grassy plant, and so
it is used by Shakespeare. In the Bible it is perhaps possible to
identify some of the Reeds mentioned, with the Sugar Cane in some
places, with the Papyrus in others, and in others with the Arundo donax.
As a Biblical plant it has a special interest, not only as giving the
emblem of the tenderest mercy that will be careful even of "the bruised
Reed," but also as entering largely into the mockery of the Crucifixion:
"They put a Reed in His right hand," and "they filled a sponge full of
vinegar, and put it upon a Reed and gave Him to drink." The Reed in
these passages was probably the Arundo donax, a very elegant R