rts of the plant that produce the Saffron
are the sweet-scented stigmata, the "Crocei odores" of Virgil; but the
use of Saffron has now so gone out of fashion, that it may be well to
say something of its uses in the time of Shakespeare, as a medicine, a
dye, and a confection. On all three points its virtues were so many that
there is a complete literature on Crocus. I need not name all the books
on the subject, but the title page of one (a duodecimo of nearly three
hundred pages) may be quoted as an example: "Crocologia seu curiosa
Croci Regis Vegetabilium enucleatio continens Illius etymologiam,
differencias, tempus quo viret et floret, culturam, collectionem, usum
mechanicum, Pharmaceuticum, Chemico medicum, omnibus pene humani
corporis partibus destinatum additis diversis observationibus et
questionibus Crocum concernentibus ad normam et formam S. R. I. Academiae
Naturae curiosorum congesta a Dan: Ferdinando Hertodt, Phys. et Med.
Doc., &c., &c. Jenae. 1671." After this we may content ourselves with
Gerard's summary of its virtues: "The moderate use of it is good for the
head, and maketh sences more quicke and lively, shaketh off heavy and
drowsie sleep and maketh a man mery." For its use in confections this
will suffice from the "Apparatus Plantarum" of Laurembergius, 1632: "In
re familiari vix ullus est telluris habitatus angulus ubi non sit Croci
quotodiana usurpatio, aspersi vel incocti cibis." And as to its uses as
a dye, its penetrating powers were proverbial, of which Luther's Sermons
will supply an instance: "As the Saffron bag that hath bene ful of
Saffron, or hath had Saffron in it, doth ever after savour and smel of
the swete Saffron that it contayneth; so our blessed Ladye which
conceived and bare Christe in her wombe, dyd ever after resemble the
maners and vertues of that precious babe which she bare" ("Fourth
Sermon," 1548). One of the uses to which Saffron was applied in the
Middle Ages was for the manufacture of the beautiful gold colour used in
the illumination of missals, &c., where the actual gold was not used.
This is the recipe from the work of Theophilus in the eleventh century:
"If ye wish to decorate your work in some manner take tin pure and
finely scraped; melt it and wash it like gold, and apply it with the
same glue upon letters or other places which you wish to ornament with
gold or silver; and when you have polished it with a tooth, take Saffron
with which silk is colored, moistening it wi