[Sca-cooks] Lemons? Limes? Confusion?
Terry Decker
t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net
Sun Jul 6 02:08:38 PDT 2008
----- Original Message -----
From: "Volker Bach" <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
> --- Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps <dephelps at embarqmail.com> schrieb am So,
> 6.7.2008:
>
>> Shakespeare mentions in his plays oranges twice, lemons once
>> and limes
>> twelve times. In the case of limes this would suggest more
>> than a passing
>> acquaintance with the fruit.
>
> Which opens the question which fruit Shakespeare was talking about. A
> problem in the German corpus is that loan words from various languages are
> used to describe citrus fruit. The common 'Limon(i)e/Limun(i)e', e.g.,
> probably actually describes the lemon (modern German Zitrone) rather than
> the lime (modern German Limone).
I've found several references to lime in Shakespeare. In Richard II, the
reference appears to be to limestone. In Henry IV, it's a reference to the
practice of adding alkaline earth to fortified wine with a similar reference
in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Midsummer Night's Dream appears to be a
reference to either limestone or cement. In Henry VI are references to
using bird lime to trap birds and meaning "to cement". I haven't found
anything to suggest that Shakespeare was referring to the fruit of C.
medica, in fact all such references in English appear to begin in the
mid-17th Century.
Also, lime or lime tree can be a reference to a linden tree, although the
reference I have found are 17th Century.
I would like to know where the references I haven't found appear in
Shakespeare, so that I might review the context.
Bear
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