Thomas Hill, The gardeners labyrinth..., 1577 - text, p.A1r, gardeners at work..

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Date:1577

Description:Shakespeare’s gardeners in Richard II tended their garden in this way.

Thomas Hill’s handbook which explains the tasks of a garden’s care includes this woodcut of an arbour which would be an ideal place for Benedick, or Beatrice to hide in Much Ado About Nothing, and Shakespeare introduced the work of weeding and tying up of plants into Richard II. ‘Go bind thou up yond dangling apricocks... cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays...I will go root away the noisome weeds’ (Richard II, 3,4, lines 30-40). ‘bid her [Beatrice] steal into the pleached bower, where honeysuckles, ripen’d by the sun, forbid the sun to enter ‘(Much Ado About Nothing, 3,1, lines 4-12).

Full title: Thomas Hill, The gardeners labyrinth: containing a discourse of the gardeners life in the yearly travels to be bestowed on his plot of earth,... wherein are set forth divers hebers, knottes and mazes ... also the physicke benefit of each herbe, plant and floure gathered... by Didymus Mountaine, London, Henry Bynneman, 1577.


Timeline

The timeline shows resources around this location over a number of years.

1570s
Henri Estienne, A mervaylous discourse upon... Katherine de Medici…, 1575 - title page
Henri Estienne, A mervaylous discourse upon... Katherine de Medici…, 1575 - title page

Shakespeare may have owned this book. Shakespeare purchased New Place, the largest ...

1590s
William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1594, leaf F4v.
William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1594, leaf F4v.

Shakespeare’s first published works. The long poem, Venus and Adonis, was ...

1610s
George Tuberville, The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting, 1611 -  A royal picnic, p.91.
George Tuberville, The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting, 1611 - A royal picnic, p.91.

A picnic for Shakespeare's royal patron. Among the many engravings of huntsmen ...

1630s
William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, 1631 - Act 4 begins with after dinner discussion
William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, 1631 - Act 4 begins with after dinner discussion

Shakespeare’s schoolteacher is parodied. Much of the comedy in Love’s ...

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Donor ref:SR 97.3 [30,078] (32/10543)

Source: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust - Library

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