HYSSOP

7th March 2024

Photo Credit: kulbabka (Getty Images), CANVA

QUOTATION

Virtue? A fig! ‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.

Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.

So that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop or weed up thyme,

Supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many,

either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry,

Why the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.

IAGO: Othello, Act 1, Scene 3

HYSSOP (Hyssopus officinalis)

Iago uses Hyssop as an example of a commonly grown herb to explain his theory of character in Othello. Hyssop was commonly grown as a herb, salad plant and for many medicinal purposes.

Both John Gerard (1597) and Nicholas Culpepper (1653) tell us that Hyssop is so well known from every garden that it does not need a description. A plant named as Hyssop appears in several places in both the Geneva Bible (1560/1599) and the King James Bible (1611). Hyssop is used as part of the Passover ritual in Genesis (12:22) and as a ritual purifier in Psalm 51. King Solomon’s botanical knowledge is celebrated in 1 Kings 4:33, “and he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth from the wall”. Musselman (2007) believes that the Biblical Hyssop is Origanum syriacum rather than the plant which we call Hyssop today, Hyssopus officinalis.

Hyssop is a small evergreen shrub, a member of the Mint Family (Lamiaceae), native to Southern Europe, parts of the Mediterranean and Iran. It has been grown in Britain since at least the Medieval period.

More Information

BSBI Plant Atlas 2020: Hyssopus officinalis

Culpepper, N. 1653 The Complete Herbal.

Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

Geneva Bible (1599 edition): accessed via Bible Gateway

Gerard, J. 1597 The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes (1636 edition accessed via Archive,.org)

Kew, Plants of the World Online: Hyssopus officinalis

Musselman, L.J. 2007 Figs, Dates and Laurels: Plants of the Bible and the Quran. Timber Press