Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site

FALSE PARALLELS IN DAVID KATHMAN’S ‘DATING THE TEMPEST’ 48
________________________________________________________________________
David Kathman's false parallel can thus be analyzed as follows:
An island with both cedar and oak trees.
Not true for The Tempest.
Not true for the Strachey letter.
Ergo: a false parallel (or rather, a non-existent parallel).
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
(26) David Kathman writes:
Strachey mentions the "Berries, whereof our men seething, straining, and letting stand
some three or four daies, made a kind of pleasant drinke" (18);
Caliban says that Prospero "wouldst give me / Water with berries in't" (1.2.333-34).
This is another false parallel. What Strachey actually wrote was:
[The Bermuda islands] are full of shaws [=thickets] of goodly cedar, fairer than ours
here of Virginia, the berries whereof our men, seething, straining, and letting stand some
three or four days, made a kind of pleasant drink These berries are of the same bigness
and color of corinths [=currants], full of little stones and very restringent [=astringent]
or hard-building. (Wright, p. 24)
While Shakespeare is speaking of water with fruit such as raspberries, blackberries etc.
dropped whole into it, Strachey is speaking of a drink made from the 'berries' of the cedar
tree in which the 'berries' are seethed [=boiled], and then strained. The resulting drink is
then left to stand for three or four days before being used. In this boiled and strained
drink no trace would remain of the original form of the cedar 'berries'. Moreover, the taste
of this astringent drink would not resemble at all the taste of water with fresh fruit
dropped into it.
David Kathman's false parallel can thus be analyzed as follows:
A drink made of boiled and strained cedar berries.
Not true for The Tempest.
True for the Strachey letter.
Ergo: a false parallel.
Incidentally, there is information about the medical use of cedar berries on the internet,
and a photograph of them at:
© 2005 Nina Green All Rights Reserved
http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/