Making Perfume: Shakespeare and Distillation
Shakespeare’s works contain over 21 mentions of distillation in various contexts, four of these in the Sonnets. He and his audiences were clearly aware of this ‘scientific’ process for extracting the perfume from flowers and herbs, which had become more widespread in elite households by the 16th century.
Conrad Gesner, The Newe Jewell of Health, tr. George Baker (1576). Source: Wellcome Collection.
In perfumery, the basic principle behind steam distillation involves heating substances such as herbs and plants in liquids and then cooling down the steam to a condensed liquid phase, to extract essential oils. In this process, water mixed with fragrant plants and herbs is heated in a conduit such as a copper pot (cucurbit), until it turns to steam. The steam carries the scent molecules along into the alembic, and when it is passed through a cold phase often through glass or copper pipes, it condenses and turns into liquid again. At this point the fragrant oil separates and either floats to the surface or sinks to the bottom, depending on its relative weight.
To obtain rosewater following this method, rose petals would be mixed with water and boiled. The fragrant molecules would be transferred to the cooler part of the still along with steam, after which the rose oil would separate and float to the top. The oil would be skimmed and the remaining water would be used as rosewater or go through a second distillation. The boiled rose petals from the first pot could be taken out and dried, to be used in other recipes. It is important to note that rose oil is obtained only from certain rose varieties, such as the damask rose.
In Sonnet 54, Shakespeare’s lovely youth is a sweet rose whose sweetest odour is distilled by verse into ‘truth’. Canker-bloomes are the blossom of the dog rose (rosa canina), which are as beautiful as other roses. However, they will not yield a ‘perfumed tincture’, because, as Gerard notes, they are ‘of little or no smell at all’, and this is where they get the last part of their name, inodora (odourless).
The briar or dog rose (rosa canina inodora) in John Gerard’s Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes (London, 1597). © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
From The Poems of William Shakespeare Printed After the Original Copies (London: printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, 1893). © Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.