The Dictionary of Fabrics & Fashion Terms in Shakespeare

FLAX

Flax (noun, often attributive): 1: any of a genus (Linum of the family Linaceae, the flax family) of herbs, especially: a slender erect annual (L. usitatissimum) with blue flowers commonly cultivated for its bast fiber and seed

2: the fiber of the flax plant especially when prepared for spinning

3: any of several plants resembling flax

 “A term such as flax [in Shakespeare] more or less denotes the object itself; however, upon its use in such a phrase as ‘no more be hid in him than flax,’ it constitutes or institutes a process that weds language to and binds language into culture. It, therefore, is resymbolized, taking on, in its institution, all of the intricate, intertwined, inextricable connections, associations, references, or allusions that language, now fully specified in its cultural context, must assume.”

— From “The Fabric’s the Thing: Literal and Figurative References to Textiles in Selected Plays of William Shakespeare” by Nancy J. Owens and Alan C. Harris 

FLAX IS MENTIONED IN TWELFTH NIGHT:

Sir Andrew: “But it becomes me well enough, does’t not?”

Sir Toby Belch: “Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off.”

Sir Andrew wants Toby’s opinion on his hair, and Toby cracks a sexual joke that refers to flax on a distaff. In the video to the left, you can see a demonstration of how flax is spun on a distaff.

In Shakespeare and Domestic Life, Sandra Clark tells us Sir Toby’s comment puns on ‘take thee’ and ‘spin it off,’ meaning that the housewife (or hussy) will take Sir Andrew sexually and bring him to orgasm). 

Clark also tells us some important information about spinning: “To spin was to draw out or twist the fibres of wool or flax into a continuous thread on a distaff. Spinning was a household industry as well as a domestic pastime for women. Spinning and weaving were often regarded as proper activities for the virtuous wife, although the word can be used by Shakespeare with bawdy implications…”

This is some very important context about the time period and how expectations of women and beliefs about their sexuality were tied up in domestic art forms like sewing, embroidery, spinning, and weaving.

And Clarke’s dictionary provides even more context on flax itself:

“Flax is the fibre of the plant Linum usitatissimum, used in the making of linen. Flax fibre was usually yellow in color (hence, ‘flaxen hair’). Flax is associated with the workaday world. Leyontes in Winter’s Tale insults his wife, whom he erroneously believes to be adulterous, by saying that she ‘deserves a name / As rank as any flax-wench that puts to / before her troth-plight,” a flax wench being a woman of the lower class employed in making clothes from flax.” So, Sir Toby Blech’s insult was not only witty—it also signified something about Shakespeare’s world, a world in which being a “flax wench” was could be a codeword for an adulterer.

In “Flax Production in the Seventeenth Century,” we learn that in order to grow, flax “needs a deep, rich soil, and, like tobacco, quickly depletes the nutrients from the land where it is planted. In early settlement days in Virginia, that meant it could only be raised on newly-cleared ground.” Today, flax is used to make food, poultry feed, oil for industrial use, and fiber.

Finally, it’s important to note what the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center tells us: “Flax is one of the oldest cultivated crops, having been grown since the beginning of civilization. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. Flax was grown primarily for use in linens. Burial chambers dating back to about 3000 B.C. depict flax cultivation and contained clothing made from flax fibers.” This term has an incredibly rich history and is still being used in multiple ways today.

THE TERM “FLAX” ALSO APPEARS IN THE FOLLOWING TEXTS:

HENRY VI, PART II

My heart is turn'd to stone: and while 'tis mine,
It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
No more will I their babes: tears virginal
Shall be to me even as the dew to fire,
And beauty that the tyrant oft reclaims
Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:
Meet I an infant of the house of York,
Into as many gobbets will I cut it
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did:
In cruelty will I seek out my fame.

WINTER’S TALE

Ha' not you seen, Camillo,—
But that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass
Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,—or heard,—
For to a vision so apparent rumour
Cannot be mute,—or thought,—for cogitation
Resides not in that man that does not think,—
My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,
Or else be impudently negative,
To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say
My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
Before her troth-plight: say't and justify't.