Part 1 — LETTUCE.
Reading edition
Iago. If we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce. (See Hyssop.)
Othello, act i, sc. 3 (324).
This excellent vegetable with its Latin name probably came to us from the Romans.
"Letuce of lac derivyed is perchaunce; For milk it hath or yeveth abundaunce."
Palladius on Husbandrie, ii, 216 (15th cent.) E. E. Text Soc.
It was cultivated by the Anglo-Saxons, who showed their knowledge of its narcotic qualities by giving it the name of Sleepwort; it is mentioned by Spenser as "cold Lettuce" ("Muiopotmos"). And in Shakespeare's time the sorts cultivated were very similar to, and probably as good as, ours.