Note to As You Like It, 2.4.51: "wooing of a peascod"
peascod: pea pod. —Touchstone, as part of his mockery of sentimental romantic clichés, apparently alludes to a country tradition called "peascod wooing":
—from Folk-lore of Shakespeare by T.F. Thiselton Dyer, [1883], at sacred-texts.com: Chapter VIII, Plants:
—Peas. A practice called "peascod wooing" was formerly a common mode of divination in love affairs. The cook, when shelling green peas, would, if she chanced to find a pod having nine, lay it on the lintel of the kitchen door, and the first man who entered was supposed to be her future husband. Another way of divination by peascod consisted in the lover selecting one growing on the stem, snatching it away quickly, and if the good omen of the peas remaining in the husk were preserved, in then presenting it to the lady of his choice. Touchstone in "As You Like It" (ii. 4), alludes to this piece of popular suggestion:—"I remember the wooing of a peascod 2 instead of her." Gay, who has carefully chronicled many a custom of his time, says in his "Fourth Pastoral":—
"As peascods once I pluck'd, I chanc'd to see,
One that was closely fill'd with three times three,
Which when I cropp'd I safely home convey'd,
And o'er my door the spell in secret laid."
We may quote as a further illustration the following stanza from Browne's "Pastorals" (Bk. ii., song 3).
"The peascod greene, oft with no little toyle,
He'd seek for in the fattest, fertil'st soile,
And rende it from the stalke to bring it to her,
And in her bosom for acceptance wooe her."