4. With respect to Cucumbers.—There is a proverb—

Eat the cucumber, O woman, and weave your cloak.

And Matron says, in his Parodies—

And I saw a cucumber, the son of the all-glorious Earth,
Lying among the herbs; and it was served up on nine tables.[123:1]

And Laches says—

But, as when cucumber grows up in a dewy place.

Now the Attic writers always use the word σίκυον as a word of three syllables. But Alcæus uses it as a dissyllable, σίκυς; for he says, δάκῃ τῶν σικύων from the nominative σίκυς, a word

[[124]]like στάχυς, στάχυος. And Phrynichus uses the word σικύδιον as a diminutive, where he says—

Εντραγεῖν σικύδιον, to eat a little cucumber.

[From this point are the genuine words of Athenæus.[124:1]]