And again he says—

Did you e'er see a sausage toasted,
Or dish of tripe well stuff'd and roasted?
Or damascenes stew'd in rich confection?—
Such was that gentleman's complexion.

Nicander says—

The fruit they call a plum, the cuckoo's prize.

But Clearchus the Peripatetic says that the Rhodians and Sicilians call plums βράβυλα, and so Theocritus the Syracusan uses the word—

Heavy with plums, the branches swept the ground.

And again he says—

Far as the apple doth the plum surpass.

But the damascene is smaller in circumference than other plums, though in flavour it is very like them, except that it is a little sharper. Seleucus, in his Dictionary, says that

[[82]] βράβυλα, ἦλα, κοκκύμηλα, and μάδρυα are all different names for the same thing; and that plums are called βράβυλα, as being good for the stomach, and βορὰν ἐκ βάλλοντα, that is, assisting to remove the food; and ἦλα, which is the same word as μῆλα, meaning simply fruit, as Demetrius Ixion says in his Etymology. And Theophrastus says, κοκκύμηλα καὶ σποδιάς: σποδιὰς being a kind of wild plum. And Araros calls the tree which bears the fruit κοκκυμηλέα, and the fruit itself κοκκύμηλον. And Diphilus of Siphnos pronounces plums to be juicy, digestible, and easily evacuated, but not very nutritious.