N. Hopper.
O! Cupid was that saucy boy,
Who furrows deeply drew.
He broke soil, destroyed the soil
Of wild thyme wet with dew.
Before his feet, the field was sweet
With flowers and grasses green,
Behind, turn’d down, and bare and brown
By Cupid’s coulter keen.
Devonshire Songs.
“Among the Greeks, thyme denoted graceful elegance of the Attic style,” and was besides an emblem of activity. “‘To smell of Thyme’ was therefore an expression of praise, applied to those whose style was admirable” (Folkard). In the days of chivalry, when activity was a virtue very highly rated, ladies used “to embroider their knightly lovers’ scarves with the figure of a bee hovering about a sprig of thyme.”[35] In the south of France wild thyme or Ferigoule is a symbol of advanced Republicanism, and tufts of it were sent with the summons to a meeting to members of a society holding those views. Gerarde, in his writings, plainly shows that he and his contemporaries did not indiscriminately call all plants “herbs,” but distinguished them with thought and care. “Ælianus seemeth to number wild time among the floures. Dionysius Junior (saith he) comming into the city Locris in Italy, possessed most of the houses of the city, and did strew them with roses, wild time and other such kinds of floures. Yet Virgil, in the Second Eclogue of his Bucolicks doth most manifestly testifie that wilde Time is an herbe.” Here he translates:—
Thestilis, for mower’s tyr’d with parching heate,
Garlike, wild Time, strong smelling herbs doth beate.
Modern opinion confirms the view that Thymus capitatus was the thyme of the ancients. The affection of bees for thyme has often been noticed, and the “fine flavour to the honey of Mount Hymettus”[36] is said to be due to this plant. Evelyn speaks of it as having “a most agreeable odor,” and a “considerable quantity being frequently, by the Hollanders, brought from Maltha, and other places in the Streights, who sell it at home, and in Flanders for strewing amongst the Sallets and Ragouts; and call it All-Sauce.” Gerarde divides the garden thyme (T. vulgaris) and Wild Thyme or Mother of Thyme (T. serpyllum) into two chapters, but Parkinson takes them together and describes eleven kinds, including Lemmon Thyme, which has the “sent of a Pomecitron or Lemmon”; and “Guilded or embrodered Tyme,” whose leaves have “a variable mixture of green and yellow.” Abercrombie’s information is always given in a concentrated form. “An ever-green, sweet-scented, fine-flavoured, aromatic, under-shrub, young tops used for various kitchen purposes.”
[35] “Flora Symbolica.” Ingram.
[36] Hogg, “The Vegetable Kingdom and its Products.”
Viper’s Grass or Scorzonera (Scorzonera Hispanica).
The virtues of this herb were known, but not much regarded, before “Monardus,[37] a famous physician in Sivell,” published a book in which was “set downe that a Moore, a bond-slave, did help those that were bitten of that venomous beast or Viper... which they of Catalonia, where they breed in abundance, call in their language Escuersos (from whence Scorsonera is derived), with the juice of the herb, and the root given them to eate,” and states that this would effect a cure when other well-authorised remedies failed. “The rootes hereof, being preserved with sugar, as I have done often, doe eate almost as delicate as the Eringus roote.” Evelyn is loud in its praise. It is “a very sweete and pleasant Sallet, being laid to soak out the Bitterness, then peel’d may be eaten raw or condited; but, best of all, stew’d with Marrow, Spice, Wine.... They likewise may bake, fry or boil them; a more excellent Root there is hardly growing.” As “Spanish Salsify” it is much recommended by other writers.