Were as silent as ever old Timolus was Listening to my sweet pipings.
In my garden grew plenty of thyme, It would flourish by night and by day, O’er the wall came a lad, he took all that I had, And stole my thyme away.
O! And I was a damsel so fair, But fairer I wished to appear, So I washed me in milk, and I dressed me in silk, And put the sweet thyme in my hair.
Beneath your feet, Thyme that for all your bruising smells more sweet.
Some from the fen bring reeds, wild thyme from downs, Some from a grove, the bay that poets crowns.
Here, dancing feet fall still, Here, where wild thyme and sea-pinks brave wild weather.
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.
“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.”