Dried grapes, and salt, and eke new wine Newly boiled down, and assafœtida, And cheese, and thyme, and sesame, And nitre too, and cummin seed, And sumach, honey, and marjoram, And herbs, and vinegar and oil And sauce of onions, mustard and capers mix'd, And parsley, capers too, and eggs, And lime, and cardamums, and th' acid juice Which comes from the green fig-tree, besides lard And eggs and honey and flour wrapp'd in fig-leaves, And all compounded in one savoury forcemeat. The ancients were well acquainted with the Ethiopian cardamum. We must take notice that they used the words θύμος and ὀρίγανος as masculine nouns. And so Anaxandrides says-- Cutting asparagus and squills and marjoram, (ὃς) Which gives the pickle an aristocratic taste, When duly mixed (μιχθεὶς) with coriander seed. And Ion says-- But in a hurried manner in his hand He hides the marjoram (τὸν ὀρίγανον). Plato however, or Cantharus, used it as feminine, saying-- She from Arcadia brought The harshly-tasted (τὴν δριμυτάτην) marjoram. Epicharmus and Ameipsias both use it as a neuter noun; but Nicander, in his Melissurgica, uses θύμος as masculine. 78. Cratinus used the word πέπονες, which properly means merely full ripe, in speaking of the cucumbers which give seed, in his Ulysses-- Tell me, O wisest son of old Laertes, Have you e'er seen a friend of yours in Paros Buy a large cucumber that's run to seed? And Plato says in his Laius-- Do you not see That Meleager, son of mighty Glaucon, . . . . Goes about every where like a stupid cuckoo, With legs like the seedless πέπων cucumber? And Anaxilas says-- His ankles swell'd Larger than e'en a πέπων cucumber. And Theopompus says of a woman-- She was to me More tender than a πέπων cucumber.