(1)	Oberon.	I know a bank where the wild Thyme blows.
Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii, sc. 1 (249).
(2)	Iago.	We will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce, set Hyssop and weed up Thyme.
Othello, act i, sc. 3 (324). (See Hyssop.)
(3)		And sweet Time true.
Two Noble Kinsmen, Introd. song.

It is one of the most curious of the curiosities of English plant names that the Wild Thyme—a plant so common and so widely distributed, and that makes itself so easily known by its fine aromatic, pungent scent, that it is almost impossible to pass it by without notice—has yet no English name, and seems never to have had one. Thyme is the Anglicised form of the Greek and Latin Thymum, which name it probably got from its use for incense in sacrifices, while its other name of serpyllum pointed out its creeping habit. I do not know when the word Thyme was first introduced into the English language, for it is another curious point connected with the name, that thymum does not occur in the old English vocabularies. We have in Ælfric's "Vocabulary," "Pollegia, hyl-wyrt," which may perhaps be the Thyme, though it is generally supposed to be the Pennyroyal; we have in a Vocabulary of thirteenth century, "Epitime, epithimum, fordboh," which also may be the Wild Thyme; we have in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century, "Hoc sirpillum, A^ce petergrys;" and in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the same date, "Hoc cirpillum, A^ce a pellek" (which word is probably a misprint, for in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," c. 1440, it is "Peletyr, herbe, serpillum piretrum"), both of which are almost certainly the Wild Thyme; while in an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the tenth or eleventh century we have "serpulum, crop-leac," i.e., the Onion, which must certainly be a mistake of the compiler. So that not even in its Latin form does the name occur, except in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," where it is "Tyme, herbe, Tima, Timum—Tyme, floure, Timus;" and in the "Catholicon Anglicum," when it is "Tyme; timum epitimum; flos ejus est." It is thus a puzzle how it can have got naturalized among us, for in Shakespeare's time it was completely naturalized.

I have already quoted Lord Bacon's account of it under Burnet, but I must quote it again here: "Those flowers which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three—that is Burnet, Wild Thyme, and Water mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread;" and again in his pleasant description of the heath or wild garden, which he would have in every "prince-like garden," and "framed as much as may be to a natural wildness," he says, "I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills (such as are in wild heaths) to be set some with Wild Thyme, some with Pinks, some with Germander." Yet the name may have been used sometimes as a general name for any wild, strong-scented plant. It can only be in this sense that Milton used it—

Lycidas. for certainly a desert cave is almost the last place in which we should look for the true Wild Thyme.

It is as a bee-plant especially that the Thyme has always been celebrated. Spenser speaks of it as "the bees alluring Tyme," and Ovid says of it, speaking of Chloris or Flora—

Fasti, v.

so that the Thyme became proverbial as the symbol of sweetness. It was the highest compliment that the shepherd could pay to his mistress—

Virgil, Ecl. vii.

And it was because of its wild Thyme that Mount Hymettus became so celebrated for its honey—"Mella Thymi redolentia flore" (Ovid). "Thyme, for the time it lasteth, yeeldeth most and best honni, and therefore in old time was accounted chief (Thymus aptissimus ad mellificum—Pastus gratissimus apibus Thymum est—Plinii, 'His. Nat.')

Virgil, Georg.

Hymettus in Greece and Hybla in Sicily were so famous for Bees and Honni, because there grew such store of Tyme; propter hoc Siculum mel fert palmam, quod ibi Thymum bonum et frequens est."—Varro, The Feminine Monarchie, 1634.

The Wild Thyme can scarcely be considered a garden plant, except in its variegated and golden varieties, which are very handsome, but if it should ever come naturally in the turf, it should be welcomed and cherished for its sweet scent. The garden Thyme (T. vulgaris) must of course be in every herb garden; and there are a few species which make good plants for the rockwork, such as T. lanceolatus from Greece, a very low-growing shrub, with narrow, pointed leaves; T. carnosus, which makes a pretty little shrub, and others; while the Corsican Thyme (Mentha Requieni) is perhaps the lowest and closest-growing of all herbs, making a dark-green covering to the soil, and having a very strong scent, though more resembling Peppermint than Thyme.

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