MARJORAM (Origanum vulgare) was a favorite plant in Tudor and Stuart times. An old writer informs us that "Sweet Marjoram is not only much used to please the outward sense in nosegays and in the windows of houses, as also in sweet powders, sweet bays and sweet washing waters, but is also of much use in physic."

Perdita classes it with hot lavender and savory.[77] Shakespeare, appreciating its delicate and delightful scent, brings this out most beautifully in his "Sonnet XCIX":

This comparison is even more lovely than Milton's description of Sabrina with her "loose braid of amber-dropping hair."

In Shakespeare's time several species were grown: the common, the winter, and the sweet. They were all favorite pot-herbs and were used in salads, if we may believe the Clown in "All's Well That Ends Well":

Lafen. 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady; we may
pick a thousand sallets ere we light on such another
herb.

Clown. Indeed, sir, she was the Sweet Marjoram of the
sallet, or, rather, the Herb of Grace.

Lafen. They are not sallet-herbs, you knave, they are
nose-herbs.

Clown. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar; sir, I have not
much skill in grass.[78]

Parkinson writes:

"The common Sweet Marjoram (Marierome) is a low herb, little above a foot high, full of branches and small whitish, soft, roundish leaves, smelling very sweet. At the tops of the branches stand divers small, scaly heads, like unto knots, of a whitish green color, out of which come, here and there, small, white flowers, and afterward small reddish seed. Called Mariorama in Latin, it is taken of most writers to be the Amaracus, or Sampsuchum, of Dioscorides, Theophrastus and Pliny."

According to the Greek myth a young man named Amarakos was employed in the household of the King of Cyprus. One day when he was carrying a vase of perfumes he dropped it, and he was so much humiliated by his carelessness that he fell and lost consciousness. The gods then changed him into the sweet herb amarakos, or amaracus, which is the Greek name for this plant. Rapin thought it owed its existence to Venus:

THYME (Thymus Serpyllum). Thyme has always been appreciated by those who delight in aromatic perfume. It was one of those plants that Lord Bacon said were so delicious when trodden upon and crushed. Thyme was the symbol for sweetness in Elizabethan days.

And sweet thyme true

was a favorite expression. "Sweet thyme true" occurs in connection with roses, "maiden pinks," and daisies in the song in "The Two Noble Kinsmen."[79]

Fairies were thought to be particularly fond of thyme, and that is one reason why Shakespeare covered the bank where Titania was wont to sleep with wild thyme. The other reason was that he chose the sweetest flowers for perfume for the canopy and couch of the Fairy Queen: musk-roses, eglantine, honeysuckle, violets, and wild thyme mingling the most delicious of scents. The word comes from the Greek and Latin thymum. Thyme covered Mount Hymettus and gave to the honey produced there a particularly delicious aromatic flavor. The "honey of Mount Hymettus" became a proverb. Hybla in Sicily was no less famed for its thyme, and, consequently, its honey. Thyme is especially a "bee-plant"; and those who would see their gardens full of bees would do well to plant thyme with lavish hand. Ladies used to embroider a bee hovering over a sprig of thyme on the scarves they gave to their lovers—a symbol of action and honor. Thyme, too, was supposed to renew the spirits of man and beast and it was deemed a powerful antidote against melancholy.

Turning to our old friend, Parkinson, we find that

"The ordinary garden Thyme (Thymus vulgatius sive durius) is a small, low, woody plant with brittle branches and small, hard, green leaves, as every one knoweth, having small white purplish flowers standing round about the tops of the stalks. The seed is small and brown, darker than Marjoram. The root is woody and abideth well divers Winters.

"To set down all the particular uses whereunto Thyme is applied were to weary both the writer and the reader. I will but only note out a few, for besides the physical uses to many purposes for the head, stomach, spleen, etc., there is no herb almost of more use in the houses both of high and low, rich and poor, both for inward and outward occasions,—outwardly for bathings among other hot herbs and among other sweet herbs for strewings. Inwardly in most sorts of broths, with Rosemary, as also with other faseting (or rather farsing) herbs,[80] and to make sauce for divers sorts, both fish and flesh, as to stuff the belly of a goose to be roasted and after put into the sauce and the powder with bread to strew on meat when it is roasted, and so likewise on roasted or fried fish. It is held by divers to be a speedy remedy against the sting of a bee, being bruised and laid thereon.

"The wild Thyme (Serpyllum hortense sive maius), growth upright, but yet is low, with divers slender branches and small round green leaves, somewhat like unto small fine Marjoram, and smelling somewhat like unto it. The flowers grow in roundels at the tops of the branches of a purplish color. And in another of this kind they are of a pure white color. There is another also that smelleth somewhat like unto Musk, and therefore called Musk Thyme, whose green leaves are not so small as the former, but larger and longer."

SAVORY (Satureia). This herb is mentioned by Perdita. It was a great favorite in the old herb-garden and was probably introduced into England by the Romans. It is mentioned in Anglo-Saxon recipes as "savorie." Both the winter and summer savory were used as seasoning for dressing and sauces. "The Winter Savory is used as a condiment and sauce to meat, to put into puddings, sausages and such-like kinds of meat." So says an old writer, who continues: "Some do use the powder of the herb dried to mix with grated bread to bread their meat, be it fish or flesh, to give it the quicker relish."

Parkinson writes:

"The Winter Savory (Satureia sive Thymbra) is a small, low, bushy herb, very like unto hyssop, but not above a foot high, with divers small, hard branches and hard, dark, green leaves thereon, thicker set together than the former by so much, and as thick as common Hyssop, sometimes with four leaves, or more, at a joint, of a reasonable strong scent, yet not so strong or quick as the former. The flowers are of a pale purplish color, set at several distances at the tops of the stalks with leaves at the joints also with them, like the former. The root is woody with divers small strings thereat, and abideth all the winter with his green leaves. It is more usually increased by slipping, or dividing, the root and new setting it, severally again in the Spring, than by sowing the seed."