With respect to Cucumbers.—There is a proverb—
Eat the cucumber, O woman, and weave your cloak.And Matron says, in his Parodies—
And I saw a cucumber, the son of the all-glorious Earth,And Laches says—
Lying among the herbs; and it was served up on nine tables.1
But, as when cucumber grows up in a dewy place,Now the Attic writers always use the word σίκυον as a word of three syllables. But Alcæus uses it as a dissyllble, σίκυς; for he says, δάκῃ τῶν σικύων from the nominative σίκυς, a word [p. 124] like στάχυς, στάχυος. And Phrynichus uses the word σικύδιον as a diminutive, where he says—
εντραγεῖν σικύδιον, to eat a little cucumber.
[From this point are the genuine words of Athenœus.]2
I will send radishes and four cucumbers.And Phrynichus too used the word σικύδιον as a diminutive, in his Monotropus; where he says, κἀντραγεῖν σικύδιον.