PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
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whence the proverb ttIttovos /xaAo. Kwrepos, softer than a Pum- 
pion; and even one of Homer’s heroes, incensed at the timidity 
of his soldiers, exclaims d> 7 reVovc?, you Pumpions ! So also 
cornichon (Cucumber) is a term of derision in French.” 1 
Yet the Pumpion or Gourd had its uses, moral uses. Modern 
critics have decided that Jonah’s Gourd, “which came up in a 
night and perished in a night,” was not a Gourd, but the Palma 
Christi, or Castor-oil tree. But our forefathers called it a Gourd, 
and believing that it was so, they used the Gourd to point many 
a moral and illustrate many a religious emblem. Thus viewed 
it was the standing emblem of the rapid growth and quick 
decay of evil-doers and their evil deeds. “ Cito nata, cito 
pereunt,” was the history of the evil deeds, while the doers of 
them could only say— 
‘ ‘ Quasi solstitialis herba fui, 
Repente exortus sum, repente occidi.”— Plautus. 
1 See “Merivale’s History,” vi. 206, for an account of the death of 
Claudius; his translation into a pumpkin, and Seneca’s satire on it. 
