With Sugre that is trye."--_Tale of Sir Thopas._

SWEET MARJORAM, _see_ MARJORAM.

SYCAMORE.

(1) _Desdemona_ (singing).

The poor soul sat sighing by a Sycamore tree.

_Othello_, act iv, sc. 3 (41).

(2) _Benvolio._

Underneath the grove of Sycamore
That westward rooteth from the city's side,
So early walking did I see your son.

_Romeo and Juliet_, act i, sc. 1 (130).

(3) _Boyet._

Under the cool shade of a Sycamore
I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (89).

In its botanical relationship, the Sycamore is closely allied to the
Maple, and was often called the Great Maple, and is still so called in
Scotland. It is not indigenous in Great Britain, but it has long been
naturalized among us, and has taken so kindly to our soil and climate
that it is one of our commonest trees. It is one of the best of forest
trees for resisting wind; it "scorns to be biassed in its mode of growth
even by the prevailing wind, but shooting its branches with equal
boldness in every direction, shows no weatherside to the storm, and may
be broken, but never can be bended."-_Old Mortality_, c. i.

The history of the name is curious. The Sycomore, or Zicamine tree of
the Bible and of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, is the Fig-mulberry, a
large handsome tree indigenous in Africa and Syria, and largely planted,
partly for the sake of its fruit, and especially for the delicious shade
it gives. With this tree the early English writers were not acquainted,
but they found the name in the Bible, and applied it to any shade-giving
tree. Thus in AElfric's Vocabulary in the tenth century it is given to
the Aspen--"Sicomorus vel celsa aeps." Chaucer gives the name to some
hedge shrub, but he probably used it for any thick shrub, without any
very special distinction--

"The hedge also that yedde in compas
And closed in all the greene herbere
With Sicamour was set and Eglateere,
Wrethen in fere so well and cunningly
That every branch and leafe grew by measure
Plaine as a bord, of an height by and by."

_The Flower and the Leaf._

Our Sycamore would be very ill suited to make the sides and roof of an
arbour, but before the time of Shakespeare it seems certain that the