'According to Greek myth, the artichoke owes its existence to the philandering Zeus who, on a visit to his brother Poseidon, spotted a gorgeous girl, Cynara, bathing on the beach. He fell instantly in love, seduced her, made her a goddess, and took her back with him to Mount Olympus. Cynara, however, lonesome and missing her mother, soon took to sneaking home to visit her family. This duplicitous act so infuriated Zeus that he tossed Cynara from Olympus and turned her into an artichoke. The modern scientific name for artichoke, Cynara Cardunculus, refers.'
“Looking back on months and years of intimacy, to feel that your friend, while you still remember the moving words you exchanged, is yet growing distant and living in a world apart —all this is sadder far than partings brought by death.”
Yoshida Kenko, Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko, 1330 - 1332