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VIRGIL'S LIME-WOOD YOKE (GEORGICS 1.173–4)1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2013

Francis Cairns
Francis Cairns*
Affiliation:
The Florida State University / Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge
*
[email protected]
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Extract

      caeditur et tilia ante iugo leuis altaque fagus
      stiuaque, quae currus a tergo torqueat imos

In these two lines of his instructions for making a plough Virgil prescribes (173) the wood of the tilia (lime) as suitable for the iugum (yoke); he also (173–4) mentions the fagus (beech), seemingly in connection with the making of the stiua (stilt/handle). These recommendations are both problematic, and since the latter admits of no sure solution, treatment of it is relegated to a brief Appendix (below). The body of this paper has two aims: 1) to propose a new understanding of Virgil's prescription of the tilia for the iugum; and 2) to draw attention to Virgil's use of the Hesiod scholia in his plough instructions.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , May 2013 , pp. 434 - 438
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013

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Footnotes

1

I am very much indebted to CQ's anonymous referees for valuable guidance.

References

2 For the names of the different parts of the plough I follow White, K.D., Agricultural Implements of the Roman World (Cambridge, 1967), ch. 7 = 123–45Google Scholar.

3 Meiggs, R., Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford, 1982), 34Google Scholar.

4 Meiggs (n. 3), 483 n. 57 added ‘Maple and hornbeam were commonly used: HP 5.7.6; Vitr. 2.9.12’. Mynors, R.A.B., Virgil. Georgics: Edited with a Commentary (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar, 39 on G. 1.173 agreed that lime-wood ‘lacks the essential strength’; Plin. HN 16.207 described the tilia as mollissima.

5 Cf. Spurr, M.S., ‘Agriculture and the Georgics’, G&R 33 (1986), 164–87Google Scholar, repr. with minimal alterations as ch. 2 (14–42) of Volk, K. (ed.), Vergil's Georgics, Oxford Readings in Classical Studies (Oxford, 2008)Google Scholar.

6 Cf. Thomas, R.F., ‘Prose into poetry: tradition and meaning in Virgil's Georgics’, HSPh 91 (1987), 229–60Google Scholar.

7 For Virgilian pseudo-etymologies in general cf. O'Hara, J.J., True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 1996); for Latin-Greek examples see p. 63Google Scholar.

8 O'Hara (n. 7), 63 notes another parallel, uaccinium (Verg. Ecl. 2.18) = ὑάκινθος (Theoc. Id. 10.28), first proposed by Du Quesnay, I.M.Le M. ‘From Polyphemus to Corydon: Virgil, Eclogue 2 and the Idylls of Theocritus’, in West, D. and Woodman, T. (edd.), Creative Imitation and Latin Literature (Cambridge, 1979), 35–69 and 206–21, 40 and 210 n. 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Ecl. 1.1; 2.3; 3.12; 3.37; 5.13; 9.9; G. 1.173; 2.71; 3.172; 4.566.

10 Pace Meiggs (n. 3), 34. Mynors (n. 4), 39 on G. 1.173 speculated that fagus there might mean hornbeam on the basis of its appearance and of Vitr. 2.9.12, where it is identified ‘with the zugia or “yoke-tree” of Greek’.

11 Cf. O'Hara (n. 7), 63, 243–4, 277 for discussion and bibliography. As Meiggs (n. 3), 34 pointed out, ‘beech is a very poor wood for an axle, which needs the strength of an oak or some other very hard wood’. But Meiggs refused to believe that by faginus Virgil could have meant oak!

12 The terms are related in another way too: tilia was also used of the inner bark of the elm (Plin. HN 24.48–9). But this is probably not relevant to Virgil's etymology. Maggiulli, G., Incipiant silvae cum primum surgere. Mondo vegetale e nomenclatura della flora di Virgilio, Bibliotheca Athena ns 5 (Rome, 1995), 460–1 offers no further insight into Virgil's use of tiliaGoogle Scholar.

13 Mynors (n. 4), 39 on G. 1.173. An apparent contradiction to the argument so far advanced might be seen in Hawkins, H., ‘Ox harness for cultivating sugar cane with oxen, single, tandem or in yoke’, The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer 47.20 (November 11, 1911), 325Google Scholar: ‘A yoke for oxen, whether single or double, is usually made of some fine-grained wood, like birch, linden [my italics], magnolia or the like.’ But Mr. Hawkins, a Louisiana sugar planter, may have been thinking of Virgil's recommendation, or his ‘linden’ may be a different wood.

14 Most of these (along with the similarities between the two texts) are summarized by Farrell, J., Vergil's Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic: The Art of Allusion in Literary History (New York and Oxford, 1991), 70–7Google Scholar.

15 Cf. Harrison, S.J., ‘Virgil's Corycius senex and Nicander's Georgica’, in Gale, M. (ed.), Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry: Genre, Tradition and Individuality (Swansea, 2004), 109–123Google Scholar.

16 For Menecrates cf. Supplementum Hellenisticum, frr. 542–50.

17 Cf. Schlunk, R., The Homeric Scholia and the Aeneid (Ann Arbor, 1974)Google Scholar; and, more recently, Schmit-Neuerburg, T., Vergils Aeneis und die antike Homerexegese. Untersuchungen zum Einfluss ethischer und kritischer Homerrezeption auf imitatio und aemulatio Vergils (Berlin, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 For Virgil's use of allegory from the Homer scholia when adapting Homer in Georgics 4 cf. Farrell (n. 14), 256–72.

19 Cf. Marzillo, P., Der Kommentar des Proklos zu Hesiods Werken und Tagen. Edition, Übersetzung und Erlaüterungen der Fragmente, Classica Monacensia 33 (Tübingen, 2010), liv–lviiGoogle Scholar.

20 Cf. West, M.L., Hesiod. Works and Days (Oxford, 1978), 63–9Google Scholar.

21 However, Virgil's aures (172) are absent both from Hesiod and the Hesiod scholia.

22 Schol. vet. ad Op. 465–9, p. 157.19; p. 158.3 Pertusi.

23 So White (n. 2), 124, 137–9; other scholars usually render stiua as handle.

24 For details cf. Mynors (n. 4), 38–9 on G. 1.174.

25 Page, T.E., P. Vergili Maronis Bucolica et Georgica: With Introduction and Notes (London, 1898), 204–5 on G. 1.173Google Scholar.

26 Thomas, R.F., Vergil. Georgics, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1988), 1.97 on G. 1.173–4Google Scholar.

27 Cf. also Erren, M., Publius Vergilius Maro. Georgica 2, Kommentar (Heidelberg, 2003), 117 on G. 1.173 altaque etc.: ‘Eine hohe Buche, nämlich für den Sterz’Google Scholar.

28 Mynors (n. 4), 39 on G. 1.173.