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Some Cucurbitaceae in Latin Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

F. A. Todd
Affiliation:
University of Sydney.

Extract

Blockhead or or Baldhead?

(i) Petron. Sat. 39. 12: ‘in Aquario (nascuntur) copones et cucurbitae’.

(ii) Apul.Met. I. 15: ‘nos cucurbitae caput non habemus ut pro te moriamur’.

Cucurbita in its literal use is the name of many varieties of the numerous family of Cucurbitaceae, as one may learn, e.g. from Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. It is also the name of the cupping instrument called by Juvenal, xiv. 58, uentosa cucurbita, for which see Mayor's note ad loc. For other metaphorical uses of the name, Forcellini and the Thes. Ling. Lat. cite only the two passages quoted above; of these two, Lewis and Short cite only the former. Lexicographers and editors,1 comparing the one passage with the other, concur in the view that the cucurbita is the symbol of stupidity, and that a stupid man may be called a cucurbita, as in Petronius, or be said cucurbitae caput habere, as in Apuleius. At first sight their interpretation of the Apuleian phrase is plausible, for it makes tolerable sense in the context and appears to be supported by such modern expressions as ‘pumpkin-head’ and Kürbiskopf and κεχλι κολοκνθνιον, all of which liken the head of a stupid man to a pumpkin or other gourd which, though bearing some resemblance to a human head, encloses not a brain but an insensate mass of pulp and seeds. But ‘to have a pumpkin-head’ and ‘to be a pumpkin’ are prima facie very different, for the latter equates the man himself with the cucurbita, whereas it is only qua substitute for a head that the cucurbita can typify stupidity; and when it is further observed that in the Petronian passage cucurbitae so interpreted accords ill with the context, it becomes clear that some other explanation must be sought.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1943

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References

page 102 note 1 Friedlaender is an exception. In his version of the Cena Trimalchimis, I.c., he translates cucurbitae ‘Kürbisse’ and, in a footnote, offers the absurd alternative ‘Schröpfköpfe’ (‘cuppingglasses’).

page 101 note 2 For the modern Greek phrase see Schmidt, Bemhard, Rhein. Mus., N.F. xxxiii (1878), p. 637 fGoogle Scholar.

page 101 note 3 In vulgar French coloquinle is used for t' de Vreese, , in his long and laborious dissertation Petron 39 und die Astrologie (Amsterdam, 1927)Google Scholar, falls into the fatal error of taking Trimalchio's astrology seriously. The value and interest of his work consist not in the elucidation of Petronius 39 but in the collection and marshalling of astrological lore.

page 101 note 5 The metrically sound original of this couplet was probably

talia te fallant utinam mendacia, copo: nobis uendis aquam, tu bibis ipse merum.

The omission of n before a dental is found else. where; the substitution of ě for is common.

page 101 note 6 In Trimalchio's catalogue only persons are specified as being born in the several signs, excepting the bigae and boues which are born in Geminis; and even these are at any rate living creatures: the bigae teams of two horses or other animals, the bouse oxen yoked in pairs for ploughing or draught. The colei which are also brought under Gemini are not colei in the literal sense but hirneosi, one of the commonest butts of ancient wit, as appears plainly from Martial, xii. 83 ‘derisor Fabianus hirnearum, | omens quem modo colei timebant | dicentem tumidas in hydrocelas, | … | in thermis subito Neronianis | uidit se miser, et tacere coepit’. Hey in the Thes. Ling. Lot. s.v. coleus says that in these passages of Petronius and Martial the word is used mttonymice, ut uidetar, de personis, but offers no interpretation.

page 103 note 1 This disposes of Leo's view, mentioned with evident approval by Helm (ed. Teubn., ad loc.), that the words nam nos … moriamur cannot be spoken by the janitor but belong properly to some companion or servant of Aristomenes, and that accordingly Apuleius—an excellent Greek scholar—must have mistranslated his original.

page 104 note 1 One may compare the Italian zucca. Donatello's bald-headed figure on Giotto's campanile at Florence is popularly known as 11 Zuccone.

page 104 note 2 Suet. Claud. iii. 2 ‘mater Antonia portentumeum (sc. Claudium) hominis dictitabat’; Iuv. Sat. v. 9 ‘tantine iniuria cenae?’

page 104 note 3 Epit. lx. 35 σφνθη… εενκας σὺγγραμμα ποκολοκὺντωοιν αὐν ωσπερ τιντισιν νομσας

page 104 note 1 Apoc. 5. 2 bene canwn; cf. Suet. Claud. 30 specie canitieque pulchra.

page 105 note 1 So I interpret the phrase. For the vulgate interpretation of codex as ‘dolt’, ‘blockhead’, the only authority cited is Ter. H.T. 876 f. ‘in me quiduis harum rerum conuenit | quae sunt dicta in stulto, caudex stipes asinus plumbeus’, which is far from proving that caudex or codex, as epithet or description of a person, can have no other meaning even after the lapse of two centuries. Nor is even an angry Trimalchio likely to haave called Fortunata stupid. On the contrary, she is a highly intelligent woman, sicca, sobria, bonorum consiliorum (37.7) who has husbanded Trimalchio's resources and enriched him (ibid.) and, generally, served as his invaluable factotum (ibid.) she is first seen (37. 1) scurrying about, attending to household affairs, too busy to join the dinner-party. In 67. 1–2, when Habinnas asks why she has not come to dinner, Trimalchio replies, with evident pride in his jewel of a wife, ‘nisi argentum comas epithet or description of a person, can have posierit, nisi reliquias pueris diuiserit, aquam in os suum non coniciet’; and presently, when she has come to table, she is praised for diligentia mains familiae (67. 11). It is her addiction to housekeeping which causes an angry and ungrateful husband to name her from the codex, housekeeping-book, which she bears with her always as her badge of office.

page 106 note 1 There is a drawing of this in Gusman's, Pompéi, p. 240Google Scholar

page 106 note 2 This is evidently the meaning. It would be small praise of a turricula, as ensuring honesty, to contrast it with the hand of the gamester, even if it were at all likely that, when play was for stakes, dice were thrown, unless in exceptional circumstances, directly from the hand. The contrast is with the common sort of dice-box. Friedlaender, W. Gilbert, Duff (C.P.L.), Lindsay (O.C.T.), and Heraeus (Teubn.) all accept, against MSS. and gammar and sense, Schneidewin's conjecture feret (for facit), which is derived from the variant ferret found in a single manuscript. The perfect misit is well used: the uota of the gamester are made in the moment of suspense between the discharge of the dice and their coming to rest on the gaming-board.

page 106 note 3 I see no reason for doubting the derivation from fritinnio. As the masc. noun capulus was formed on the verb capio, 80 was *frutinnulus formed on teh verb frintinnio, and this, by syncope and assimilation, produced fuitillus; one may compare catinulus> *coronula> corolla, *personula>persolla. The nature of the sound represented by fritinnio had made some etymologists hesitate, since it is sometimes the chirping of birds, a sound not very close to that produced by the shaking of dice. But the author of the Carmen de Philomela (Baehrens, , P.L.M. v, p. 365Google Scholar) says that rauca cicada fritinit, and no one who is familiar with cicadas can fail to recognize both the aptness of rauca and the frequent likeness of their noise to that of shaken dice. In English we speak of the ‘rattle’ of dice; an Australian child, if asked why he takes a cicada in his hand and shakes it, will say ‘to make him “rattle”’.

page 106 note 4 For information about gourds in antiquity I refer to Orth's article, S.V. ‘Kürbis’ in Pauly-Wissowa, xi. 2, 2104–5.

page 107 note 1 One may suspect that among poor people the crepitaculum of a baby was often a small dry gourd.

page 108 note 1 In his edition of Juvenal in usum editorum (Grant Richards, 1905)Google Scholar.

page 108 note 2 Though Theophrastus distinguishes between κολοκὺντη and σικὺα (e.g. i. 13. 3 κα ἢ κολοκὺντη κα ἢ σικὺα), the difference is only one of species. Pliny, borrowing from Theophrastus, calls both of them cucurbita: for σικὺντν compaare Theophr.i.12.2 with Plin.xix.61.186.

page 109 note 1 For the signification ofbarbata see Mart. x. 90, 1–10 quoted by Housman, ad loc. The woman is nto παρτετιλννη.

page 109 note 2 They have treated similarly the word quintion, as to which vide infra. The spelling χειλειδών for χειλειδών is vulgar. The substitution of ει for ι is found occasionally in Pompeian inscriptions, as in C.I.L. iv. 2411 a' αφροδεὡτη = δτη and iv. 733 καλλλἰνεικ̆ς = -νικος but since ει for εει, if the ι is genuine and not an accidental chip in the stone, is a slip due to anticipation of the second ει, or alternatively that it repre-sents the sound which in the vulgar Latin of the graffiti is variously written as or : one may cite for ει representing or one may cite C.I.L. iv. 6828 ππλεικς = pulicus and 4839 εἰδας = ἰδας. At any rate the word is a spelling of χελιδών, all that concerns us here.

page 109 note 3 It seems likely that the phallic shape of the gourd suggested the medical use of which Hippocrates writes.

page 110 note 1 It seems possible that this development was helped by popular etymology, through association of clis or clus = membrum uirile. I note in passing that the word coloso, occurring only, and without context, in C.I.L. iv. 4799, is probably deried from this as an equivalent of membroso; the Thesaurus enters it, tentatively, under colossus. (Thr irregularity of the last letter, as shown in Mau's suggests that the graffito has suffered injury at that point and that the scribe may have written the nominative colosus.)

page 110 note 2 Lommatzsch, mistaking this for a dactylic hexameter spoilt by an intrusive te, includes it 25 No. 1938 in his Supplement to Buecheler's Carmina Epigraphica, but the occurrence in it of the two Pompeian names Hysochrysus ( = Iscohrysus) and Natalis, implying an origina; composition of the scribe, shows that the approximation to verse is accidental. Vulgar and uneducated Pompeian scribblers (note the misspelling Hysochryse) do not attempt composition in the exotic quantitative metres. Heraeus, says Lommatzsch, took uerpa in the familiar sense of membrum uirile and madeof Natalis a genitive; no doubt he would not have done so had he known the other sense of the word. In case any should think that Hysochryse puer has a poetical ring, I cite the Pompeian graffito Not. d. Scav., 1939, p. 262, n. 135 Eucapa puer ua(le), where there is no suggestion of verse.