I am having some difficulty deconstructing a line in Georgics I. It is 266 "nunc facilis rubea texatur fiscina virga".
In my dictionaries 'rubeus' is given as 'made from bramble', 'fiscina' a 'small wicker basket' and 'virga' as 'sticks, rods, wands' etc - giving the line a sort of double tautology (is there such a thing?) which I am sure would not have come from the pen of Virgil. What I think it means is something like 'now (is the time for) the skilful weaving of those small bramble wand baskets' (prickly business, no doubt), but there still seem to be too many woody words since, I believe, 'rubus' means bramble, not 'rubeus'. 'Facilis' is an interesting word inasmuch as it can seem to mean both 'easy' and 'difficult'. In the basket-weaving context I have thought of it as 'easy when you know how', when one has reached the appropriate skill level. My curiosity about this line arises from the fact that in my ecological field work I often make small stick bundles which look rather like fasces and bind them together with bramble stems. The latter are eminently suitable as they are pliant and the prickles hook them in place round the twigs, making a very secure, long-lasting tie and avoiding the need to carry string. I use these bundles as insect traps by simply lying them on the ground and knocking the contents out when I go back, but it would be an equally good way of making small firewood bundles. It is interesting to learn that the Romans knew how to put brambles to good use too and I wonder if there are related descriptions in Classical literature. Patrick Roper ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
