In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, John
O'Flynn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
Greetings to the list.
Why, in Georgics 1.295, is the peasant woman boiling the must?
Thomas's note ad loc. leaves me entirely mystified: "The boiling down
of must was a means of bypassing fermentation." How on earth can you
make wine without fermentation? If you boil down the must you'll simply
end with concentrated grape juice.
In reading the _Georgics_, the first resource, especially on these rural
matters, should always be Mynors, who writes on p. 68 of his posthumous
edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990):
'we turn back from the long winter evenings to a busy spell in October,
when selected must from the wine-press is boiled down into a sweet syrup
of various strengths, to blend with natural wines in order to improve
them and make them keep (Col[umella] 2.21.4 'uinum defrutare'), or for
use in home medicine or in the kitchen, or for sale. Varro [De Vita
Populi Romani lib. I, cited by Nonius p. 551M [= p. 885 Lindsay, s.v.
sapa], says that reduction by one-half produced _sapa_ (which is a
festive drink in Ovid _fasti_ 4.780), and by two-thirds the _defrutum_
of _G[eorgics] 4.269. Pallad[ius] 11.18 adds _caroenum_, from redction
by one-third; but there is some variety in the names used. In the full
description in Col. 12.19-21, the boiling liquor is skimmed with bunches
of fennel tied on sticks (V's _follis_), or with strainers plaited from
rushes or broom. _dulcis_ is noted by Quintilian 8.2.10 as an example of
the well-chosen epithet.'
Mynors goes on to discuss the use of _Volcano_ as metonym for fire and
the hypermetric elision _umor(em)_. On the next line he notes at _aëni_:
Col. 12.20.2 and Pliny 14.136 advise the use of lead for the vessel
rather than bronze.
and considers a possible echo from the _Erga_ of Menecrates of Ephesus.
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
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Leofranc Holford-Strevens
67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone
Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter?
OX2 6EJ
tel. +44 (0)1865 552808(home)/353865(work) fax +44 (0)1865 512237
email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (home)/[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work)
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