[Sca-cooks] Moretum [long]

[Susan Fox-Davis]

Olwen the Odd wrote:

> poo..I can't open the link...
> Olwen
> >
> > > "Moretum" poem by Virgil, wherein a rustic husbandman lusts after his
> > > maidservant and makes his rustic lunch.
> > > <http://virgil.org/appendix/moretum.htm>
> > >

OK, here for your edification is the whole poem with credits from the website:

Scanned from Joseph J. Mooney (tr.), The Minor Poems of Vergil: Comprising
the Culex, Dirae, Lydia, Moretum, Copa, Priapeia, and Catalepton (Birmingham:
Cornish Brothers, 1916).

The Salad

The Latin "moretum," which is usually translated salad, would be better called

"cheese and garlic paste." It seems to have been a somewhat attractive subject

to ancient poets. A poem with this title was written by one "Sveius," and a
few
lines of it are quoted by Macrobius (iii, 18). Parthenius, who was Vergil's
instructor in Greek (Macrobius, "Saturnalia," v, 17), wrote on this subject,
and in
the Ambrosian MS. of Vergil there is a marginal note saying that Vergil's poem

was an imitation or translation of that of his teacher.

Various late grammarians mention lines 41 and 42 as from a poem by Vergil, and

Mico Levita (825-853 A.D.), who wrote a work on Latin prosody, quotes line 48
as from a work of Vergil.

                     ALREADY had the night completed ten
                     Of winter's hours, and by his crowing had
                     The winged sentinel announced the day,
                     When Symilus the rustic husbandman
                     Of scanty farm, solicitous about
                     The coming day's unpleasant emptiness,
                     Doth slowly raise the limbs extended on
                     His pallet low, and doth with anxious hand
                     Explore the stilly darkness, groping for
                     The hearth which, being burnt, at length he finds.
                     I' th' burnt-out log a little wood remained,
                     And ashes hid the glow of embers which
                     They covered o'er; with lowered face to these
                     The tilted lamp he places close, and with
                     A pin the wick in want of moisture out
                     Doth draw, the feeble flame he rouses up
                     With frequent puffs of breath. At length, although
                     With difficulty, having got a light,
                     He draws away, and shields his light from draughts
                     With partially encircling hand, and with
                     A key the doors he opens of the part
                     Shut off to store his grain, which he surveys.
                     On th'earth a scanty heap of corn was spread:
                     From this he for himself doth take as much
                     As did his measure need to fill it up,
                     Which ran to close on twice eight pounds in weight
                     He goes away from here and posts himself
                     Besides his quern,' and on a little shelf
                     Which fixed to it for other uses did
                     The wall support, he puts his faithful light.
                     Then from his garment both his arms he frees;
                     Begirt was he with skin of hairy goat
                     And with the tail thereof he thoroughly
                     Doth brush the stones and hopper of the mill.
                     His hands he then doth summon to the work
                     And shares it out to each, to serving was
                     The left directed and the right to th' toil.
                     This turns about in tireless circles and
                     The surface round in rapid motion puts,
                     And from the rapid thrusting of the stones
                     The pounded grain is running down. At times
                     The left relieves its wearied fellow hand,
                     And interchanges with it turn about.
                     Thereafter country ditties doth he sing
                     And solaces his toil with rustic speech,
                     And meanwhile calls on Scybale to rise.
                     His solitary housekeeper was she,
                     Her nationality was African,
                     And all her figure proves her native land.
                     Her hair was curly, thick her lips, and dark
                     Her colour, wide was she across the chest
                     With hanging breasts, her belly more compressed,
                     With slender legs and large and spreading foot,
                     And chaps in lengthy fissures numbed her heels.
                     He summons her and bids her lay upon
                     The hearth some logs wherewith to feed the fire,
                     And boil some chilly water on the flame.
                     As soon as toil of turning has fulfilled
                     Its normal end, he with his hand transfers
                     The copious meal from there into a sieve,
                     And shakes it. On the grid the refuse stays,
                     The real corn refined doth sink and by
                     The holes is filtered. Then immediately
                     He piles it on a board that's smooth, and pours
                     Upon it tepid water, now he brought
                     Together flour and fluid intermixed,
                     With hardened hand he turns it o'er and o'er
                     And having worked the liquid in, the heap
                     He in the meantime strews with salt, and now
                     His kneaded work he lifts, and flattens it
                     With palms of hand to rounded cake, and it
                     With squares at equal distance pressed doth mark.
                     From there he takes it to the hearth (ere this
                     His Scybale had cleaned a fitting place),
                     And covers it with tiles and heaps the fire
                     Above. And while Vulcanus, Vesta too,
                     Perform their parts i' th' meantime, Symilus
                     Is not inactive in the vacant hour,
                     But other occupation finds himself;
                     And lest the corn alone may not be found
                     Acceptable to th' palate he prepares
                     Some food which he may add to it. For him
                     No frame for smoking meat was hung above
                     The hearth, and backs and sides of bacon cured
                     With salt were lacking, but a cheese transfixed
                     By rope of broom through mid-circumference
                     Was hanging there, an ancient bundle, too,
                     Of dill together tied. So provident
                     Our hero makes himself some other wealth.
                     A garden to the cabin was attached,
                     Some scanty osiers with the slender rush
                     And reed perennial defended this;
                     A scanty space it was, but fertile in
                     The divers kinds of herbs, and nought to him
                     Was wanting that a poor man's use requires;
                     Sometimes the well-to-do from him so poor
                     Requested many things. Nor was that work
                     A model of expense, but one of care:
                     If ever either rain or festal day
                     Detained him unemployed within his hut,
                     If toil of plough by any chance was stopped,
                     There always was that work of garden plot.
                     He knew the way to place the various plants,
                     And out of sight i' th' earth to set the seeds,
                     And how with fitting care to regulate
                     The neighbouring streams. And here was cabbage, here
                     Were beets, their foliage extending wide;
                     And fruitful sorrel, elecampane too
                     And mallows here were flourishing, and here
                     Was parsnip,' leeks indebted to their head
                     For name, and here as well the poppy cool
                     And hurtful to the head, and lettuce too,
                     The pleasing rest at end of noble foods.
                     [And there the radish sweet doth thrust its points
                     Well into th' earth] and there the heavy gourd
                     Has sunk to earth upon its belly wide.
                     But this was not the owner's crop (for who
                     Than he more straightened is?). The people's 'twas
                     And on the stated days a bundle did
                     He on his shoulder into th' city bear,
                     When home he used to come with shoulder light
                     But pocket heavy, scarcely ever did
                     He with him bring the city markets' meat.
                     The ruddy onion, and a bed of leek
                     -For cutting, hunger doth for him subdue-,
                     And cress which screws one's face with acrid bite,
                     And endive, and the colewort which recalls
                     The lagging wish for sexual delights.
                     On something of the kind reflecting had
                     He then the garden entered, first when there
                     With fingers having lightly dug the earth
                     Away, he garlic roots with fibres thick,
                     And four of them doth pull; he after that
                     Desires the parsley's graceful foliage,
                     And stiffness-causing rue,' and, trembling on
                     Their slender thread, the coriander seeds,
                     And when he has collected these he comes
                     And sits him down beside the cheerful fire
                     And loudly for the mortar asks his wench.
                     Then singly each o' th' garlic heads be strips
                     From knotty body, and of outer coats
                     Deprives them, these rejected doth he throw
                     Away and strews at random on the ground.
                     The bulb preserved from th' plant in water doth
                     He rinse, and throw it into th' hollow stone.
                     On these he sprinkles grains of salt, and cheese
                     Is added, hard from taking up the salt.
                     Th' aforesaid herbs he now doth introduce
                     And with his left hand 'neath his hairy groin
                     Supports his garment;' with his right he first
                     The reeking garlic with the pestle breaks,
                     Then everything he equally doth rub
                     I' th' mingled juice. His hand in circles move:
                     Till by degrees they one by one do lose
                     Their proper powers, and out of many comes
                     A single colour, not entirely green
                     Because the milky fragments this forbid,
                     Nor showing white as from the milk because
                     That colour's altered by so many herbs.
                     The vapour keen doth oft assail the man's
                     Uncovered nostrils, and with face and nose
                     Retracted doth he curse his early meal;
                     With back of hand his weeping eyes he oft
                     Doth wipe, and raging, heaps reviling on
                     The undeserving smoke. The work advanced:
                     No longer full of jottings as before,
                     But steadily the pestle circles smooth
                     Described. Some drops of olive oil he now
                     Instils, and pours upon its strength besides
                     A little of his scanty vinegar,
                     And mixes once again his handiwork,
                     And mixed withdraws it: then with fingers twain
                     Round all the mortar doth he go at last
                     And into one coherent ball doth bring
                     The diff'rent portions, that it may the name
                     And likeness of a finished salad fit.
                     And Scybale i' th' meantime busy too
                     He lifted out the bread; which, having wiped
                     His hands, he takes, and having now dispelled,
                     The fear of hunger, for the day secure,
                     With pair of leggings Symilus his legs
                     Encases, and with cap of skin on 's head
                     Beneath the thong-encircled yoke he puts
                     Th' obedient bullocks, and upon the fields
                     He drives, and puts the ploughshare in the ground.


                     http://www.virgil.org/appendix. Last modified 31 May
1998. This page
                     maintained by David Wilson-Okamura. Email your comments
to
                     david at virgil.org.