Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/34

 valuable article of female dress. Le Clerc and Rosenmüller translate it "serico;" Cocceius, Schindler, Buxtorf, in their Lexicons, and Dr. John Taylor in his Concordance, give the same interpretation. Augusti and De Wette in their German translation make it signify "a silken veil." Others give different interpretations. The only ground, on which silk of any kind is supposed to be meant, is that in the Alexandrine or Septuagint version is translated, and is explained by Hesychius to mean "the silken web fitted to be placed over the hair of the head", and that other ancient Greek lexicographers also suppose a silken garment to be meant. But the meaning of is in reality as obscure as that of. Jerome could not discover it, and concluded that the word was invented by the Greek translator. It is now extant no where else except in a passage of the comic Pherecrates preserved in Athenæus. Schneider, followed by Passow, supposes it to mean some garment made of hair, and quotes to this effect the explanation of Pollux (2. 24.),. Although, therefore, the term in question may possibly have denoted some elegant and costly ornament for the head, made at least partly of silk, yet this opinion appears to rest altogether upon the assumption, first, that the ancient lexicographers are accurate in their use of the epithet, and secondly, that the Alexandrine version is accurate in adopting the word .

In Isaiah xix. 9, according to King James's Translators and Bishop Lowth, mention is made of those "that work in fine flax," in the orignaloriginal [sic]. Rosenmüller adopts nearly the same interpretation, which is founded upon the use of the verb or  in the Chaldee and Syriac dialects to denote the operation of combing flax, wool, hair, and other substances. In this sense the word has been taken by the author of the Alexandrine Version, ; by Symmachus, who instead of uses
 * and by Jerome, "qui operabantur linum pectentes."