Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/56

 ON A STATUE OF VERTUMNUS.

My nature suits each changing form: Turn'd into what you please, I'm fair. Clothe me in Coan, I'm a decent lass, Put on a toga, for a man I pass.

L. iv. 2.

The texture of the Coan Minerva.

L. iv. 5.

Who gives no Coan robe, but verse instead, Artless shall be his lyre, his verses dead.

Ibid.

The same poet (L. iv. 8. 23.) mentions "Serica carpenta," chariots with silk curtains; and the following line (L. i. 14. 22.) shows, that couches with ornamented silk covers were then in use:

Quid revelant variis Serica textilibus?

Propertius also mentions silk under the name of the animal, which produced it:

Shines with the produce of th' Arabian worm.

L. ii. 3. 15.

In this line, as well as in some of those before quoted, he alludes to the use of silk by females of indifferent character. He probably uses the epithet Arabian, because the Roman merchants obtained silk from the Arabs, who received it from Persia.

VIRGIL.

Soft wool from downy groves the Æthiop weaves, And Seres comb their fleece from silken leaves.

Georg. ii. 120, 121.—Sotheby's Translation.

The poet is here enumerating the chief productions of different countries, and therefore mentions cotton and silk. The idea, that silk webs were manufactured from thin fleeces obtained from trees, will be found recurring in many of the subsequent citations. It may have been founded on reports brought