The other meaning is of ‘caring for’ and tutela ‘guardianship,’ as when we say “I wish he were willing tueri ‘to care for’ the farmhouse,” from which some indeed say that the man who attends to consecrated buildings is an aedituus and not an aeditumus; but still this other form itself proceeded from the same source, because when we want some one to take care of the house we say “You will see to matters at home,” as Plautus does when he says:
Inside prepare, take pains, see to’t; Let that be done, that’s needed.
In this way the vestispica ‘wardrobe maid’ was named, who was spicere ‘to see’ the vestis ‘clothing,’ that is, was to see to the clothing and tueri ‘guard’ it. Therefore, both temples and tesca ‘wastes’ were named from tueri, with that difference of meaning which I have mentioned.
13. Moreover, from the same source comes the word in Ennius:
Extemplo take me, kill me, kill my daughter too.
For extemplo ‘on the spot’ is continuo ‘without interval,’ because every templum ought to be fenced in uninterruptedly and have not more than one entrance.
14. As for what is in Accius, With thy team do thou go through the sky, through the bright Constellations aloft, which the universe holds, Adorned with its twice six continuous signs, the word polus ‘sky’ is Greek, it means the circle of the sky: therefore the expression pervade polum ‘traverse the sky’ means ‘go around the πόλος.’ Signa ‘signs of the zodiac’ means the same as sidera ‘constellations.’ Signa are so called because they significant ‘indicate’ something, as the Balance marks the equinox; those are sidera which so to speak insidunt ‘settle down’ and thus indicate something on earth by burning or otherwise: as for example a signum candens ‘scorching sign,’ in the matter of the flocks.
15. In the phrase Again of the land I shall see the anfracta, anfractum means ‘bent or curved,’ being formed from a double source, from ambitus ‘circuit’ and frangere ‘to break.’ Concerning this the laws bid that a road shall be eight feet wide where it is straight, and sixteen at an anfractum, that is, at a curve.
16. Ennius says:
As surely as to thee Titan’s daughter Trivia shall grant a line of sons.
The Trivian Titaness is Diana, called Trivia from the fact that her image is set up quite generally in Greek towns where three roads meet, or else because she is said to be the Moon, which moves in the sky by tres viae ‘three ways,’ upwards, sidewise, and onwards. She is called Titanis ‘daughter of Titan,’ because her mother was, as Plautus says, Lato; and she, as Manilius writes, Was begot by the Titan Coeus.
As the same author writes, The chaste Latona shall give birth, by Jove’s embrace, To Deliad twins, that is, to Apollo and Diana. These gods were called Deliads because the Titaness gave birth to them on the island of Delos.
17. The same has this:
holy Apollo, who dost hold The true established umbilicus of the lands.
The umbilicus, they say, was so called from our umbilicus ‘navel,’ because this is the middle place of the lands, as the navel in us. But both these are false statements: this place is not the middle of the lands, nor is the navel the middle point of a man. But in this fashion is indicated the so-called ‘counter-earth of Pythagoras,’ so that the line which is midway in sky and earth should be drawn below the navel through that by which the distinction is made whether a human being is male or female, where human life starts — and the like is true in the case of the universe: for there all things originate in the centre, because the earth is the centre of the universe. Besides, if the ball of the earth has any centre, or umbilicus, it is not Delphi that is the centre; and the centre of the earth at Delphi — not really the centre, but so called — is something in a temple building at one side, something that looks like a treasure-house, which the Greeks call the ὀμφαλός, which they say is the tomb of the Python. From this our interpreters turned the word into umbilicus ‘navel.’
18. Pacuvius has this verse:
Calydonian terra, nurse of mighty men.
But just as Tusculum has an ager ‘field-land,’ so Calydon has an ager and not a terra ‘land’; but by the privilege of the poets, because Aetolia in which Calydon is located is a terra, he wished all Aetolia to be understood from the name of the part.
19. In this of Accius, Sailing past the mystic waters on the right, mystica ‘mystic’ is from the famous mysteria ‘mysteries,’ which are performed there in places close at hand. In the verse of Ennius, Since the Areopagites have cast an equal vote, Areopagitae ‘Areopagites’ is from Areopagus; this is a place at Athens.
20. Muses, ye who with dancing feet beat mighty Olympus.
Olympus is the name which the Greeks give to the sky, and all peoples give to a mountain in Macedonia; it is from the latter, I am inclined to think, that the Muses are spoken of as the Olympiads: for they are called in the same way from other places on earth the Libethrids, the Pipleids, the Thespiads, the Heliconids.
21. In this phrase of Cassius, The Hellespont and its barriers, claustra ‘barriers’ is used because once on a time Xerxes clausit ‘closed’ the place by barriers: for, as Ennius says, He, and none other, on Hellespont deep did fasten a bridgeway.
Unless it is said rather from the fact that at this place the sea concluditur ’is hemmed in’ by Asia and Europe; in the narrows it forms the entrance to the Propontis.
22. In the verse of Pacuvius, To be forsaken in the Aegean strait, fretum ‘strait’ is named from the likeness to fervens ‘boiling’ water, because the tide often dashes into a strait and boils up. The Aegean is named from the islands, because in this sea the craggy islands in the open water are called aeges ‘goats,’ from their likeness to she-goats.
23. They had almost arrived; on the aequor deep the rates were gliding. Aequor ‘level water’ is a name given to the sea, because it is aequatum ‘levelled’ when it is not stirred up by the wind. By ratis ‘raft’ he meant a war-ship, as does Naevius when he says:
That they may clash’gainst the foe Their bronze-shod raft, in which They go o’er the liquid sea, Sweating as they sit.
A war-ship is called a ratis from the oars, because these, when they are raised through the water on the right and on the left, seem to form two rafts; for it is a ratis — from which this word is transferred — there where several poles or beams are joined together and floated on the water. From this, the adjective ratarius is applied to small boats with oars. Here one Leaf is Lacking in the Model Copy 24. ... it is clear that agrestes ‘rural’ sacrificial victims were so called from ager ‘field-land’; that infulatae ‘filleted’ victims were so called, because the head-adornments of wool which are put on them, are infulae ‘fillets’: therefore then, with reference to the carrying of leafy branches and flowers to the burial-place, he added:
Decked not with wool, but with a hair-like shock of leaves.
25. The horned shadow lures the bull to fight. It is clear that cornuta ‘horned’ is said from cornua ‘horns’; cornua is said from curvor ‘curvature,’ because most horns are curva ‘curved.’
26. Learn that we, the Camenae, are those whom they tell of as Muses. Casmenae is the early form of the name, when it originated, and it is so written in other places: the name Carmenae is derived from the same origin. In many words, at the point where the ancients said S, the later pronunciation is R, as the following in the Hymn of the Salians: Planter God, arise. Everything indeed have I committed unto (thee as) the Opener. Now art thou the Doorkeeper, thou art the Good Creator, the Good God of Beginnings. Thou’lt come especi ally, thou the superior of these kings...
Here A Space of Ten Lines Was Left Vacant in the Model Copy 27....
� for which in a Salian verse is written cante, and this is the verse:
Sing ye to the Father of the Gods, entreat the God of Gods.
28. In The Song of Priam there is the following:
I wish the ancient Muses to tell a story old. First, cascum means ‘old’; secondly, it has its origin from the Sabine language, which ran its roots back into Oscan. That cascum is ‘old,’ is indicated by the phrase of Ennius:
Land that the Early Latins then held, the long-ago peoples.
It is even better shown in Manilius’s utterance:
That Whitehead married Oldie is surely no surprise: The marriage, when he made it, was aged and decayed.
It is shown likewise in the epigram of Papinius,which he made with reference to the youth Casca:
Funny it is, when your mistress tenderly calls you her “Casca”; Daughter of Rummy she, old and a half — you a boy. Call her your “laddie”; for thus there will be the mule’s trade of favours: You’re but a lad, to be sure; Oldie’s the name for your girl.
29. The same is shown by the fact that there is a town named Casinum, which was inhabited by the Samnites, who originated from the Sabines, and we Romans even now call it Old Market. Likewise in several Atellan farces the word denotes Pappus, an old man’s character, because the Oscans call an old man casnar.
30. In Lucilius:
Why should I try to tell to you Roundway’s round about speeches?
The word ambages ‘circumlocutions’ comes from the word ambe ‘round about,’ which is present in ambitus ‘circuit’ and in ambitiosus ‘going around (for votes), ambitious.’
31. In Valerius of Sora is the following:
It is an old adagio, Publius Scipio.
This word has gone out of use to such a point that the Greek word put for it is more easily understood: for it is the same as that which the Greeks call παροιμία ‘proverb,’ as for example:
I’m holding a wolf by the ears, Dog doesn’t eat dog-flesh.
Now adagio is only ambagio with a letter changed, which is said because it ambit ‘goes around’ the discourse and does not stop at some one thing only. Ambagio resembles ambustum, which is ‘burnt around,’ and an ambegna cow in the augural speech, which is a cow around which other victims are arranged.
32. Whereas there are three things combined which must be observed in the origin of words, namely from what the word is applied, and to what, and what it is, often there is doubt about the third no less than about the first, as in this case, whether the word for dog in the feminine was at first canis or canes: for in the older writers the expression is one canes. Therefore Ennius writes the following, using canes:
Barks just as loud as a pregnant bitch: but she’s toothless.
Lucilius also uses canes:
Worthless man and huge, like the monstrous dog of the butchers.
When applied to one, the word should have been canis, and when applied to several it should have been canes; but Ennius ought not to be blamed for following the earlier custom, nor should he who now says:
Canis ‘dog’ doesn’t eat dog-flesh.
But because dogs by their barking give the signal, as it were, canunt ‘sound’ the signals, they are called canes; and because by this noise they make known the things which latent ‘are hidden’ in the night, their barking is called latratus.
33. As some have said canes in the singular, so others have said trabes ‘beam, ship’ in the singular:
The beakèd trabes is driven by oars through the waters.
Ennius used trabes in the following:
I would the trabes of the fir-tree ne’er had fall’n To earth, in Pelion’s forest, by the axes cut!
But now the nominative singular of this word has lost a vowel and become trabs.
34. In the Medus:
Long awaited, Camilla of the gods, thou comest; guest, all hail!
A Camilla, according to those who have interpreted difficult words, is a handmaid assistant; one ought to add, in matters of a more secret nature: therefore at a marriage he is called a camillus who carries the box the contents of which are unknown to most of the uninitiated persons who perform the service. From this, the name Casmilus is given, in the Samothracian mysteries, to a certain divine personage who attends upon the Great Gods. The word, I think, is Greek, because I have found it in the poems of Callimachus.
35. In Ennius there is the verse:
Once a subulo was standing by the stretches of the sea.
Subulo is said, because that is the name which the Etruscans give to pipers; therefore the roots of the word are to be sought in Etruria, not in Latium.
36. With those verses which once the Fauns used to sing, and the poets. Fauni ‘Fauns’ are divinities of the Latins, of both sexes, so that there are both Faunus and Fauna; the story has come down that they, in the so-called Saturnian verses, were accustomed in well-wooded spots fori ‘to speak’ those events that were to come, from which speaking they were called Fauni. As for vates ‘poets,’ the old writers used to give this name to poets from viere ‘to plait’ verses, as I shall show when I write about poems.
37. Born of a Tartarine body, the warrior maiden Paluda. Tartarinum ‘Tartarine’ is derived from Tartarus. Plato in his Fourth Dialogue, speaking of the rivers which are in the world of the dead, gives Tartarus as the name of one of them; therefore the origin of Tartarus is Greek. Paluda is from paludamenta, which are distinguishing garments and adornments in the army; therefore when the general goes forth to war and the lictors have changed their garb and have sounded the signals, he is said to set forth paludatus ‘wearing the paludamentum.’ The reason why these garments are called paludamenta is that those who wear them are on account of them conspicuous and are made palam ‘plainly’ visible.
38. Plautus has this:
Epeus the maker of smoke, who for our army gets The well-cooked food.
Epeus fumificus ‘the smoke-maker’ was a cook, named from that Epeus who is said to have made the Trojan Horse at Troy and to have looked after the food of the Greeks.
39. In Naevius is the verse:
And sooner will a lobster give birth to a Luca bos.
Luca bos is an elephant; why it is thus called, I have found set forth by the authors in two ways. For in the Commentary of Cornelius was the statement that Lucas is from Libyci ‘the Libyans,’ and in that of Vergilius, that Lucas was from Lucani ‘the Lueanians’: from the fact that our compatriots used to call the largest quadruped that they themselves had, a bos ‘cow’; and so, when among the Lucanians, in the war with Pyrrhus, they first saw elephants in the ranks of the enemy — that is, horned quadrupeds like wise (for what many call teeth are really horns), they called the animal a Luca bos, because they thought it a Lucana bos ‘Lucanian cow.’
40. If the Lucae boves were really named from Libya, quite probably panthers also and lions would be called not African beasts, but Lucae ‘Lucan’; and bears are no more Lucanian than Lucan, though they are called Lucanian. Therefore I rather think that Lucas is from lux ‘light,’ because the elephants glistened afar on account of the gilded royal shields, with which their towers at that time were adorned.
41. In Ennius there is this:
Back without peace comes th’ orátor, hands back to his ruler the business.
Orator ‘spokesman’ is said from oratio ‘speech’; for he who was to present a verbal plea before the one to whom he was sent as envoy, was called an orator, from oratio. When the business was of greater import, year thrown into the Tiber from the Bridge-on-Piles, by the priests, acting on behalf of the state. These are called tutulati ‘provided with tutuli,’ since they at the sacrifices are accustomed to have on their heads something like a conical marker; this is called a tutulus from the fact that the twisted locks of hair which the matrons wear on the tops of their heads wrapped with a woollen band, used to be called tutuli, whether named from the fact that this was done for the purpose of tueri ‘protecting’ the hair, or because that which is highest in the city, na
mely the Citadel, was called tutissimum ‘safest.’
45. He says that this same Pompilius created the flamens or special priests, every one of whom gets a distinguishing name from one special god: in certain cases the sources are clear, for example, why one is called Martial and another Quirinal; but there are others who have titles of quite hidden origin, as most of those in these verses:
The Volturnal, Palatual, the Furinal, and Floral, Falacrine and Pomonal this ruler likewise created; and these are obscure. Their origins are Volturnus, the divine Palatua, Furrina, Flora, Father Falacer, Pomona.
46. In Ennius is this verse:
Now the beasts were about to give cry, their shrill-toned signals.
In this, cata ‘shrill-toned’ is acuta ‘sharp or pointed,’ for the Sabines use the word in this meaning; therefore Keen Aelius Sextus does not mean ‘sage,’ as they say, but ‘sharp’; and in the verse Then he began to say at the same time words that werecata, the cata words must be understood as sharp or pointed.
47. In Lucilius are the following:
What then? A tunny caught, they throw the goby out.
And Sauces of salted perch and of catfish are killing you, Lupus.
And That you take a... and a bonito.
These words are names of fishes; they originated in Greece.
48. In Ennius we find:
What the hollow caldron takes back in its skybluish belly.
Cava cortina ‘hollow caldron’ is thus said because that which is between earth and sky is somewhat in the shape of Apollo’s tripod-caldron; cortina is derived from cor ‘heart,’ because it is from this caldron that the first fortune-telling lots are believed to have been taken.
49. In Ennius we find:
Nay even, they carried them off from there despite the foes. The enemy are called perduelles ‘foes’; as perfecit ‘accomplished’ is formed from per ‘through, thoroughly’ and fecit ‘did,’ so perduellis is formed from per and duellum ‘war’: this word afterward became bellum. From the same reason, Duellona Goddess of War’ became Bellona.
Delphi Complete Works of Varro Page 50
