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De pallio

III.

[1] Mutant et bestiae pro ueste formam; quamquam et pauo pluma uestis, et quidem de cataclistis, immo omni conchylio pressior qua colla florent, et omni patagio inauratior qua terga fulgent, et omni syrmate solutior qua caudae iacent, multicolor et discolor et uersicolor, nunquam ipsa, semper alia, etsi semper ipsa quando alia, totiens denique mutanda quotiens mouenda.

[2] Nominandus est et serpens, licet pone pauum; nam et iste quod sortitus est conuertit, corium et aeuum. Siquidem ut senium persensit, in angustias stipat, pariterque specum ingrediens et cutem egrediens ab ipso statim limine erasus exuuiis ibidem relictis nouus explicat; cum squamis et anni recusantur. Hyaena, si obserues, sexus annalis est, marem et feminam alternat. Taceo ceruum, quod et ipse aetatis suae arbiter, serpente pastus ueneno languescit in iuuentutem.

[3] Est et

Quadrupes tardigrada, agrestis, humilis, aspera.

Testudinem Pacuuianam putas? Non est. Capit et alia bestiola uersiculum, de mediocribus oppido, sed nomen grande. Chamaeleontem qui audieris haud ante gnarus, iam timebis aliquid amplius cum leone. At cum offenderis apud uineam ferme et sub pampino totum, ridebis illico audaciam et Graeci iam nominis, quippe nec sucus est corpori, quod minutioribus multo licet. Chamaeleon pellicula uiuit. Capitulum statim a dorso; nam deficit ceruix. Itaque durum reflecti, sed circumspectu emissicii ocelli, immo luminis puncta uertiginant. Hebes, fessus, uix a terra suspendit, molitur incessum stupens et promouet, gradum magis demonstrat quam explicat, ieiunus scilicet semper et indefectus, oscitans uescitur, follicans ruminat, de uento cibus. Tamen et chamaeleon mutare totus, nec aliud ualet. Nam cum illi coloris proprietas una sit, ut quid accessit, inde suffunditur. Hoc soli chamaeleonti datum, quod uulgo dictum est, de corio suo ludere.

[4] Multa dicendum fuit, ut ad hominem praestructim perueniretur. Hunc quoquo primordio accipitis, nudus certe et inuestis figulo suo constitit; post demum sapientiam, haud dum licitum, praereptam potitur. Ibidem quod in nouo corpore indebitum adhuc pudori erat protegere festinans ficulneis foliis interim circumdat; dehinc cum de originis loco exterminat, quippe deliquerat, pellitus orbi ut metallo datur.

[5] Sed arcana ista, nec omnium nosse. Cedo iam de uestro quod Aegyptii narrant et Alexander digerit et mater legit de tempestate Osiridis, qua ad illum ex Libya Ammon facit ouium diues. Denique cura ipsis Mercurium autumant forte palpati arietis mollitie delectatum deglubasse ouiculam, dumque pertemptat quod facilitas materiae suadebat, tractu prosequente filum eliquasse et in restis pristinae modum, quam philyrae taeniis iunxerat, texuisse. Sed uos omnem lanitii dispensationem structuramque telarum Mineruae maluistis, cum penes Arachnen diligentior officina.

[6] Exinde materia. Nec de ouibus dico Milesiis et Selgicis et Altinis, aut quis Tarentum uel Baetica cluet natura colorante, sed quoniam et arbusta uestiunt, et lini herbida post uirorem lauacro niuescunt. Nec fuit satis tunicam pangere et serere, ni etiam piscari uestitum contigisset; nam et de mari uellera, qua muscosae lanositatis lautiores conchae comant. Prorsus haud latet bombycem [uermiculi genus est], quae per aerem liquando araneorum horoscopis idonius distendit, dehinc deuorat, mox aluo reddere. Proinde, si necaueris, a nemate iam stamina uolues.

[7] Tantam igitur paraturam materiarum ingenia quoque uestificinae prosecuta, primum tegendo homini, qua necessitas praecessit, dehinc et ornando, immo et inflando, qua ambitio successit, uarias indumentorum formas promulgare. Quarum pars gentilitus inhabitantur, ceteris incommunes, pars uero passiuitus, omnibus utiles, ut hoc pallium, etsi Graecum magis, sed lingua iam penes Latium est. Cum uoce uestis intrauit. Atque adeo ipse qui Graecos praeter urbem censebat, litteras eorum uocemque senex iam eruditus, idem Cato iuridicinae suae in tempore humerum exertus, haud minus palliato habitu Graecis fauit.

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On the Pallium

Chapter III.--Beasts Similarly Subject to the Law of Mutation.

Beasts, too, instead of a garment, change their form. And yet the peacock withal has plumage for a garment, and a garment indeed of the choicest; nay, in the bloom of his neck richer than any purple, and in the effulgence of his back more gilded than any edging, and in the sweep of his tail more flowing than any train; many-coloured, diverse-coloured, and versi-coloured; never itself, ever another, albeit ever itself when other; in a word, mutable as oft as moveable. The serpent, too, deserves to be mentioned, albeit not in the same breath as the peacock; for he too wholly changes what has been allotted him--his hide and his age: if it is true, (as it is,) that when he has felt the creeping of old age throughout him, he squeezes himself into confinement; crawls into a cave and out of his skin simultaneously; and, clean shorn on the spot, immediately on crossing the threshold leaves his slough behind him then and there, and uncoils himself in a new youth: with his scales his years, too, are repudiated. The hyena, if you observe, is of an annual sex, alternately masculine and feminine. I say nothing of the stag, because himself withal, the witness of his own age, feeding on the serpent, languishes--from the effect of the poison--into youth. There is, withal,

"A tardigrade field-haunting quadruped,

Humble and rough."

The tortoise of Pacuvius, you think? No. There is another beastling which the versicle fits; in size, one of the moderate exceedingly, but a grand name. If, without previously knowing him, you hear tell of a chameleon, you will at once apprehend something yet more huge united with a lion. But when you stumble upon him, generally in a vineyard, his whole bulk sheltered beneath a vine leaf, you will forthwith laugh at the egregious audacity of the name, inasmuch as there is no moisture even in his body, though in far more minute creatures the body is liquefied. The chameleon is a living pellicle. His headkin begins straight from his spine, for neck he has none: and thus reflection ¹ is hard for him; but, in circumspection, his eyes are outdarting, nay, they are revolving points of light. Dull and weary, he scarce raises from the ground, but drags, his footstep amazedly, and moves forward,--he rather demonstrates, than takes, a step: ever fasting, to boot, yet never fainting; agape he feeds; heaving, bellowslike, he ruminates; his food wind. Yet withal the chameleon is able to effect a total self-mutation, and that is all. For, whereas his colour is properly one, yet, whenever anything has approached him, then he blushes. To the chameleon alone has been granted--as our common saying has it--to sport with his own hide.

Much had to be said in order that, after due preparation, we might arrive at man. From whatever beginning you admit him as springing, naked at all events and ungarmented he came from his fashioner's hand: afterwards, at length, without waiting for permission, he possesses himself, by a premature grasp, of wisdom. Then and there hastening to forecover what, in his newly made body, it was not yet due to modesty (to forecover), he surrounds himself meantime with fig-leaves: subsequently, on being driven from the confines of his birthplace because he had sinned, he went, skinclad, to the world ² as to a mine. ³

But these are secrets, nor does their knowledge appertain to all. Come, let us hear from your own store--(a store) which the Egyptians narrate, and Alexander ⁴ digests, and his mother reads--touching the time of Osiris, ⁵ when Ammon, rich in sheep, comes to him out of Libya. In short, they tell us that Mercury, when among them, delighted with the softness of a ram which he had chanced to stroke, flayed a little ewe; and, while he persistently tries and (as the pliancy of the material invited him) thins out the thread by assiduous traction, wove it into the shape of the pristine net which he had joined with strips of linen. But you have preferred to assign all the management of wool-work and structure of the loom to Minerva; whereas a more diligent workshop was presided over by Arachne. Thenceforth material (was abundant). Nor do I speak of the sheep of Miletus, and Selge, and Altinum, or of those for which Tarentum or Baetica is famous, with nature for their dyer: but (I speak of the fact) that shrubs afford you clothing, and the grassy parts of flax, losing their greenness, turn white by washing. Nor was it enough to plant and sow your tunic, unless it had likewise fallen to your lot to fish for raiment. For the sea withal yields fleeces, inasmuch as the more brilliant shells of a mossy wooliness furnish a hairy stuff. Further: it is no secret that the silkworm--a species of wormling it is--presently reproduces safe and sound (the fleecy threads) which, by drawing them through the air, she distends more skilfully than the dial-like webs of spiders, and then devours. In like manner, if you kill it, the threads which you coil are forthwith instinct with vivid colour.

The ingenuities, therefore, of the tailoring art, superadded to, and following up, so abundant a store of materials--first with a view to coveting humanity, where Necessity led the way; and subsequently with a view to adorning withal, ay, and inflating it, where Ambition followed in the wake--have promulgated the various forms of garments. Of which forms, part are worn by particular nations, without being common to the rest; part, on the other hand, universally, as being useful to all: as, for instance, this Mantle, albeit it is more Greek (than Latin), has yet by this time found, in speech, a home in Latium. With the word the garment entered. And accordingly the very man who used to sentence Greeks to extrusion from the city, but learned (when he was now advanced in years) their alphabet and speech--the self-same Cato, by baring his shoulder at the time of his praetorship, showed no less favour to the Greeks by his mantle-like garb.