The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

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SILK BY THE ANCIENTS. 59
FIFTH CENTURY.
PRUDENTIUS, CL., A. D. 405.
The following sentence occurs in a speech of St. Lawrence
at his martyrdom
Hunc, qui superbit serico,
Quern currut! mfiatum vel>it
Hydrops aquosus lucido
Teudit venoiio intrinsecus.
;
Pcrisieph. Hymn. ii. I. 2.'?7-240.
See him, attir'd in silken prido,
Inflated in his cliaiiot ride ;
Tlie hicid poison works within,
Dropsy distends his swollen skin.
In another Hymn to the honor of St. Romanus we find the
following lines
:
Aurum regestum nonne carni adquiritur?
Inluga vestis, gemma, bombyx, purpura,
In carnis usum mille quaeruntur dolis.
PeristepJi. Hymn. x.
To please the flesh a thousand arts contend :
The miser's heaps of gold, the figur'd vest,
The gem, the silk-worm, and the purple dye.
By toil acquir'd, promote no other end.
In the same Hymn {1. 1015.) Prudentius describes a heathen
priest sacrificing a bull, and dressed in a silken toga which is
held up by the Gabine cincture {Cinctu Gabino Sericam fultiis
togam). Perhaps, however, we ought here to understand that
the cincture only, not the whole toga, was of silk. It was used
to fasten and support the toga by being drawn over the breast.
In two other passages this poet censures the progress of lux-
ury in dress, and especially when adopted by men.
Sericaque in fractis fluitent ut pallia nienibris
Psychomachia, I. 3G5.
The silken scarfs float o'er their weaken'd limbs.
Sed pudet esse viros : queerunt vanissima quosquo
Quis niteant: genuina leves ut robora solvant,
China, which are very strong eind compact, and therefore more resemble those of
the Phalsena Papliia.
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