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Seedcassock coloured greene,”“Autumne all in yellow clad,” and “Wintercloathed all in frize” (FQ 7.7.28–31),and then twelve more to the months,starting with March (32–43),one to day and night,one to the Hours,andone to Life and Death (44–46). Thomson’s The Seasons is perhaps the culminationof this descriptive genre in English. The four seasons were anequally popular theme in painting,sculpture,and music (e.g.,Vivaldi’sThe Seasons).In English the terms for summer and winter have remained constant,but those for spring and autumn have varied a good deal. Beginningwith Old English (and setting aside spelling differences),for spring wefind “lencten” (or “lenten”),“new time,”“prime time,”“first summer,”“springing time,”“spring of the year,”“springtime,” and “springtide”;for autumn or fall we find “harvest” and “fall of the leaf.”See April, Autumn, Spring, Summer, Winter.Seed“Seed” (Hebrew zera) is the standard biblical term for “offspring” or“progeny.”“Unto thy seed will I give this land,” the Lord promisesAbraham (Gen. 12.7; cf. 13.15,15.18,etc.).The phrases “seed of Abraham”or “Abraham and his seed” occur four times in the Old Testament andnine times in the New.“Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seedfrom the east,and gather thee from the west” (Isa. 43.5). On the “seed ofAbraham” formula,Paul makes the hair-splitting comment,“Now toAbraham and his seed [Greek sperma] were the promises made. He saithnot,And to seeds,as of many; but as of one,And to thy seed,which isChrist” (Gal. 3.16).The Authorized Version rightly does not substitute“offspring” or “children” for the many instances of “seed,” for sometimesthe seed is literally semen (from Latin semen,“seed”),as when Onanspills his seed on the ground: “And Onan knew that the seed should notbe his [it would be his brother’s,whose widow Onan was expected tomarry]; and it came to pass,when he went in unto his brother’s wife,thathe spilled it on the ground,lest that he should give seed to his brother”(Gen. 38.9).The concreteness of “seed” is never far from its othermeaning,as indeed God’s promise of “land” for Abraham’s seed suggests;we may also have here the reason for the rite of circumcision,theidentifying mark of Abraham’s seed on the organ that produces it.In classical literature “seed” could also mean “offspring” but it moreoften had the slightly different sense of “race” or “lineage.” Oedipussays he would like to see his seed (ancestry) (Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus1077); the chorus asks him what seed he comes from on his father’s side(Oedipus at Colonus 214). Agamemnon’s father Atreus is “he who sowedyou” (Ajax 1293). Cicero uses the phrase Romani generis et seminis,“of therace and seed of the Romans” (Philippics 4.13). Lucretius and Virgil bothuse “seed” for the “brood” of a lion (3.741–42, Georgics 2.151–52). Rejectedby women he desired,Villon decides “I must plant in other fields” (TheLegacy 31).Spenser is fond of such phrases as“sonnes of mortall seed,”i.e., ordinarymortal men (FQ 1.7.8),and“thy race and royall sead”(3.2.33).The term continuesinto recent times,mainly in religious contexts,as in R. Browning’sline,“Adam’s sin made peccable his seed”(Ring and Book 8.1425).184