Part 50

1322 (return) [ i.e. the octopus or cuttle.]

1323 (return) [ i.e. the darker-skinned people of Africa, the Egyptians or Aethiopians.]

1324 (return) [ i.e. an old man walking with a staff (the ‘third leg’— as in the riddle of the Sphinx).]

1325 (return) [ February to March.]

1326 (return) [ i.e. the snail. The season is the middle of May.]

1327 (return) [ In June.]

1328 (return) [ July.]

1329 (return) [ i.e. a robber.]

1330 (return) [ September.]

1331 (return) [ The end of October.]

1332 (return) [ That is, the succession of stars which make up the full year.]

1333 (return) [ The end of October or beginning of November.]

1334 (return) [ July-August.]

1335 (return) [ i.e. untimely, premature. Juvenal similarly speaks of ‘cruda senectus’ (caused by gluttony).]

1336 (return) [ The thought is parallel to that of ‘O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.’]

1337 (return) [ The ‘common feast’ is one to which all present subscribe. Theognis (line 495) says that one of the chief pleasures of a banquet is the general conversation. Hence the present passage means that such a feast naturally costs little, while the many present will make pleasurable conversation.]

1338 (return) [ i.e. ‘do not cut your finger-nails’.]

1339 (return) [ i.e. things which it would be sacrilege to disturb, such as tombs.]

1340 (return) [ H.G. Evelyn-White prefers to switch ll. 768 and 769, reading l. 769 first then l. 768.—DBK]

1341 (return) [ The month is divided into three periods, the waxing, the mid-month, and the waning, which answer to the phases of the moon.]

1342 (return) [ i.e. the ant.]

1343 (return) [ Such seems to be the meaning here, though the epithet is otherwise rendered ‘well-rounded’. Corn was threshed by means of a sleigh with two runners having three or four rollers between them, like the modern Egyptian nurag.]

1401 (return) [ This halt verse is added by the Scholiast on Aratus, 172.]

1402 (return) [ The “Catasterismi” (“Placings among the Stars”) is a collection of legends relating to the various constellations.]

1403 (return) [ The Straits of Messina.]

1501 (return) [ Or perhaps ‘a Scythian’.]

1601 (return) [ The epithet probably indicates coquettishness.]

1602 (return) [ A proverbial saying meaning, ‘why enlarge on irrelevant topics?’]