Note 728 — APPENDICES. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Τῇ σαγῆνῃ μονονουχί τὸν κόλπον ὅλον περιελάβομεν.—Epist. i. 17.
A few miscellaneous passages, which refer to the use of the sean, may be conveniently introduced here:
Diogenes, seeing a great number of fishes in the deep, says there is need of a sean to catch them; σαγήνης δέησις.—Lucian, Piscata, § 51. tom. i. p. 618, ed. Reitz.
The sean is called, from its material, σαγηναίον λίνον, in an epigram of Archias.—Brunck, Anal. ii. 94. No. 10.
Plutarch, describing the spider’s web, says, that its weaving is like the labor of women at the loom, its hunting like that of fishermen with the sean.—De Solertia Animalium, tom. x. p. 29, ed. Reiske. He here uses the term σαγηνευτὴς for a fisher with the sean. This verbal noun is regularly formed from σαγηνεύειν, which means to inclose or catch with the sean: e. g. ἐν δίκτυοις σεσαγηνευμένοι.—Herodian, iv. 9, 12.
Lucian uses the same verb in reference to the story of Vulcan inclosing Mars and Venus in a net; σαγηνεύει τοῖς δεσμοῖς.—Dialogi Deor. tom. i. p. 243. Somnium, tom. ii. p. 707, ed. Reitz.
Leonidas of Tarentum, in an epigram enumerating the ornaments of a lady’s toilet (Brunck, Anal. i. p. 221), mentions ὁ πλατὺς τριχῶν σαγηνευτήρ
. Jacobs (
Annot. in Anthol.
i. 2. p. 63) supposes this to mean the lady’s comb; but, judging from the known meaning of σαγήνη and its derivatives, we may conclude that it was the κεκρύφαλος, or net, which inclosed and encircled the hair, like a sean.
The following verse of Manilius (lib. v. ver. 678.) is remarkable as a rare instance of the adoption of the Greek word sagena by a Latin poet:—
Excipitur vasta circumvallata sagena.