Note 4, 22 — A. PERSIUS FLACCUS (continued 2)

22. bene: with discincto, according to Jahn, who compares bene mirae, 1, 111. Mr. Pretor says that if thus combined, ‘bene is weak and adds nothing to the picture.’ He forgets that there is such a thing as being male discinctus. Comp. Hor., Sat., 1, 2, 132: discincta tunica fugiendum est ac pede nudo. If bene is combined with cantaverit, it must be used in its mercantile sense with vendere, cantare being equivalent to cantando vendere. ‘When she has cried off her herbs at a good figure.’—discincto vernae: Verna, of itself a synonym for all that is saucy and pert, is heightened by discinctus, for which see 3, 31.—ocima: ‘basil,’ ‘water-cress,’ or what not, stands for ‘greens’ generally. Jahn thinks that it was an aphrodisiac, referring to Eubul., fr. 53 (3, 229 Mein.). Persius, as we have seen, delights in picturesque detail, and his comparisons must not be pressed. Alcibiades cries his wares, just as the herb-seller cries hers. So the ‘apple-woman’ or ‘orange-girl’ in modern times might be selected as the standard of a rising politician, hawking his wares from hustings to hustings, from stump to stump. The far-fetched interpretation that ocima cantare = convicia ingerere, because, as Pliny tells us (19, 7), ‘basil is to be sown with curses,’ may be mentioned as a specimen of the way in which the text of our author has been smothered by learning.