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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [M4r p183]

Les coquus.

XIX.

Pourquoy appelle-on les laboureurs coquus?[1]
Pource que par son chant le coquu tant & plus
Convainq les laboureurs de leur faineantise,
Quand la main de bonne heure à leur vigne ils n’ont mise.
De ce mot de coquu abuse le vulgaire,
Nommant ainsi celuy dont la femme adultere.

Commentaires.

Le coquu commence à chanter au renouveau, &
Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [M4v p184] par son chant fait le proces aux paresseux. Car ceux
qui se sont rostis les genoux aupres du feu tout le long
de l’hyver, se treuvent avoir beaucoup de besoigne
sur les bras, quand le Printemps est arrivé. Notam-
ment les laboureurs, lors qu’ils n’ont ny poué, ny pro-
vigné, ny clos, durant l’hyver. Pour ce qui concerne le
commun usage en ce qu’il applique ce mot de coqus
à ceux qui souffrent les adulteres venir baiser leurs
femmes, il en va tout au rebours: car le coquu ne per-
met pas qu’on vienne pondre en son nid: au contrai-
re, ou il pond au nid d’autruy, ou bien il y porte ses
oeufs.

Notes:

1.  See Pliny, Natural History, 18.66.249, and Horace, Satires, 1.7.31, for the use of the word ‘cuckoo’ as term of mockery for the idle man who has failed to finish pruning his vines before the cuckoo is heard calling.

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    Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [B1v f9v]

    Scyphus Nestoris.

    Nestor’s cup

    A large vessel with birds perched around it.
    [Click on image to enlarge]

    Nestoreum geminis cratera hunc accipe fundis, [1]
    Quod gravis argenti massa profudit opus.
    Claviculi ex auro: stant circum quattuor ansae:
    Unam quanque super fulva columba sedet.
    Solus eum potuit longaevus tollere Nestor.
    Maeonidae doceas quid sibi musa velit.
    Est coelum scyphus ipse. color argenteus illi est:
    Aurea sunt coeli sidera claviculi.
    Pleiadas esse putant, quas dixerit ille columbas.[2]
    Umblici [=Umbilici] gemini,[3] magna minorque fera est.[4]
    Haec Nestor longo sapiens intelligit usu.
    Bella gerunt fortes, callidus astra tenet.

    Receive this bowl of Nestor with its double support, a work which a heavy mass of silver shaped. Its studs are of gold. Four handles stand about it. Above each one sits a yellow dove. Only aged Nestor was able to lift it. Do tell us what Homer’s Muse intended. The cup itself is the heavens; its colour is silvery; the studs are the golden stars of heaven. They think that what he called doves are the Pleiades. The twin bosses are the great and lesser beast. The wise Nestor understood this by long experience: the strong wage war, the wise man grasps the stars.

    Notes:

    1.  Nestor’s bowl is described at Homer, Iliad, 11.632-7. Only Nestor, for all his great age could lift it when full. For the interpretation of Nestor’s cup (or mixing bowl) given here, see Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 11.487 F ff.

    2.  The Greek word for ‘doves’ is πελειάδες.

    3.  ‘twin bosses’, i.e. possibly the protuberances inside the bowl where it was joined to the two supports.

    4.  ‘great and lesser beast’, i.e. the Great and Little Bear, a phrase based on Ovid, Tristia, 4.3.1: ‘magna minorque ferae’.

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