Plutarch's Romane Questions: With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beansPlutarch
Religion
Plutarch's Romane Questions: With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beans
Plutarch
Rome -- Religion -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Social life and customs -- Early works to 1800
Or peradventure it is in regard of _Caia Cæcilia_ a beautifull and vertuous
lady, who in times past, espoused one of the sonnes of king _Tarquinius_:
of which dame there is yet to be seene even at this day one image of
brasse, within the temple of the god _Sanctus_: and there likewise in old
time, her slippers, her distaffe and spindels laid up for to bee seene: the
one to signifie that she kept the house well, and went not ordinarily
abroad; the other to shew how she busied herselfe at home.
31.
_How commeth it, that they use to chaunt ordinarily at Weddings_, _this
word so much divulged_, Talassio?
IS it not of _Talasia_, the Greeke word, which signifieth yarne: for the
basket wherein women use to put in their rolles of carded wooll, they name
_Talosos_ in Greeke, and _Calathus_ in Latine? Certes they that lead the
bride home, cause her to sit upon a fliece of wooll, then bringeth she
foorth a distaffe and a spindle, and with wooll all to hangeth and decketh
the dore of her husbands house.
Or rather, if it be true which historians report: There was sometime a
certeine yoong gentleman, very valiant and active in feats of armes, and
otherwise of excellent parts and singular wel conditioned, whose name was
_Talasius_: and when they ravished and caried away the daughters of the
Sabines who were come to _Rome_, for to behold the solemnitie of their
festivall games and plaies: certaine meane persons, such yet as belonged to
the traine & retinue of _Talasius_ aforesaid, had chosen foorth & were
carying away, one damosel above the rest most beautiful of visage, and for
their safety and securitie as they passed along the streets, cried out
aloud _Talasio_, _Talasio_, that is to say, for _Talasius_, for _Talasius_;
to the end that no man should be so hardy as to approch nere unto them, nor
attempt to have away the maiden from them, giving it out, that they caried
her for to be the wife of _Talasius_; and others meeting them upon the way,
joined with them in company for the honour of _Talasius_, and as they
followed after, highly praised their good choice which they had made,
praying the gods to give both him and her joy of their marriage, and
contentment to their hearts desire. Now for that this marriage prooved
happy and blessed, they were woont ever after in their wedding songs to
rechant and resound this name, _Talasius_, like as the maner is among the
Greeks to sing in such carrols, _Hymenæus_.
32.
_What is the reason that in the moneth of May, they use at Rome to cast
over their woodden bridge into the river_, _certaine images of men, which
they call_ Argeos?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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