Notes

Ficus (text)

Ficus carica

Ficus carica L.
edible fig

le flair du Figuier, aux Taureaux indignez

caprificus tauros quamlibet feroces collo eorum circumdata in tantum mirabili natura conpescit ut inmobiles praestet.

The wild fig, if a branch be put round the neck of a bull, however fierce, by its miraculous nature so subdues the animal as to make him incapable of movement.

The Smell of the Fig-tree to mad Bulls

Table-Talk II, Question 7

1. Once, when small fish of all sorts were served to us, Chaeremonianus of Tralles pointed out one with a sharp, elongated head and said that the echeneïs resembled it; he had seen (he said) the echeneis while sailing off Sicily and had been amazed at its power, for during the course of the voyage it had been responsible for no little loss of speed and delay until the look-out had caught it sticking to the outer face of the vessel’s hull. At this, some laughed at Chaeremonianus for accepting a mythical and unbelievable fabrication; others chatted about the “antipathies” [1]; and one could hear much else and also the following about things antipathetic: the sight of a ram stops a mad elephant; if you point an oak twig at a viper and touch it, the viper is brought to a standstill; a wild bull is quieted and made gentle if bound to a fig-tree [2]; amber moves and attracts all light things, except basil and whatever is wet with oil; the loadstone does not attract iron rubbed with garlic. Indeed these things are subject to a clear test, but it is hard (they said) to determine the cause, if not altogether impossible.

1. Bolus of Mendes, the former of Democritus exposed by Callimachus, wrote a Sympathies and Antipathies (in nature); see Diels, Frag. d. Vorsokratiker, Demokritos 300. 1–5; cf. infra, iv. 2, 664 c.

2. Cf. infra, 696 f, where the theory is different.

the fiercest of bulls, if tied to a fig tree, becomes quiet

Table-Talk IV., Question 10

Two things indicate that a strong, intense exhalation [1] is given off by the fig tree; first, our sense of smell, and second, the alleged fact that the fiercest of bulls, if tied to a fig tree, becomes quiet, lets people touch him, and completely abandons his rage, as if the spirit were withering within him. This effect is mainly due to the bitterness of the plant, for the fig is the richest in sap of all plants, not only the fruit but the wood and the leaf too being full of it.

1. G. Soury connects this with Stoic theory (pneuma is the word used) in Revue Ét. Gr. lxi (1949), pp. 322 f. Cf. supra, 642 c.

The Smell of the Fig-tree to mad Bulls

Pliny xxiii. 7 § 64.

le flair du Figuier, aux Taureaux indignez

D’après Pline, XXIII, 64, «Caprificus tauros quamlibet feroces, collo eorum circumdata, in tantum mirabili natura compescit ut immobiles præstet.» Cette légende se retrouve dans Plutarque (Quœst. Sympos., 7) et Isidore de Séville (Orig., XVII, 7). Il s’agit ici du figuier sauvage, Ficus carica. L. (Paul Delaunay)

Nenuphar…

Encore une fois, la plupart de ces exemples se retrouvent dans le De latinis nominibus de Charles Estienne. Le nenufar et la semence de saule sont des antiaphrodisiaques. La ferula servait, dans l’Antiquité, à fustiger les écoliers (cf. Martial, X, 62-10).

le flair du Figuier, aux Taureaux indignez

Un collier de figuier immobilise les taureaux (Pline, XXIII, lxiv).

fig

fig. Forms: fige, fyg(g(e, , figg(e [adopted from Old French fige, figue, adaptation of Provençal figa, figua: -popular Latin *fica fig, formed on Latin ficus fig-tree, fig.]

The fruit of the fig-tree or Ficus, esp. the fruit of the Ficus carica.

fig-tree. Any tree of the genus Ficus, especially Ficus carica.

A poisoned fig used as a secret way of destroying an obnoxious person. Often fig of Spain, Spanish, Italian fig. Obsolete