VIRGIL'S CUCUMBER AGAIN: COLUMELLA 10.378–92

摘要

Rebecca Armstrong has convincingly shown that the words tortusque per herbam |ncresceret in uentrem cucumis (Virg. G. 4.121–2) lead the reader of Georgics 4 to expectna snake, only to be surprised by the bathetic climax which reveals it to be a cucumber.1nThis interpretation gains substantial support from an earlier reader, who signalled hisnapprehension of Virgil’s suggestion by means of imitation. Columella, in his ‘fifthnGeorgic’ on horticulture, supplies the gap left for later authors by the invitation in thentime-pressed Virgil’s praeteritio.2 This is his description of the gourd and thencucumber (10.378–80, 389–92):