Sed non, quo dederas a litore carbasa, vento
Utendum, medio cum potiare freto.—Art. Am. ii. 357.
The wind to which you give your sails on shore, In the mid ocean will assist no more.
Dumque parant torto subducere carbasa lino.—Fast. iii. 587.
They now with twisted ropes let down the sails.
In all these passages Ovid uses carbasa in the improper sense: it was an easy transition from the idea of a cotton awning, with which the Romans had become familiar, to apply the term to the sail of a ship. To these examples we may add the following:
Et sequitur curvus fugienta carbasa delphin. Seneca, Œd. ii. prope fin.
The dolphin curved pursues the flying sails.
Strictaque pendentes deducunt carbasa nautæ.—Lucan, ii. 697.
The mariners confine the sails with cords, And, clinging to the mast, they take them down.
Recto deprendit carbasa malo. ix. 324.
The mast stands upright; he takes down the sails.
Jamque adeo egressi steterant in littore primo, Et promota, ratis pendentibus arbore nautis, Aptabant sensim pulsanti carbasa vento. Silius Italicus. Pun. iii. 128.
They leave the port and reach the shore: aloft They hang upon the mast, and by degrees They fit the sails to catch the beating wind.
Festinant trepidi substringere carbasa nautæ. Martial, l. xii. ep. 29.
The trembling seamen haste to reef their sails.
Primæ, carbasa ventilantis, auræ.—Statius, Sylv. iv. 3. 106.
Of the first gale, which breathes upon the sails.
Statius also mentions "Carbasei sinus," the folds of cotton in the chlamys of a Bacchanal (Theb. vii. 658.). Æstivos penetrent oneraria carbasa fluctus.—Rutilius, i. 221. Postquam tua carbasa vexit—Oceanus.—Val. Flaccus, i. Necdum aliæ viderunt carbasa terræ.—Ibid.
Valerius Flaccus also introduces muslin among the elegances
in the dress of a Phrygian from the river Rhyndacus.
