CHRYSOSTOM, CL., A. D. 398.
[Greek: Alla sêrika ta himatia; alla rhakiôn gemousa hê psychê.]
Comment. in Psalm 48. tom. v. p. 517. ed. Ben.
Does the rich man wear silken shawls? His soul however is full of tatters.
[Greek: Kala ta sêrika himatia, alla skôlêkôn estin hyphasma.] (Quoted by Vossius, Etym. Lat. p. 466.)
Silken shawls are beautiful, but the production of worms.
Chrysostom also inveighs against the practice of embroidering shoes with silk thread, observing that it was a shame even to wear it woven in shawls. Such is the change of circumstances, that now even the poorest persons of both sexes, if decently attired, have silk in their shoes. HELIODORUS, CL., A. D. 390. This author, describing the ceremonies at the nuptials of Theagenes and Chariclea, says, "The ambassadors of the Seres came, bringing the thread and webs of their spiders, one of the webs dyed purple (!), the other white." Æthiopica, lib. x. p. 494. Commelini.
Salmasius (in Tertullianum de Pallio, p. 242.) quotes the following passage from an uncertain author.
[Greek: Homoia estin hê tou parontos biou terpnotês Indikô skôlêkiô, hoper tô phyllô tou dendrou
syntylichthen, kai tê trophê ascholêthen, synepnigê en autô tou metaxiou koukouliô.]
The pleasure of the present life is like the Indian worm, which, having involved itself in the leaf of the tree and having been satisfied with food, chokes itself in the cocoon of its own thread.—Yates's Translation.
This writer, whoever he was, appears to have had a correct
idea of the manner in which the silk-worm wraps itself in a
leaf of the tree, on which it feeds, and spins its tomb within[1].*
- ↑ In the Royal Museum of Natural History at Leyden are eight or ten cocoons of the Phalæna Atlas from Java. They consist of a strong silk, and are formed upon the leaves of a kind of Ficus. The first layer of the cocoon covers the whole of a leaf, and receives the exact impress of its form. Then two or three other layers are distinctly perceptible. Two or three leaves are joined together to form the cocoon. In regard to the looseness of the layers these cocoons do not correspond to M. Breton's description of the cocoons of the wild silk-worms of
