#ancients

Anyway, one of the things we get in Catullus 64 is a description of the Fates (Parcae in Latin), who love to show up at parties and make creepy pronouncements about the future. But when they're not doomsaying, they are spinning yarn, and Catullus gives us a lovely and extremely precise description of the process (lines 310-319):

...aeternumque manus carpebant rite laborem. laeva colum molli lana retinebat amictum, dextera tum leviter deducens fila supinis formabat digitis, tum prono in pollice torquens libratum tereti versabat turbine fusum, atque ita decerpens aequabat semper opus dens, laneaque aridulis haerebant morsa labellis, quae prius in levi fuerant exstantia filo: ante pedes autem candentis mollia lanae vellera virgati custodibant calathisci.

My translation:

...and their hands were plucking solemnly at their eternal work. The left hand held fast the distaff, wrapped in soft wool, Then the right, lightly drawing out the threads, was shaping them with upturned fingers, then twisting the thumb downwards was spinning the dangling spindle with its tapering whorl, and the tooth was always picking, evening out the work, and nibbled wool clung to their dry lips, which had been protruding from the fine thread: but at their feet, wicker baskets were guarding soft fleeces of bright white wool.

I was amazed at how accurate a description this was of the process of hand spinning that I've been learning. The main difference is that Catullus' Fates, like most pre-modern spinners, used a distaff to hold the wool, while I don't have as much wool to process so I just wrap it around my left wrist. The Fates' method sounds precisely like this image depicted on a Greek vase (from Wikipedia):

This passage taught me also how I could use my teeth to snip off fluffy bits that accumulate along the thread. I saw someone in a PhD thesis casting a bit of doubt on whether this bit was actually real or poetic license, but having tried it I have no doubt that it was real.

I don't think we should be surprised that Catullus could describe the process of spinning so accurately, because it was basically the background radiation of life for 99% of pre-modern Europeans. Per Brett Devereaux, spinning thread was probably the most commonly-performed task in the ancient world, consuming at an absolute minimum 6 hours per household per day, every day of the year. Usually more than that if you wanted more that one cloak per year. Catullus, useless poet that he was, had a mother and sisters and female slaves and a rich girlfriend. He saw women spinning with a frequency that we could never hope to match. And maybe because he was a useless poet, he observed it carefully.

And then he does because he's a fuckin healer and three other ancients are also there for witches sake please....

Inspired by this beautiful comic:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZThogGhYf/

They're all holding her together </3

Close ups and commission info under cut :D

My tribute comic to the Ancients.

It didn't really come out as I would have liked but I'm glad I finished it.