Talk:Sempervivum tectorum

What Charlemagne said

Capitulare de villis is online here; Iovis barbae shows up in the very last section, LXX:

Volumus quod in horto omnes herbas habeant, id est lilium, rosas, fenigrecum, costum, salviam, rutam, abrotanum, cucumeres, pepones, cucurbitas, fasiolum, ciminum, ros marinum, careium, cicerum italicum, squillam, gladiolum, dragantea, anesum, coloquentidas, solsequiam, ameum, silum, lactucas, git, eruca alba, nasturtium, parduna, puledium, olisatum, petresilinum, apium, levisticum, savinam, anetum, fenicolum, intubas, diptamnum, sinape, satureiam, sisimbrium, mentam, mentastrum, tanazitam, neptam, febrefugiam, papaver, betas, vulgigina, mismalvas, id est altaea, malvas, carvitas, pastenacas, adripias, blidas, ravacaulos, caulos, uniones, britlas, porros, radices, ascalonicas, cepas, alia, warentiam, cardones, fabas maiores, pisos mauriscos, coriandrum, cerfolium, lacteridas, sclareiam. Et ille hortulanus habeat super domum suam Iovis barbam.

Based on my barbarous Latin and Googles similarly barbarous translation, most of this is listing plants Charlemagne wants to see in everybody's garden ("in horto"), and it is a long varied list. Then the last sentence says "super domum" (On top of or above the home), "Iovis barbam". So most of this is what he wanted in the garden but the houseleek was to go on the house. Sharktopus ^talk 02:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Yup, quite correct :-) In the footnote I have links to the Latin (scroll down to 70) and the English (link goes to 70) at the University of Leicester. I don't know what Pauly-Wissowa were thinking when they rendered that as "empfahl . . . als Hausmittel im Garten anzubauen" - "recommended . . . cultivating in the garden as a home resource". (A lesser point is that he's not so much recommending as ordering: volumus - "We desire"; habeat - "is to have". Yngvadottir (talk) 04:17, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! I shall seek your help with some racier Latin wrt "love medicine" in a section I am about to create below this one ... 15:05, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Which Apuleius is the source for claim demurely rendered as "love medicine"?

There seem to be two different Apuleiuses (Apuleii?) writing in Latin -- one about 150 AD and the other about 1500 AD.

The Promptorium (1843) p. 265 quotes one of them as follows:

Hows leke or ingrene (' sengrene,' Hart.), the herb called house-leek. 229. 'Sedum magnum is called also in Latin sempervivum, in English house leke, and of som singren, but it ought better to be called ay-grene,' Turner Herbal. See Orpyn, 319. [Lat. Gl. 'Barba iovis uel iouis barba, sticados citrinum, themolus semperuiua. Gallice iubarbe, anglice syngrene, erewort, kouslek,' Alpkita. 'Sempervivae nomen sumpsit quod sit semper viridis, ab aliquibus Stergethron vocatur eo quod amorifica judicetur, unde et pro foribus a plurimis ponitur ut pellat odia,' Apuleius (Alphita).'

He is quoting from Alphita, the ms in the Bodleian? which seems to be quoting Apuleius from "De Virt. Herb.", so that would be the 16th century one. And I see the quote online as well [1]. Google helpfully translates the last part of this as "and so before the doors and be driven by many is considered to be hatred." Any better ideas?

There is online a blowup from said work showing a houseleek and I see no mention of "stergethon" there. Am I looking for love in all the wrong places? Sharktopus ^talk 15:35, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, isn't Latin fun. I cannot make head nor tail of the blowup. Can't find the right bit of text. However, here is my rendering of the 2nd quotation: "It acquired the name of semperviva [ever-alive] from the fact it is always green, is called Stergethron by some from [the fact] that it is judged to be love-producing, from which, also, it is placed by many before the doors in order that it will repel hatreds". If you look at the next page in the GoogleBooks view of De Virtuibus Herbarum, you'll see the bit about other names on which Fernie is drawing midpage. He says: "They termed it Buphthalmon, Zoophthalmon, and Stergethron, as one of the love medicines". Just before that he says they grew it in vases before their windows. But pro foribus means "in front of the doors" - and the text says it was called Buphthalmos and Zoophthalmos among the Cymaeans: Item Buphthalmos, Zoophthalmos appellata est propter cymas. So Fernie's mucked about with the source a bit - and I still see no further info on the love production. Just the bald statement that it is regarded as "amorific". Also those 3 names look very Greek to me. Fernie does say the plant comes from the Greek islands. And there may be either a certified translation or a discussion of those 3 names somewhere online. But that's what the relevant snippet means. It looks as if it's using amor in the sense of "positive feelings" as opposed to enmities. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The names also occur in Pliny the Elder's Natural History: damned snippet view, full view; and Fernie may have been copying from this guy. The entry in Pauly-Wissowa does list masses of occurrences in Latin texts; pull the authors' names out of there. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:43, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Repelling enmity is a very good thing, but it doesn't really account for the plant's having popular names such as "Welcome-home-husband-though-never-so-late"[2] or "Welcome-home-husband-though-never-so-drunk"[3]. I guess I should tag those to some good references and put them into the article. Maybe that is what we should put in the hook... Sharktopus ^talk 18:31, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

LOL! I'd never heard those. I'm from the wrong bit of England :-) But the 2nd is clearly about sedum acre. Find good refs., but I think you'd better stick with the existing hook. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:48, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

You are probably from the Royal Horticultural Society part, where they more demurely render it as "Welcome-home-husband-however-drunk-you-be."[4] Sharktopus ^talk 19:35, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

And a good cite from the Telegraph for "Welcome-home-husband-though-never-so-late," calling that "the longest common plant name in English."[5] Who says Wikipedia isn't educational? Sharktopus ^talk 19:46, 7 July 2011 (UTC)