“Illa etiam stantes radio percurrere telas
Erudit; et rarum pectine denset opus.”
Juvenal (Sat. ix. 30) makes Nævolus complain that he gets cloth from a Gaulish weaver greasy and badly woven—“Et male percussas textoris pectine Galli;” while Virgil (Æn. vii. 14) represents Circe as—
“Arguto tenues percurrens pectine telas;”
and again in the Georgicon says—
“Interea longum cantu solata laborem
Arguto conjunx percurrit pectine telas.”
These descriptions specify the precise operations necessary for closing or driving home the weft, if the instrument employed were a comb held in the weaver’s hand. Alexander Neckham, in his work De Naturis Rerum (written in the twelfth century, and recently printed in the series of Chronicles by the Master of the Rolls), has a chapter (cap. clxxi., De Textore) on weaving, in which, after describing the insertion of the weft by means of the shuttle, he says—
“Inde textrix telam stantem percurret pectine,”
thus using the same words to describe the same operation.