[947] Reverentia.
"His child's unsullied purity demands
The deepest reverence at a parent's hands." Badham.
[948] Censoris. Henninius' reading and punctuation is followed here.
"Oh yet reflect! For should he e'er provoke,
In riper age, the Law's avenging stroke
(Since not alone in person and in face,
But morals, he will prove your son, and trace,
Nay pass your vicious footsteps), you will rail,
And name another heir, should threatening fail!" Gifford.
[949] Cerebro. Plin., ix., 37, "Cerebrum est velut arx sensuum: hic mentis est regimen."
[950] Cucurbita. Properly a kind of gourd, κολοκύνθη thence from its shape, and perhaps too from its use, applied to a cupping-glass. These were made of horn, brass, and afterward of glass. The Greeks, from the same cause, called it σικύα, or κύαθος (cf. Schol. ad Arist., Lys., 444). It is called ventosa from the rarefication of the air in the operation, and was applied to relieve the head. Hence cucurbitæ caput is used for a fool. Cf. Appul., Met., I, "Nos cucurbitæ caput non habemus, ut pro te moriamur!"
[951] Lavet. Browne says, "Who washes silver plate?" and prefers the reading "leve." "But might not his patellæ be of silver?" iii., 261, "Domus intereà secura patellas jam lavat."
[952] Aspera. Cf. i., 76, "Argentum vetus et stantem extrà pocula caprum." v., 38, "Inæquales beryllo phialas." Virg., Æn., ix., 266, "Argento perfecta atque aspera signis pocula." Ovid., Met., v., 81, "Altis exstantem signis cratera." xii., 235, "Signis exstantibus asper Antiquus crater." xiii., 700, "Hactenus antiquo signis fulgentibus ære, Summus inaurato crater erat asper acantho."
"'Sweep the dry cobwebs down!' the master cries,
Whips in his hand, and fury in his eyes:
'Let not a spot the clouded columns stain,
Scour you the figured silver; you the plain!'" Gifford.
[953] Patriæ populoque, an ancient formula. Cf. Liv., v., 41. So Horace joins them, "Hoc fonte derivata clades in patriam populumque fluxit," iii., Od. vi., 20 (vid. Orell. in loc.). Ovid, Met., xv., 572, "Seu lætum est, patriæ lætum, populoque Quirini."