[tied] Re: Ex Libris; the book is for

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Cassiodorus (~490-585) wrote:

> "Hinc et priscorum
> opuscula libros appellavit antiquitas: nam hodie quoque librum
> virentis ligni vocitamus exuvias."(Liber XI, XXXXVIII 4).
> "For does a crop grow in any field to equal this [papyrus], on which
> the thoughts of the wise are preserved? For previously, the sayings

of

> the wise and the ideas of our ancestors were in danger. For how

could

> you quickly record words which the resistant hardness of bark made

it

> almost impossible to set down? No wonder that the heat of the mind
> suffered pointless delays, and genius was forced to cool as its

words

> were retarded. Hence, antiquity gave the name of 'liber' to the

books

> of the ancients; for even today we call the bark of green wood
> 'liber'. It was, I admit, unfitting to entrust learned discourse to
> these unsmoothed tablets, and to imprint the achievements of elegant
> feeling on bits of sluggish wood."

One or two generations later, the Arabs took Egypt, thereby cutting
off the supply of papyrus.


If nothing better is around, birchbark is perfectly suitable as a
writing material. Medieval Russians used it all day.



W.