The Latin Gausăpa “Woollen Cloth”. Origin, Polysemy and Continuity in Romance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23808/rel.v23i0.103226Keywords:
Greek loan, Iranian origin, paronymy, metaphor, metonymyAbstract
Gausăpa “woollen cloth, shaggy on one side” is a loan from Gr. ὁ γαυσάπης introduced in the feminine by Varro. There are several hypotheses about its origin, but the common consensus is that the term comes from Iran, where a sequence of empires traded with the Mediterranean. In our analysis of gausapa, we consider two other loanwords, also received from Greek: gossypion “cotton (plant)” and gaunăca “Persian cloak”. Both help us to confirm the Iranian origin of gausapa, which enjoyed splendour as a garment in the time of Augustus; but from the second century onwards there is a sharp decline in its use. The gaunaca which is referred too in literature from Varro onwards did not enjoy the same glamour; instead, it survived better as a coat. Both paronyms crossed their expressions in late and early medieval Latin to the detriment of gausapa. However, this word, which was used in Persius to denote the beard and the wig, travelled a productive metaphorical and metonymic journey in popular language from Petronius onwards. The noun and its two adjectives, gausapatus and gausapĭnus, came to designate the live young of mammals, their tender meat, their fine skin and, closing the circle, items of clothing again. It is certainly urprising that the continuity of these metaphors in Romance has remained unnoticed until this century.
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