INCUNA´BULA
INCUNA´BULA or
CUNA´BULA
(
σπάργανα), swaddling-clothes.
The first thing done after the birth of a child was to wash it; the second to
wrap it in swaddling clothes, and the rank of the child was indicated by the
splendour and costliness of this its first attire. Sometimes a fine white
shawl, tied with a gold band, was used for the purpose ([Hom.]
Hymn.
in Apoll. Del. 121, 122); at other times a small purple scarf,
fastened with a brooch (
Pind. P. 4.114
(203);
χλαμύδιον, Longus, 1.2.3). The poor
used broad fillets of common cloth (
panni, Luke
2.7, 12, Ezek. 16.4,
Vulg.: comp. Hom.
Hymn. in
Mere. 151, 306;
Apollod. 3.10.2;
Aelian,
Ael. VH 2.7;
Eur.
Ion 32; Dion Chrysost. vi. p. 203,
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Incunabuls, from a bas-relief.
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ed. Reiske; Plaut.
Amphitr. 5.1, 55,
Truc. 5.13). The preceding woodcut, taken from a beautiful
bas-relief at Rome, which is supposed to refer to the birth of Telephus,
shows the appearance of a child so clothed, and renders in some degree more
intelligible the fable of the deception practised by Rhea upon Saturn in
saving the life of Jupiter by presenting a stone, enveloped in
swaddling-clothes, to be devoured by Saturn instead of his new-born child
(
Hes. Th. 485). It was one of the
peculiarities of the Lacedaemonian education to dispense with the use of
σπάργανα, and to allow children to
enjoy the free use of their limbs (
Plut. Lyc.
16). Plato also is in favour of freedom, and ridicules the notion
that infants are to be kept for two years in swaddling-clothes
(
Legg. vii. p. 789 E). Aristotle mentions mechanical
appliances as used by some nations to prevent children from growing crooked
(
Pol. 7.17 = p. 1336 a, 11). (Cf.
Becker-Göll,
Charikles, 2.21; Blümner,
Privatalterth. p. 289; FASCLA.）
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