Raisins

Erasmus, Adagia II viii 67, in Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 34: Adages II vii 1 to III iii 100, translated and annotated by R.A.B. Mynors (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), p. 77, with notes on p. 342: Viri senis astaphis calvaria An old man's skull is as dry as raisins Ἀνδρὸς γέροντος ἀσταφὶς τὸ κρανίον , An old man's skull is like raisins. The lesson of this adage is that an old man physically is weak and flabby; the juice is drained out of him and his flesh is gone to nothing. Lucian1 in his Tyrant about old men: 'For they're all just a bunch of raisins.' Grapes when dried are wrinkled and flabby, because the juice has been drained out of them by the sun. Hence the Ancients took also to calling dried-up old men 'raisins' because of their many wrinkles; Lucilius,2 cited by Nonius: 'Wrinkled and dry, the old want everything the same.' 67 From the Greek proverb-collections (Zenobius 1.96, Diogenianus 1.85, Suidas A 2190) 1 Lucian] Cataplus 6 2 Lucilius] This line from…