The cologne archilochus

There is no agreement about the supplement at the end of the first line. almost certainly refers to marriage, discussion of which is postponed till something becomes black or turns dark. Theiler's (‘solange mir das Haar noch schwarz ist’) hardly fits thecontext, and Burkert's with the sense ‘when the grapes ripen’ (‘jetzt ist Frühling’) is not convincing. A metaphorical sense for ‘grapes’ is preferable, e.g. or, better, (Ebert-Luppe), (Slings), ‘when youwill be old enough to marry’; but the phrase comes with a jolt in the absence of any preparation or immediate follow-up: in the passages of Philodemus andHorace quoted as parallel by Ebert-Luppes the metaphor is not simply a singleword but is extended over two or three lines

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