The Haricot-Weevil 
but how are we to know? Haricot, fantastic 
haricot, you set us a curious linguistic 
problem. 
The Frenchman calls it also faséole, 
flageolet. The Provencal dubs it faiou and 
faviou; the Catalan fayol; the Spaniard 
faseolo; the Portuguese feydo; the Italian 
faguilo. Here I am on familiar ground: 
the languages of the Latin family have kept, 
with the inevitable terminal modifications, 
the ancient word faseolus. 
Now, if I consult my dictionary, I find: 
faselus, phaselus, faseolus, phaseolus, 
haricot. Learned vocabulary, permit me to 
tell you that your translation is wrong: 
phaselus or phaseolus cannot mean haricot. 
And the incontestable proof is in the 
Georgics,' where Virgil tells us the season 
at which to sow the faseolus. He says: 
Si vero viciamque seres vilemque phaselum. .. . 
Haud obscura cadens mittet tibi signa Bootes ;? 
Incipe et ad medias sementem extende pruinas. 
1 Book i., line 227 et seg—Author’s Note. 
2Vile vetches would you sow, or lentils lean? 
The growth of Egypt, or the kidney-bean? 
Begin when the slow Waggoner descends, 
Nor cease your sowing till mid-winter ends.” 
—Dryden’s translation. 
273 
