Elna
Elna secundum Macrum enula vulgo.
Apparatus:
Elna ABC efp | Elua j
enula | est enula f | enula & j
Translation:
Elna, according to Macer Floridus, is the common people’s pronunciation of Latin enula.
Commentary:
Simon refers to verse 1489 of Macer Floridus, here quoted from Choulant's (1832: 89) edition [[1]]:
1489 Enula, quam Graecus Elnam (vocat Eleniumque
1490 Dicitur a medicis,…) {the bracketed section is not included by Simon}.
"Enula, which the Greek calls elna (and elenium // as it is called by the physicians")
Verse 1489 is very divergent in the different codices and Choulant mentions the vv.ll. in the annotations to Elna: Inula, Elnum, elnam, elenam, helenon.
elna:
Simon says that elna is the word used vulgo, i.e. by the "common people" whereas Choulant's version has that Graecus, "a Greek speaker", would say elna.
However, Choulant's apparatus criticus does mention a variant reading: Enula, quam vulgus Elnam vocat - "Enula, which the common people call elna", i.e. Simon's version, which makes much more sense since there is no documented Greek variant form elna. In fact Ernout, Meillet & André (2001) mention under inula that forms like elna, ella, enula can be found in glosses. Late Latin elna < *enla and ella live on in antiquated Italian ella and German Alant.
Ultimately, the word is derived from Greek ἑλένιον /helénion/ for which LSJ attribute multiple botanical identifications: Calamintha incana "calamint"; also "elecampane", and finally they gloss it as a synonym to σύμφυτον /sýmphyton/, which itself has multiple meanings.
Inula and its Greek source ἑλένιον /helénion/ have both survived into botanical Latin in the Linnaean plant name Inula helenium, L., "elecampane", and there is a reasonable chance that Simon was indeed thinking of this plant.
WilfGunther (talk) 10:49, 17 June 2016 (BST)
See also: Macer Floridus, Enula, Rasin
