Spring and the bugonia

[falmouth]

The time to prepare a bugonia is described by Vergil thus:

Hoc geritur Zephyris primum impellentibus undas,               305
ante novis rubeant quam prata coloribus, ante
garrula quam tignis nidum suspendat hirundo.
(Geo. 4.305-7)

Note the emphasis "ante...quam"; "ante...quam" i.e. emphatically *just
before* spring actually arrives. This has the poetically satisfactory
implication that the bugonia itself coincides exactly with the arrival
of spring itself. The new bees equate to the new life of spring.

Here is Aristaeus' mythical bugonia

Post, ubi nona suos Aurora induxerat ortus,
inferias Orphei mittit lucumque revisit.
Hic vero subitum ac dictu mirabile monstrum
adspiciunt, liquefacta boum per viscera toto               555
stridere apes utero et ruptis effervere costis,
immensasque trahi nubes, iamque arbore summa
confluere et lentis uvam demittere ramis.

Nowhere does Vergil say expressly that this is the arrival of spring.
But he does so allusively, I think: with "Hic ver o-subitum...
adspiciunt" (4.554) compare "Hic ver adsiduum" (Geo. 2.149). The
reference does not seem idle either, since just before "hic ver
adsiduum" there is a description of animal sacrifice (to which the
bugonia process - especially the mythical version - is comparable):

hinc albi, Clitumne, greges et maxima, taurus,
uictima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,
Romanos ad templa deum duxere triumphos.

Subtle stuff...