The Umbrella Must Have Gone Through Some Curious Vicissitudes; For At One
Time We Find It Familiar, At A Later Date Apparently Unknown, And Then
Reintroduced As Some Strange Novelty.
Arrian speaks of the [Greek:
skiadia], or umbrellas, as used by all Indians of any consideration; but
the thing of which he spoke was familiar to the use of Greek and Roman
ladies, and many examples of it, borne by slaves behind their mistresses,
are found on ancient vase-paintings.
Athenaeus quotes from Anacreon the
description of a "beggar on horseback" who
"like a woman bears
An ivory parasol over his delicate head."
An Indian prince, in a Sanskrit inscription of the 9th century, boasts of
having wrested from the King of Marwar the two umbrellas pleasing to
Parvati, and white as the summer moonbeams. Prithi Raj, the last Hindu
king of Delhi, is depicted by the poet Chand as shaded by a white umbrella
on a golden staff. An unmistakable umbrella, copied from a Saxon MS. in
the Harleian collection, is engraved in Wright's History of Domestic
Manners, p. 75. The fact that the gold umbrella is one of the
paraphernalia of high church dignitaries in Italy seems to presume
acquaintance with the thing from a remote period. A decorated umbrella
also accompanies the host when sent out to the sick, at least where I
write, in Palermo. Ibn Batuta says that in his time all the people of
Constantinople, civil and military, great and small, carried great
umbrellas over their heads, summer and winter.
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