soms, boil it again, put the wool in and let it become cold there. Lift it out and rinse it with salt water.
100. Another (Recipe).
To
dye with mulberries. Take and crush unripe bunches of grapes and
mordant the wool therein for 3 days. On the fourth day put this grape
juice in another pot and boil the wool therein, but -when it boils lift
it out, rinse it with water and let it become cold. Then take juice of
mulberries and boil up until it boils twice. Put the wool in and let it
become cold therein and it will be a fine excellent purple.
101. Cold Dyeing of Purple Which Is Done in the True Way.
Keep
this as a secret matter because the purple has an extremely beautiful
luster. Take scum of woad from the dyer, and a sufficient portion of
foreign alkanet of about the same weight as the scum—the scum is very light—and
triturate it in the mortar. Thus dissolve the alkanet by grinding in
the scum and it will give off its essence. Then take the brilliant
color prepared by the dyer—if from kermes it is better, or else from kirmnos—heat,
and put this liquor into half of the scum in the mortar. Then put the
wool in and color it unmor-danted and you will find it beyond all
description.
102. Dyeing in Good Purple.
Take
the wool and clean with soap weed. Then mordant it in filtered
limewater. Boil it then in alum and water. This should, however, be
sharp acetous alum. Then boil it according to the procedure for
mordanting with urine. Next, unravel it. Rinse it out with water, then
with salt water, and lay it aside.
103. (No Title.)
For
a stater of wool take a kotyle of urine (and) put in the bowl with the
urine and mix there, 4 drachmas of alkanet bark, 1 drachma of native
soda (and) 1 drachma of raw Cyprian misy until it appears to you to be
good. However, take away the first scum, which is white and untouched
by the mixture. But when the essences of the substances appears to have
gone from them, then lift the basket up and press it out properly in
the basin. Throw the substances away, but put the mordanted wool in
and produce (the) purple on it. Make a test beforeliand (that is), put
a flock of wool in underneath (the surface) with the hand and look at
it. The vessel in which the boiling is done should, however, on account
of the frequent boiling over, contain sixfold (the volume). When the
wool is suitable then hang and drain it until you have obtained the
lustre.
104. Collection of Woad.
Cut
off the woad and put together in a basket in the shade. Crush and
pulverize, and leave it a whole day. Air thoroughly on the following
day and trample about in it so that by the motion of the feet it is
turned up and uniformly dried. Put together in baskets lay it aside.
Woad, thus treated, is called charcoal.
The last word in the recipe probably referred to its appearance. It occurs again in the title of No. 106.
105. Dyeing in Dark Blue.
Put
about a talent of woad in a tube, which stands in the sun and contains
not less than 15 metretes, and pack it in well. Then pour urine in
until the liquid rises over the woad and let it be warmed by the sun,
but on the following day get the woad ready in a way so that you (can)
tread around in it in the sun until it becomes well moistened. One must
do this, however for 3 days together.
106. Cooking of Woad Charcoal.
Divide the woad charcoal into three parts including that which is above the infused urine.
