CHAPTER VII

THEOCRITUS—THE GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTS

But to return to our second _locus classicus_, ‘The Fisherman’s Dream’ of Theocritus.[309] The whole Idyll (XXI.), an exquisite piece of word painting, deserves careful reading as a study of the piscatory _genre_, but room can only be found for part of it here.[310]

“’Tis poverty alone, Diophantus, that awakens the arts; Poverty, the very teacher of labour. Nay, not even sleep is permitted by weary cares to men that live by toil, and if, for a little while, one closes his eyes in the night, cares throng about him and suddenly disquiet his slumber.

“Two fishers, on a time, two old men, together lay down and slept—they had strown the dry sea-moss for a bed in their wattled cabin, and there they lay against the leafy wall. Beside them were strewn the instruments of their toilsome hands, the fishing creels, the rods of reed, the hooks, the sails bedraggled with sea-spoil, the lines, the weels, the lobster pots woven of rushes, the seines, two oars, and an old coble upon props. Beneath their heads was a scanty matting, their clothes, their sailor’s caps. Here was all their toil, here all their wealth. The threshold had never a door, nor a watch-dog; all things, all to them seemed superfluity, for poverty was their sentinel. They had no neighbour by them, but ever against their cabin floated up the sea.

“The chariot of the moon had not yet reached the mid-point of her course, but their familiar toil awakened the fishermen; from their eyelids they cast out slumber, and roused their souls with speech.”

Asphalion, after complaining that even the nights in summer are too long—for “already have I seen ten thousand dreams, and the dawn is not yet”—is somewhat comforted by the thought that thus “we have time to idle in, for what could a man find to do lying on a leafy bed beside the waves and slumbering not? Nay, the ass is among the thorns, the lantern in the town hall, for they say it is always sleepless.”[311]

Then he begs his friend to interpret to him the dream he has just dreamt.

“As I was sleeping late, amid the labours of the salt sea, (and truly not too full fed, for we supped early, if thou dost remember, and did not overtax our bellies), I saw myself busy on a rock, and there I sat and watched the fishes and kept spinning the bait with the rods.

“And one of the fishes nibbled, a fat one; for, in sleep, dogs dream of bread, and of fish dream I.[312] Well, he was tightly hooked, and the blood was running, and the rod I grasped was bent with his struggle.

“So with both hands I strained, and had a sore tussle for the monster. How was I ever to land so big a fish with hooks all too slim? Then, just to remind him he was hooked, I gently pricked him, pricked, and slackened; and as he did not run, I took in line.[313]

“My toil was ended with the sight of my prize. I drew up a golden fish, lo, you! a fish all plated thick with gold. Then fear took hold of me lest he might be some fish beloved of Poseidon, or perchance some jewel of the sea-grey Amphitrite. Gently I unhooked him, lest even the hooks should retain some of the gold of his mouth. Then I dragged him ashore with the ropes,[314] and swore that never again would I set foot on sea, but abide on land and lord it over the gold.

“This was what awakened me, but for the rest set thy mind to it, my friend, for I am in dismay about the oath I swore.”

_The Friend_: “Nay, never fear, thou art no more sworn than thou hast found the golden fish[315] of thy vision: dreams are but lies. But if thou wilt search these waters, wide awake and not asleep, there is some hope in thy slumbers: seek the fish of flesh, lest thou die of famine with all thy dreams of gold!”

The influence of Theocritus, though becoming less natural and rendered more conventional by the pretty conceits of the later Alexandrian period,[316] permeates the literature of Greece and Rome for many centuries. In none, perhaps, is this influence more marked than in his pupils Bion and Moschus, and in his younger contemporary, Leonidas of Tarentum.

Three fisher epigrams[317] by Leonidas suffice as evidence of this. The realism, the pathos, the detailed treatment, the subjects, lowly folk, all alike characterise the Sicilian.

In the first, the fisherman Diophantus on giving up his trade dedicates, according to custom, all the relics of his calling to the patron of his craft. The list of the implements, including a well-bent hook, long rod, and line of horse hair, here and in an epigram by Philippus of Thessalonica (which adds “the flint pregnant with fire, that sets alight the tinder”), corresponds in material and order of enumeration fairly closely with Asphalion’s in Theocritus.

Of the second I borrow a spirited translation of the last lines,

“Yet—not Arcturus, nor the blasts that blow Down-rushing, swept this aged man below: But like a lamp long burning, and whose light Flickers, self-spent, and is extinguished quite, In a rush hut he died:—to him this grave (No wife, no child he had) his brother fishers gave.”[318]

The third, which should be _The Awful Warning_, if any warning avail, to boys fishing in the middle of a burn and holding while changing their lure a fish in their teeth (who of us has not done this?), sets a picture of a more violent death, “for the slippery thing went wriggling down his narrow gullet,” and choked him on the spot.

The subjoined, somewhat loose, translation is from _Blackwood’s Magazine_, Vol. XXXVIII.[319]

“Parmis, the son of Callignotus—he Who trolled for fish the margin of the sea, Chief of his craft, whose keen perceptive search, The kichlé, scarus, bait-devouring perch, And such as love the hollow clefts, and those That in the caverns of the deep repose, Could not escape—is dead! Parmis had lured A Julis from its rocky haunts, secured Between his teeth the slippery pert, when, lo! It jerked into the gullet of its foe,

Who fell beside his lines and hooks and rod, And the choked fisher sought his last abode. His dust lies here. Stranger, this humble grave An angler to a brother angler gave.”

Alciphron, judging from his extant letters, seems the most prolific of the later Piscatory writers. His tribute to the veracity of Sosias, “who is famous for the delicious sauce made of the fish which he entices,” reads in such deadly opposition to the common but false impression that fishermen rank next to mining engineers as the biggest liars in the world, that it must be quoted, if only on the principle of “An angler to a brother angler gave.”

“He is one of those who duly reverence Truth, and such an one would never even slip into Falsehood.”

Lest as an Angler I may be accused of “slipping into Falsehood” in my translation, I subjoin the Greek:

Ἔστι δὲ τῶν ἐπιεικῶς τὴι ἀλήθειαν τιμώντων, καὶ οὐκ ἄν ποτ’ ἐκεῖνος εἰς ψευδηγορίαν ὀλίσθοι.[320]

Lucian’s _Dialogues of the Sea Gods_, by their confidential chat, give witty expression to the author’s own scepticism towards mythology. “With their imitation of the earlier poets and their amœbean form they may be considered as connecting links between Theocritus and others of his group and the eclogues of marine mythology, sometimes classed as piscatory eclogues during the renaissance.”[321]

If any doubt be as to their being “links,” there can be none as to the charm of _The Dialogues_ of (in Macaulay’s words) “the last great master of Attic eloquence, and Attic wit,” or (he has been perhaps equally well termed) “the first of the moderns.”

_The Fisherman_, by the same author, bears no relationship to the Mimes, or Idylls. It takes its title from a scene in which the author sits on a parapet of the Acropolis equipped with the rod of a Piræan fisherman. His bait of gold and figs attracts a swarm of brilliantly coloured fish, _Salmo Cynicus_,[322] _Flat Sole Plateship_, and other philosophers clad in scales.

The Romances, the last prose at times instinct with the genius of ancient Greece, bequeath us many fisherfolk. The famous pastoral _Daphnis and Chloe_, by Longus, introduces a pretty picture and illustrates the old contrast between the idyllic life of shepherds and the sordid lot of their fishing neighbours.

Daphnis sits with Chloe on a hill near the sea; “while at their meal, which, however, consisted more of kisses than of food, a fisher boat is seen proceeding along the coast.” The crew, carrying freshly caught fish to a rich man in the city, “dip their oars, doing what sailors usually do to beguile their toil—the boatswain sings a sea-song, and the rest join in chorus at stated intervals.”

As the boat reaches some hollow or crescent-shaped bay, the echo of their song floats up. This only incites Daphnis, who understands the echo, “to store up some of the strains in his memory that he may play them on his pipes, but Chloe, who wots not that such things can be, turns in pretty bewilderment to the boat, to the sea, and to the woods.”

The _Aethiopica_, by Heliodorus of Emesa, has been termed, perhaps with exaggeration, the most elaborate picture of a piscatory kind in ancient Greek. The influence of Theocritus is strongly suggested by the imagery incidental to the description of the cabin, the tackle, and the boat, as well as by the delineation of the character of Tyrrhenus, aged, sea-worn, wretchedly poor, yet content with his lot and hospitable to the stranger.[323]

Agathias gives us one of the very few, perhaps the only, fisher epigram with a love motive. “A fisherman was employed in catching fish. Him did a damsel of property see, and was affected in her heart with desire, and made him the partner of her bed. But he, after a life of poverty, took on himself the swell of all kinds of high bearing, and Fortune with a smile was standing by, and said to Venus,—‘This is not your contest, but mine.’”[324]

Lastly it is of interest to note that one of the few Greek poetesses concerned herself with a love-tale of the sea. Hedyle, who came of a poetic stock (for she was daughter of Moschine the iambist and mother of Hedylus the epigrammatist), penned a poem on Glaucus’ love for Scylla. In it she told how the love-sick swain would repair to the cavern of his mistress—

“Bearing a gift of love, a mazy shell, Fresh from the Erythrean rock, and with it too The offspring, yet unfledged, of Alcyon, To win the obdurate maid. He gave in vain. Even the lone Siren on the neighbouring isle Pitied the lover’s tears.”[325]

FOOTNOTES:

[309] Although the Papyrists have as yet unearthed only some six lines of a _new_ poem by Theocritus (discovered by Mr. M. Johnson, and as yet unpublished), in _Pap. Oxyrhynchus_, XIII. No. 1618, we find parts of _Id._, V., VII., and XV.

[310] Translated by Andrew Lang, 1889. The question whether Leonidas of Tarentum was, and Theocritus was not, the author of this Idyll is exhaustively treated by R. J. Cholmeley, _Theocritus_, pp. 54, 55. Whatever conclusion be reached, constant are the references in those Idylls whose authenticity is undoubted to fish and fishing; even in his familiar comparisons Theocritus thinks of the sea. Mr. Lang writes, “There is nothing in Wordsworth more real, more full of the incommunicable sense of Nature, rounding and softening the toilsome days of the aged and poor, than the Theocritean poem of _The Fisherman’s Dream_. It is as true to Nature as the statue of the naked fisherman in the Vatican.”

[311] The meaning is as follows: Asphalion is complaining of wakefulness, and he compares his condition to two things; to a donkey in a furze-bush (as we might say), and to the light of the town-hall, whose sacred flame was perpetual (Snow).

[312] Mr. Lang adopts the reading ἄρτον, bread; Ahrens substitutes ἄρκτον, bear, which seems to fit the context far better, as it keeps up the whole spirit of, “I dreamed of large-sized fish, and a lively fight, just as a sleeping dog dreams of chasing _bears_.” Cf. Tennyson’s _Locksley Hall_—

“Like a dog he hunts in dreams,”

and his _Lucretius_—

“As the dog With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies His function of the woodland,”

passages alike inspired by the lines in which Lucretius (iv. 991 f.) proves that waking instincts are reflected in dreams—

“venantumque canes in molli sæpe quiete jactant crura tamen subito.”

[313] This is but one instance of anachronistic translation, or the use of terms, which, if true of our modern line, are inapplicable to ancient angling, for if, as I have shown in the Introduction, all ancient angling was with a _tight_ line, the operation translated as “I took in line” should rather be rendered “I tightened on him.” The alternation of easing and tightening is a well-known device. It is a question of the degree of strain involved. If you want to keep a big fish quiet in a confined space or in difficult circumstances, you can generally do so by keeping a very light strain on him, so that, though the line is never absolutely slack, he hardly knows that he is hooked and is often landed without the angler having to yield a foot of his line. Thus the roach-fisher without a reel sometimes lands a 4 lb. chub or bream with a foot link of single hair, entirely by this method of _suaviter in modo_. There seems no particular reason why Asphalion should not have been cognisant of these secrets, which three lines in James Thomson’s _The Seasons_, although the fight is, I admit, with a running line, fairly disclose.

“With yielding hand That feels him still, yet to his furious course Gives way, you, now retiring, following now Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage.”

[314] To a practical angler this passage is not clear. How is it possible, after you have taken out the hook (the only apparent method of holding the big fish), to fasten round him ropes and drag him ashore, unless he were beached high and dry? Of this we have no evidence beyond ἀνείλκυσα, if used here in its nautical sense “to haul up high and dry.” The readings suggested by Wordsworth and others are numerous, but none seem quite satisfactory, even those preferred by J. M. Edmonds, _The Greek Bucolic Poets_, London, 1912, and R. J. Cholmeley, _op. cit._ Perhaps the least improbable text is that given by E. Hiller (Leipzig, 1881), καὶ τὸν μὲν πίστευσα καλῶς ἒχεν ἠπειρώταν, “and I really believed that I had him fairly landed.” This has the positive merit of sticking close to the manuscript reading, and the negative merit of refusing to admit the absurd ‘ropes.’

[315] Callimachus, whom Theocritus probably knew at Alexandria, calls the “chrysophrys” sacred—

“Or shall I rather say the _gold-browed_ fish, That sacred fish?”

See Athen., VII. 20.

[316] “Theocritus gives nature, not behind the footlights, but beneath the truthful blaze of Sicily’s sunlit sky. For it was here that the first vibrations of this spontaneous note were heard in their original purity, before art could distort them with allegory, or echo weaken them with imitation. This is all the more remarkable from the contrast which it offers to what Kingsley calls the ‘artificial jingle’ of the Alexandrian school. Simplicity, honesty, truth, and beauty recommend Theocritus as a genuine artist. His imitators, as compared with their model, were like—

‘Those many jackdaw-rhymers, who with vain Chattering contend against the Chian Bard,’

as he himself describes (_Id._, VII. 47) Homer’s imitators.” Against this verdict by H. Snow on the Alexandrians must be set the more truthful appreciation of their work by Mackail, _op. cit._, pp. 178-207, especially p. 184: “They are called artificial poets, as though all poetry were not artificial, and the greatest poetry were not the poetry of the most consummate artifice.”

[317] _Anth. Pal._, VI. 4; VII. 295; VII. 504. While the last two in the MS. are headed Λεωνίδου Ταραντίνου, and τοῦ αὐτοῦ, the first is simply Λεωνίδου. Hence this has sometimes been thought to be by Leonidas of Alexandria, but Professor Mackail informs me that all three epigrams are by the Tarentine, both by evidence of style, and because all three come in groups of epigrams taken from the Anthology of Meleager.

[318] The following translation by Mr. Andrew Lang is truer:

”Theris the Old, the waves that harvested More keen than birds that labour in the sea. With spear and net, by shore and rocky bed, Not with the well-manned galley laboured he; Him not the star of storms, nor sudden sweep Of wind with all his years hath smitten and bent, But in his hut of reeds he fell asleep, As fades a lamp when all the oil is spent: This tomb nor wife nor children raised, but we His fellow-toilers, fishers of the sea.”

[319] In line 5 πρώτης, which makes nonsense, should certainly be corrected to πλωτῆς.

[320] Bk. I. 18.

[321] See Hall, _op. cit._ p. 22 (1914), and _ibid._, p. 35 (1912). Lucian, although a Syrian (to which nation fish was from the earliest times a forbidden food), frequently shows himself very conversant with fishes and avails himself of their characteristics: _e.g._ Menelaus, after witnessing some of the “turns” of that celebrated “lightning-change artist,” Proteus, exclaims frankly, “there must be some fraud!” The artist pooh-poohs him and bids him consider the everyday miracle of invisibility wrought by the Polypus, who having “selected his rock and having attached himself by means of his suckers, assimilates himself to it, changing his colour to match that of the rock. Thus there is no contrast of colour to betray his presence: he looks just like a stone” (_Dialogues of the Sea Gods_, iv. 1-3, Fowler’s _Translation_).

[322] Such in Fowler’s Translation, V. 48, is the rendering of κύων, which is quite wrong for two reasons. _First_, κύων is almost certainly our dog-fish or its cousin. Cf. Aristotle, _N. H._, VI. 118. _Second_, the salmon is not found in Greek waters, and so could not be fished for from the Acropolis. Cf. _infra_, Chapter XIII.

[323] Heliod., _Æthiop._, 5, 18. Cf. Hall, _op. cit._, 1914.

[324] _Anth. Pal._, IX. 442. Trs. from the _Greek Anthology as selected for Westminster, Eton, etc._

[325] Athen., VII., 48.