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,

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]

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—