Book 2
Imperial Oppian Greek- Thus do the fish-fed pastures and the tribes of the sea roam; in such a wedding, in such a birth they take delight; and all these things some one of the immortals revealed to men; for what can mortals accomplish without the gods? Not so much as to lift the print of a foot, nor so much as to open wide the bright orbs of their eyes; but the gods themselves rule and direct all things, being near while far away; and unshaken necessity it is to obey; this neither strength nor any force can escape, having haughtily wrenched with its rough jaws, like a colt that spits out the bit; but ever the most exalted blessed ones turn the reins wherever they will, and one follows like a man of sound mind, before with a harsh whip and against his will he is driven. They too gave to men the much-gainful arts to possess, and put all prudence into them. And each god was named for differing works, in which each took oversight and honour. Demeter brings the gift of the yoke of oxen and the ploughing of earth and the harvest of the fruitful wheat. But to fashion timbers and to raise up halls, and to work garments from the flowery fleece of sheep, Pallas taught the dwellers on earth; and the gifts of Ares are swords and the bronze tunics about the limbs and helmets and spears and all in which Enyo delights. And the gifts of the Muses and Apollo are songs. Hermes bestowed the assembly and the contests of strength. And to Hephaestus belongs the hammering sweat. And these thoughts of the sea also, and the achievement of the chase, and the multitude of the water-faring, a god gave to be marked out by men—he who first, filling up the riven hollows of the earth with the rivers gathered there, poured forth the bitter sea and crowned it round, fencing it about with brows and breakers, whether one should call him wide-ruling Poseidon, or ancient Nereus, or rather Phorcys, or some other guiding god of the sea. But may they all, as many gods as hold Olympus, and those of the sea, and those of the well-watered land, and those that dwell in the air, have all-gracious hearts to you, blessed sceptre-bearer, and to your bright-childed line, and to all peoples, and to our songs. Among fishes there is no reckoning of justice nor any shame, no love; for all of them swim hostile to one another, foes; and the stronger ever feasts on the weaker, and one swims upon another bringing doom, and one furnishes food for another. For some by their jaws and by valour overcome the weaker; some have venom in the mouth; for some the spines are grown to defend against deadly wounds, bitter and sharp, the points of fiery wrath. But to those to whom the god gave neither strength nor any sting whetted from their limbs, to them out of the mind he made a weapon, gainful counsel, full of devices, and these by guiles have often destroyed a strong and superior fish. Such is the medicine of defence that follows the cramp-fish, soft-skinned, self-taught, in its own limbs. For it is soft in body and altogether feeble and sluggish, weighed down with slowness, nor would you say, seeing it, that it swims; for very hard to discern is the path it winds, creeping through the grey water; but in its flanks the guile of its weakness is its strength: rays are grown along its sides on either hand, twofold; and if any draw near and touch them, straightway it quenched the strength of his limbs, and his blood is frozen, and he can no longer carry his limbs, but his force, as he slowly withers, is loosed by the senseless numbing. And she, well knowing what gift of the god she has received, lays back her body and waits among the sands; she lies unmoved, like a corpse; and whatever fish draws near to her flanks, that one is undone, and falls just so into a deep sleep of helplessness, fettered by his powerlessness; and she swiftly springs up, though she is not swift, rejoicing, and devours the living as though dead. And often in the deep, meeting fishes as they swim, she has quenched the swift onset of their haste, touching them near, and bound them in their rush; and they stand dry and helpless, mindful neither of their roads, the wretches, nor of flight; and she, abiding, devours them as they make no defence and have no feeling. As in the dark phantoms of dreams, when a man is terrified and longs to flee, his heart leaps, but his knees, as he quivers, are weighed down by an unshaken bond as he strains— such a limb-fetter the cramp-fish contrives for fishes. The fishing-frog again is a sluggish and soft fish alike, most foul to look upon; and its mouth opens exceeding wide; yet for it too craft has found fare for the belly. Itself, rolled in the dank mud, lies still, and stretches up a little fleshy fibre, which grows below from the tip of its lower jaw, thin and white, and its breath is foul; this it whirls often, a snare for the smaller fishes; and they, seeing it, rush to seize it. But it draws the fibre back quietly within, gently quivering, beneath its mouth, and they follow, suspecting nothing of the hidden snare, until unawares they are caught within the fishing-frog's wide jaws. As when a man, contriving a trap for the light birds, crumbles some grains before the doors of his snare, and puts others within, and sets up his device beneath; and longing for them, a keen desire of food draws them, and they come within, and no longer is return ready to slip out, but they have found an evil end to their feast; so does the feeble fishing-frog draw on those fishes, beguiling them, nor did they perceive it as they hastened to their own ruin. Such things too, I have heard, the crook-counselled vixen contrives: when she sees a thronging flock of birds, she lies down aslant, stretching her swift limbs, shuts her eyes, and closes her mouth altogether; you would say, looking on, that either she slept deep sleep, or truly lay a corpse; so breathless, plotting wily things, she is stretched out at full length; and they, seeing her, come straight on in throngs, the birds, and pluck at her fur with their feet, as if mocking; but when near her teeth they come, then, opening the doors of her snare, on a sudden she seized and snatched them, gaping wide, a gainful prey, as much as she took by her swoop. And indeed the crafty cuttlefish too has found a thievish hunt; for from its head are grown slender fronds, stretched forth, like tresses, with which it too, as with fishing-lines, draws fish for its hunting, lying face down in the sands, rolled beneath its shell. With those tresses too, when the waves rage in winter, it holds fast against the rocks, like a ship that has fastened its cables to the crags of the shore. The prawns are small to look upon, and their strength is small in their limbs, but by guiles they have destroyed even a valiant fish, the bass, famed for its own ravening greed. For these hasten and rush straight to seize the prawns, which have strength neither to flee nor to fight, but as they perish they destroy their slayers too. For when the bass gape and grip them within their teeth, these leap often and against the middle of the palate press their sharp horn, which rises for them from the top of the head; but the bass, sated with its dear prey, recks not of the prick; and it feeds and creeps on, until at last, worn out, doom takes it from its pains; and late it knows, slain by the corpse's barb. There is a flesh-eating ox that haunts the mud, broadest of all the fishes; for indeed its breadth has often been of eleven cubits or twelve; but worthless in strength, and its body has no share of valour, soft; and within are unseen teeth, small and not strong; by force it could subdue nothing, but by guile it takes and fetters even prudent men; for it delights in the flesh of men, and above all to it the flesh of men is sweet and welcome food. When it spies some one of men going down to the deepest abyss, those whose toil is the under-sea labour of the brine, then it, light, lifted up above his head, swims unmoved, like the roofs of a hall, unturning, spread about, and goes along, wherever the wretched man goes, and when he stays, settles over him like a lid. As a boy sets a guileful doom for the greedy mice; and the mouse, not divining the ambush of the trap, its belly drives within, and swiftly the hollow vessel above rattles down upon it, and it, for all its eager longing, can no longer escape the strong covering, until the boy seize it and slay it, and laugh over his catch; so that destroying fish spreads itself above the human head, hindering him from rising up, until the breath leaves the man, and he breathes out his soul into the waters; there, when he is dead, the ill-named ox tends him, feasting, having taken by its arts a hard-won prey. And one, marking upon the mossy flats a crab, will praise it and marvel at it for the sake of its gainful craft; for to it too a god gave the prudence to feed on oysters, a sweet and unlaborious meal. The oysters, unfolding the bars of their doors, lick the mud, and craving water are spread open, sitting in their rocky elbows; and the crab, lifting a pebble from beside the breaker, carries it sidelong, gripping with its sharp claws, and draws near in secret, and sets the stone in the midst of the oyster; then, sitting beside it, it feasts on the dear meal; and the oyster, though it strives, has no strength to close its twofold scales, but by constraint is held open, until it dies and sates the hunter. Like to it the crawling sea-stars too contrive; for to them also craft attends upon oysters; but they do not bring a stone as a fellow-worker or helper, those; rather they thrust their rough limb into the midst of the open shells; thus is it pressed, and they feed. The pinna again has its beds in the deep, and in it a fish dwells, called the pinna-guard; she, being feeble, knows neither how to contrive nor how to do anything, but the crab dwells with her in a common home and a common covering, and feeds her and guards her; therefore he is called pinna-guard; but when into the shell a fish comes within, he, scratching her who is unaware with a gainful nip, took the pinna; and she in her pains clapped together her shells, and shut up the prey within for herself and her comrade, and they took a common meal together. So then among the water-faring swimmers also there are some gainful, some senseless, even as among us men, nor is sound thought in all alike. Mark, for senselessness pre-eminent, the day-sleeping fish, which the brine bore most idle of all. Its eyes are turned upward, above its head, and its greedy mouth is in the midst between its eyes; and ever in the sands all day long it lies stretched out sleeping, and by night alone it wakes and roams; therefore it is called the night-creature too; but an evil ruin of an insatiate belly has been its lot; for of food it knows neither surfeit nor any measure, but a boundless, mad-raving voracity it keeps in its shameless belly; nor would it ever cease while food is near, until its very midmost belly bursts apart, and itself, stretched out, falls backward, or some other of the swimmers slays it, laden with its last meal. A sign of its ever-ravening belly I declare to you: for if a man, taking it, should make trial of the chase, offering food with his hand, it will receive it, until right up from its most greedy mouth the food is heaped. Hear, you generations of men, what an end attends greedy follies, what pain follows gluttonies; therefore let one drive joyless idleness far away both from heart and from hand, and keep some measure in food; nor let him take delight of mind in all-feasting tables; for there are many such among men too, for whom the reins are loosed, and they entrust all the cables to the belly; but let a man, looking on, flee the end of the day-sleeper. The sharp-spined sea-urchins too have mind and craft, who know the violence of the winds and the furious storms when they rise, and each heaves up upon its back a stone, as heavy as it may easily carry about its own spines, that against the rush of the wave they may abide, weighed down; for this they dread most, lest the churning surge roll them upon the shores. Of the octopuses I think no one is yet untaught in craft, who make themselves like to the rocks which they embrace and cast their coils about. The hunters of men and the stronger fish alike they easily lead astray by their deceits and escape. But when some weaker creature comes near, straightway the octopuses and the fish appear, leaping out of their rocky shape, and from their guile they both have found food and escaped destruction. In winter, they say, the octopuses never go upon the water of the sea; for they shrink from the furious storms; but they, settling in their hollow chambers, cowering, devour their own feet, as though they were alien flesh; and again, having sated their masters, the feet grow back; this, I suppose, Poseidon has granted them. Such a thought is in the grim, ever-ravening bears too; for shunning the wintry onset of the storm, having dived into the rocky recess of their den, they lick their own paw, an empty work of food, seeking a windy meal, nor will they come forth, until the temperate spring is come to bloom. Above all a hostile hatred have toward one another the darting crawfish and the moray and the octopuses, and they destroy one another with mutual slaughters. Ever among them stands fishy war and battle, and one fills its belly with another. She, setting out from a sea-washed rock, the roving moray darts through the swell of the sea, seeking food, and quickly spies an octopus creeping over the headlands of the shore, and to the welcome hunt she rushes, rejoicing; nor did she escape his notice as she came near; but at first, terrified, he is shaken into fear, nor has any device to escape the moray, crawling as he is, while she swims and is uncontrollably eager. And swiftly she caught him and drove in her blood-red jaw; but the octopus, against his will, fights under deadly constraint, and coils about her limbs, now one way, now another, weaving all manner of twists beneath his crooked thongs, contriving, if by any means he might hold her back, casting his nooses about her; but there is no cure of his ills, no escape; for easily, when he falls about her with his slippery limbs, the nimble moray flows through like water; but he now about her dappled back, now her neck and the tip of her tail casts his coils, and now again falls upon the gates of her mouth and the recesses of her jaws. As when men skilled in limb-strong wrestling long display their strength against one another, and now from their limbs warm and unspeakable sweat pours upon them both; and the nimble gains of their craft wander, and their hands surge about the body; so too the suckers of the octopus, not in order, wandering, labour in vain wrestlings. But she with the sharp-cutting rush of her teeth tears him; and of his limbs some her belly has received, others still in her jaws the swift teeth grind, and others gasp and writhe, half-devoured, still quivering and longing to escape. As when, tracking the trail of serpents through the thickets, the heavy-antlered stag has found by scent the creeping spoor, and comes to the hole and drags the reptile out and devours it eagerly; and it coils about his knees and neck and breast; and the half-eaten joints are scattered, and his teeth carve up many within his mouth; so too the dappled limbs of the ill-fated octopus are tossed; nor did the prudence of his rocky craft save him; for if ever, shunning her, about a rock he twines, and clothes himself in a colour all like to it, yet he escaped not the heart of the moray, but she alone descries him, and the device of that one is fruitless. There you might pity him for his most unseemly doom, how he shrinks among the rocks, while she near him stands as if mocking; so you would say the cruel moray spoke, taunting him: "Why do you cower, crafty one? Whom do you hope to beguile? Soon I will make trial of the rock too, if it will take you within, this crag, and bowing over, hide you." And straightway, fixing her curved fence of teeth, she gorges, tearing him from the crag in his terror; but he in no way, not even as he is rent, leaves the rock nor lets go, but clings to the rock, twined fast, until the very suckers alone are left grown into it. As when, a city being sacked by the hands of foes, the children and the spear-won women being dragged away, a man drags by war's law a boy that has grown fast to the neck and arms of her that bore him, but he, his hands plaited about her, does not let go from her neck, nor does the mother send him forth with wailing, but is herself dragged along with him; so too the cowering body of the dragged octopus clings to the dank crag, and does not let go. The crawfish again devours the moray, harsh though she is exceedingly, subdued by her own self-slaying valour. For he stands near the rock in which dwells the nimble moray; and stretching up his two horns, breathing hostility, he challenges her to come to battle, like the foremost champion of a host, who, trusting in the valour of his hands and his skill in war, having braced his stout body with armour, brandishing his sharp spears, challenges whoever of the foes is willing to meet him; and quickly he rouses another of the champions; so he whets the moray's spirit, nor at the conflict does he linger; and she, darting black from her chamber, arching her neck, raging greatly in her wrath, comes to meet him; but though she presses on him terribly, she harms him not, rough as he is, but in vain just so strikes her jaw against him, and rages fruitlessly with her hard teeth; and they, leaping back from his jaws as from a harsh rock, grow weary and are blunted of their rush. And her wild heart greatly flames and is stirred, until, springing upon her with his long claws, the crawfish grips her by the middle sinew of her neck; and he holds her, fastened on like a bronze pair of tongs, unceasing, nor lets go, though she struggles to escape; and she, labouring with force and vexed with pains, whirls her crooked body every way, and swiftly the sharp-pointed back of the crawfish she casts about, poured around it, and is fixed upon the spikes and sharp points of his shell, and full of close-set wounds she perishes, self-slain, dying by her own folly. As when a man skilled in beast-slaying works, the people gathered in the surrounding theatres, receives upon his long-pointed spear the leopard goaded to fury by the cracking of the whip, standing aslant beneath; and she, even looking on the jaw of the whetted iron, swelling wildly, rears, and into her throat, as into a spear-rack, draws the bronze-wrought point; so too wrath in her folly seized the moray, ill-fated, subdued by self-struck wounds. Such a strife, I suppose, upon the dry land they wage, both in the thickets, the serpent and the rough hedgehog, when they meet; for them too a hostile fate is the care. For the hedgehog, seeing the deadly creeper first, fencing himself with his close-set jutting spines, rolls himself into a ball, guarding his limbs beneath his fence, creeping inward; and the serpent at once darting near him first urges on his venom-bearing jaws, but just so labours an empty toil; for he reaches not within the skin with his fierce teeth, for all his eagerness; such a rugged fleece has beset the other; but the round, rolling ball, whirling his nimble limbs, rolling in close-packed eddies, falls upon the coils and wounds them with the darts of his sharp-cutting hair; and from this side and that flows the bloody ichor, and many wounds afflict him. Then, casting himself about the hedgehog with a coil that runs round on every side, the supple serpent, twined fast in grievous bonds, holds and gnaws and presses on his strength in wrath. But quickly all the spines slip into him, bristling sharp; and he, fixed upon the stakes, neither lets go his force nor against his will is fettered, but stays as if joined by strong bolts, until he dies, and together he has destroyed the serpent too, pressing him often, and to one another they became death and ruin; but often the dread hedgehog has escaped and got away, slipping from the creeper and the dark, inextricable bond, still keeping the spines in the flesh of the dead one. Such a moray too is subdued by evil-minded doom, to the crawfish a welcome and easy meal. The crawfish in turn, both rough and swift though it is, the octopus devours, feebler though it is and sluggish in onset; for when it spies the crawfish beneath the crags, keeping still just so and sitting, then secretly it darts upon his back and casts about its nimble bonds, gripping his strong limbs with its long cords of feet, and with the tips of its suckers it presses the warm tube about the middle of his mouth, squeezing it, nor lets in the breath of air either from within or from the other side; for to the swimmers too the ebbing and flowing air is drawn; so it holds him, fallen upon him; and he swims, now stays still, now gasps, and sometimes against the jutting headlands is dashed; but the other in no way lets go the prize of force, until breath and strength leave him dead. Then, when he has fallen, sitting beside him in the sands, it feasts, as a boy from his nurse's breast draws with his lips again the sweet milk; so it, lapping the flesh, drew it forth out of the keen-edged vessel, sucking, and filled its belly with sweet fare. As a day-sleeping man, with thievish craft plotting unseen evils, never increasing his reverence for justice, at evening, crouching in the narrow streets, has lain in wait for a man passing by from a feast; and the man, heavy with wine, creeps on before, singing a tipsy song, chanting a tune not very sober; but the other in secret rushed up behind and seized his neck with bloody hands, bearing down on him, and laid him in a savage sleep not far from death, and, having stripped him of all his garments, went off, carrying an ill-gotten and hearthless prey; such thoughts have the cunning octopuses too. These are the hostile and unkind ones, pre-eminent among the sea-creatures; and they alone among the dappled fishes are avengers and destroyers of one another. Others among the swimmers are venom-bearing, and in their mouths a foul venom is bred, and a loathsome thing creeps upon their bites. Such too is the centipede-fish, that ill-named reptile of the brine, in body like the reptile of the land; but its hurt is more deadly; for if any draw near and touch it, straightway upon his skin a hot redness inflames, and a weal runs along like that of the grass which they call the nettle, named for the pains. And hateful is the centipede-fish above all to the anglers to come near; for if ever it touch the bait, not one of the swimmers would come near that hook; for such a hateful venom is mingled in it. Such ruin too is bred in the dappled rainbow-wrasses about the mouth; and them most of all the men who search the deeps, the divers and the sponge-cutters, the much-suffering, loathe; for when they spy a searcher of the sea hastening to the bottom in his under-sea labours, they, setting out from the rocks in their myriads, race round the man and pour themselves about him in throngs, and hinder him in his toilsome road, one here, one there, stinging with their shameless mouths; and he grows weary, beset by the water and the hateful rainbow-wrasses, and with his hands, as much strength as is in him, and with hurrying feet drives off the watery host, defending himself; but they pursue unflinching, like the flies that on their works about the harvesting men, toiling in autumn, fly everywhere, the troublesome ranks of summer. And they at once both with toil and with the unmixed strokes of the air sweat, and are vexed by the flies exceedingly; and they relent nothing of their shamelessness, before they die, rather than feed on the tawny blood of the man. Such love have these too, among fishes, for the blood of men. Yet truly no feeble bite has it when it wounds, the creeping octopus or the cuttlefish, but in them too is bred a small but harmful ichor. And piercing stings have they armed themselves with among the fishes, the goby that rejoices in the sands, and the one that rejoices in the rocks, the scorpion-fish, and the swift sea-swallows and the weevers and the dog-fish named for their grievous spines, all sending venom beneath their baneful pricks. But to the sting-ray and the sword-fish a god has placed mighty gifts in their limbs, bracing for each an overpowering weapon; and to the one above its jaw he fixed an upright, self-rooted, pointed thing—not a sword of iron, but a mighty blade strong as adamant. When that lays on its chilling point, not even a very hard stone could endure the wound; such furious and fiery rush is in it. And to the sting-ray there rises from the base of its tail a savage sting, both grievous in force and deadly with venom. Nor would the sword-fish nor the sting-rays first feed in their jaws, before with their blood-red weapons they have wounded whatever is near, living or breathless. But when breath leaves the sword-fish, straightway that strong blade too perishes with it, the weapon is quenched together with its lord, and there is left a useless bone, by no means like to look upon the sword; nor could you, however you wished, do anything with it. But of the sting-ray's wound there is no worse plague, not all the deadly weapons that the hands of smiths have wrought, nor all that on their feathered arrows the Persian poisoners have devised for destruction; for to the sting-ray's life there attends a most chilling shaft, fiery, such as a man shudders to hear of, and it lives when she is dead, and keeps its unwearied, unturning strength; nor does it belch forth deadly ruin on living things alone, whatever it strikes, but a young shoot too and a rock it has marred, if ever it draw near. For if any rich-flourishing plant, growing in its season, with well-formed branches and fruitful offspring, one should wound below, beneath its roots, with that shameless blow, then thereafter, stricken with evil ruin, it ceases from its leaves, and runs down as with a sickness; first it withers from its splendour, nor far off will you see the shoot dry and worthless and bloomless. That weapon once, fitted to a long oar-handled javelin, Circe, the much-drugged mother, gave to Telegonus, to hurl a sea-doom against foes; and he, on the island of the goat-pastures, ran his ship aground, and knew not, sacking the flocks of his own father, but on his venerable sire as he ran to the rescue, on the very man he sought, he wrought an evil doom. There the wily-counselled Odysseus, who had measured countless woes of the sea in his much-laboured contests, the grievous sting-ray slew with a single stroke. And to the tunny and the sword-fish ever attends a companion plague; which they can never turn aside, nor let go nor flee, a savage frenzy seated in their fins, which to them, when the burning Dog-star newly rises, drives in the swift force of its piercing sting, piercing very sharp, and stirs them to grievous madness, arming them with pains; and it urges them, unwilling, to dance with a roving lash; and they with the black wound dart about in madness, now here, now there, they gallop over the wave, holding an unending pain. Often too they have leapt upon the well-horned ships, driven by the ill-tempered rush; often out of the brine they have leapt and run down upon the land, gasping, and exchanged their doom for one of much-laboured pains; for such a dread bite weighs on them and does not let go. For indeed when the hostile gadfly comes near the oxen, and presses its shaft upon their slender flanks, they care nothing for reverence of the herdsmen nor for pasture, but leaving the grass of the herd and all their stalls they rush, sharpened to madness; nor for them does any river, nor the untrodden sea, nor the cleft ravines, nor any unvisited rock check the bull's rush, when the keen-bidding herdsman has roused it to seething, urging it on with hasty pains; everywhere is bellowing, everywhere the leaping of his hoof winds about; such a fierce storm drives him. And this pain is alike for fishes and for oxen. The dolphins greatly lord it over the herds of the sea, exceeding in valour and splendid in beauty, and in swift rush; for like a shaft through the sea they fly; and a flaming gleam most keen they send from their eyes; and even one cowering in the ravines, and one hidden beneath the sands, the fish, they descry. For as among the light birds the kings are the eagles, or among the flesh-eating beasts the lions, as among the creepers the serpents are pre-eminent, so too the dolphins are leaders among fishes. Neither to draw near them as they come, nor to cast the eyes upon them face to face does any fish endure, but they cower far off from the dread leaps of their lord and his snorting breath. And when these rush on, longing for fare, all at once they throw into confusion the unspeakable flocks of the deep, driving them in utter rout; and they fill with fear every path; and the shadowy recesses and the low ravines and the harbours and the sheltered bays of the shores are straitened, as they crowd in from every side; and the dolphin feasts on whichever it will, having chosen the best of the countless that are present. Yet even against these come hostile fishes, those we call the bonitos; nor do they reck of the dolphins, but they alone do battle face to face. Feebler is their body than the tunnies', and about them the flesh is weak, but close-set through their greedy mouth the teeth bristle sharp; therefore they have great courage, nor do they cower before the overpowering leader. For when they spy one rushing off alone, apart from the rest of the dolphins' herd, they, in throngs from this side and that, like a vast host at a summons, gathering into one, set off to the conflict undismayed, as against a tower of foes the warlike shield-bearers charge. The fair-bearded dolphin, against the throng that meets him, at first recks not, but rushes among them, now one, now another snatching greedily as he goes, finding a pleasing feast. But when the ranks of war crown him round on every side, and a great throng circles about him, then indeed the labour sinks already into his heart; and he knew sheer destruction, alone among countless shut in by foes; and the toil of his valour appears. For they, raging in throngs poured about the dolphin's limbs, drive in the force of their teeth; and everywhere they gnaw and cling unyielding, many gripping his head, others his grey chin, others clinging to his very fins, and many have fixed their bloody jaw in his flanks, others seized the tip of his tail, and others below his belly, and others above range over his back, others from his crest, and others hang from his neck. But he, full of toils of every kind, darts through the sea, and within him with frenzy heaves his maddened heart, and his spirit burns with anguish, and everywhere he leaps and writhes, raging without measure, seething with pains; and like a tumbler now through the deep wave he runs like a whirlwind, now is borne to the lowest depth, and often above the brine's foam, leaping up, he springs, in hope the bold swarm of overweening swimmers might let him go; but they, unwearied, let go nothing of their force, but cling to him alike, and as he dives they dive one road with him, and again as he leaps up they dart out of the water with him, dragged along; you would say a new monster was being born to the Earth-shaker, mingled of dolphins and bonitos; so by the grievous gripping of teeth is he fettered. As when a physician, full of devices, draining a wound that is swollen, in which much hostile blood is bred within, the watery broods, the dark-skinned creeping things of the marsh, upon the suffering flesh he sets, to feed on the black blood; and they, at once arched, swell and draw the gore, nor let go, until, having drained again the heavy, undiluted draught of blood from the flesh, they fall off self-rolling, like men drunken; so the bonitos relax not their force before they have carved beneath their mouths that flesh which once they seized. But when they leave him, and the dolphin breathes again from his toil, then you shall see the rage of the leader in his wrath; and a chill ruin appears for the bonitos. For they flee, and he behind, ravaging, like to an ill-sounding waterspout, lays all waste, tearing eagerly, and reddens the sea with blood, striking with his jaws, and, having suffered, avenges the outrage. So too in the thickets, hunters tell, the report goes, the overweening jackals busy themselves about a stag, gathering; for they, darting on with their jaws, snatch away his flesh, and lap the warm spring of the new-shed blood; and he, bleeding with pains, bellowing, full of deadly wounds, now over one mountain top, now another, tosses himself about; and they leave him not, but ever near him follow, the flesh-eaters, and tearing him alive with their teeth they strip off his hide, before death has come upon him, toiling at a most dark and most painful feast. But indeed the shameless jackals paid no penalty, and laughed over the slain stags, while the bold bonitos soon were worsted in a harder strife. This other most pre-eminent deed of the dolphins, hearing of it, I marvelled at: when destructive sickness, the grievous, comes near them, it escapes them not, but they know the end of life; and the sea and the wide depths of the deep fleeing, they run aground upon the light shores; there they breathe out their life and take their lot upon the land, that some one of men may revere the sacred messenger of the Earth-shaker as he lies, and cover him in the heaped sand, remembering his kindly friendship, or that the sea herself, washing him up with the sands, may hide his body, that none of the sea-creatures may behold the leader dead, nor any of the foes do outrage to his body, gone though he is; for valour and might attend even the dying, nor did they shame their glory, even in death. The grey mullet I hear, among all the swimmers of the sea, nurtures the gentlest and most righteous mind; for the grey mullets alone are kindly, and harm neither one of their own tribe nor any of another kind; nor ever do they touch flesh for food beneath their mouths, nor lap blood, but they feed in harmlessness, unstained with blood and harmless, pure broods; they feed either on the green moss of the sea or on the very mud, and lick one another's bodies. Therefore they have a certain honoured reverence among fishes; for none of them harms the young brood, as others do, and they keep off the violence of flesh-eating teeth. So ever among all lie the privileges of reverend Justice, and everywhere she has won a worshipful honour. But all the others go destructive to one another; and therefore you will never see the fishes sleeping, but for them both eyes and mind ever keep wakeful, all-sleepless; since they ever dread the stronger that meets them, and destroy the weaker. The parrot-wrasse alone, they say, the anglers never in the darkness catch falling into their snare, but it sleeps a night-sleep beneath the hollow recesses. Yet it is no marvel that Justice dwells apart from the sea; for of old, the eldest of goddesses, she had not even among mortals her throne, but ill-sounding tumults and rushing Ares, the ruin of men, and Strife, the nurse of much-wept wars, giver of pains, inflamed the wretched race of men of a day; nor were the many distinguished from the beasts at all, but more dreadful than lions, the well-walled towers and the halls and the fragrant temples of the immortals with the blood of men and the sooty smoke of Hephaestus they covered over, until the son of Cronos pitied the ruined race, and to you, the sons of Aeneas, entrusted the earth, kindling it for you. But still, even in the former kings of the Ausonians, Ares raged, arming the Celts and the boastful Iberians, and the long sea-road of Libya and the works of the Rhine, the Ister and the Euphrates; but why should I remember these works of the spear? For now I know you, Justice, nurse of cities, as the hearth-companion and house-mate of men, since for me, set upon the great throne, they rule, both the divine father and the radiant scion; from them a sweet haven of kingship has been spread for me. Them do you protect, and steadfastly guide aright through many decades of the circling years, Zeus and the sons of Heaven, the choir of Zeus, if there is any recompense for piety; and may you bring fulfilling blessedness to the sceptre.