Book 4

4. Others, as prey for hunters, watery desire led on; with deadly couplings, with deadly love they met, hastening to their amorous ruin. But you, O mightiest of city-guarding kings, yourself, Antoninus, and the godlike heart of your son, listen with favour and take joy in the delights of the sea, such as the gently-giving Muses have decked my mind with, and have crowned with the gift of inspired song; and grant me to mingle for your ears and your minds a sweet, clear stream.

Cruel Love, deviser of wiles, of the gods most fair to look upon, but most grievous when you stir the heart, falling unforeseen, and like a storm beneath the breast you mingle, breathing the sharp menace of fire, seething with pains and with unmixed sorrows; to shed the warm grace of the tear, and to hear from the depths the groan, and beneath the inward parts to redden with a hot flush, and to strip from the skin its bloom, turned awry, and to hollow the eyes, and to lift the whole mind beside them to madness; many you have rolled into death, all those you met as a wintry and savage foe, bringing frenzy; for in such feasts you delight. Whether among the blessed you are oldest in birth, risen out of unsmiling Chaos, ablaze with sharp fire, and were the first to yoke the ordinances of marriage, the first to set a bound upon the bridal furrows; or whether Aphrodite of Paphos, ruler and wise, bore you, a winged god lifted upon wings, be gracious, and come to us mild and serene, keeping measure; for none refuses the work of Love. Everywhere you rule, and everywhere they long for you and greatly tremble; happy is he who tends a temperate love and guards it in his breast. For you, neither the heavenly race suffices nor the human stock: you spurn not even the beasts, nor all that the barren air feeds; you plunge beneath the depths of the lowest pool, and you arm black shafts even among the fish, that nothing of your power be left untaught, not even the fish that swims below the wave.

What love for one another, what sharp-pointed longing the dappled parrot-wrasses keep, nor in their troubles do they forsake each other, but with defending heart often, when one is struck by the bloody hook, another parrot-wrasse, darting up as champion, shears the line with its teeth and saves its comrade, and blunts the snare and grieves the angler. And one already caught within the back-woven creels another steals away and drags out of destruction: for when the gleaming fish falls into the creel's ambush, at once it perceives, and to escape the evil it strives, and turning down its head and eyes, backward toward its tail it swims up, crossing the barrier; for it fears the long-pointed rushes that bristle all round the gateway and wound the eyes of one coming against them, like sentinels. But the others, seeing it whirling helplessly, come from outside to its aid, nor do they leave the tormented one; and one, holding out its tail like a hand, gives it for the comrade within to seize; the other grips with its teeth, and he drags it forth from death, its guiding tail held as a bond beneath the mouth. And often, when the captive within holds out its tail, another seizes it and drags it forth, following it; by such devices they escape their doom. As when men climb a rugged hill through the gloom of shadowy night, when the moon is hidden and the cloud-veils grow black, and they struggle in the dark and wander on untrodden paths, holding each other by the hand, drawn and drawing, a relief from their toils in turn; so do these by mutual love become defenders of one another; yet this devised destruction for the wretches, and they met a deadly and painful love, undone by the cunning of the fishers. Four hunters embark in the swift boat, of whom two attend to the labour of the oars, the third weaves a crafty design. Tying a female parrot-wrasse, he trails it by the very tip of its lip in the eddies, bound to a line of flax; it is best to draw it up alive; but if it die, after its mouth he takes the dolphin-trick of lead. And from the cord at the other end behind is driven a heavy rounded cube of lead at the knot's end; and so, like one alive among the waves, the female is trailed and stretched out by the fisher. The fourth draws the creel's deep snare against them from close by; and the others, seeing it, rush straight on, swiftly hastening, the dappled parrot-wrasses, to rescue the one drawn along, and they course round the deceit on every side, driven by frenzied desire for the female; and with their oars the men speed the boat with all their might; and the fish follow eagerly; soon their aid proves their very last. For when the angler's mind sees them gathered and raging unrestrained toward frenzy for the female, he set in the creel together the net and the lead, which, weighing down the parrot-wrasse, drew it within; and they at once, as soon as they saw, poured in to outstrip one another, urging on the woven fence of Death, and in their eager throng the bars of withy and the dread gape of the gateway are crowded; for such gadflies drive them on. As when men devoted to the contests of swift feet, launched from the starting-line at full speed, stretching their nimble limbs forward, strain to accomplish the long course; and in all is the desire to reach the post and to win the sweet-giving prize of victory and to dart toward the door and to gird on the strength of triumph; so great a love leads even these on to leap into the chambers of Hades, the ambush from which none returns. With most dog-like and final frenzy for love, self-surrendered, they fill the men with a longed-for catch.

Others again set the living female within the dark creel and place it beneath those rocks where the milk-white parrot-wrasse haunts; and they, by love's breath bewitched, gather round in amorous longing, and lick about it and search on every side, seeking the way down into the creel; and at once they reach the wide entrance, which holds a barrier with no way out, and all fall in together in a crowd, nor is there any means to escape, but they found a hateful end to their loves. As one who plots a guileful death for birds hides in the leafy thickets a female bird, the familiar comrade of the same-tongued hunt; and she shrills out her clear-toned song, and they, hearing it, all press on, and rush themselves into the noose, led astray by the cries of the female's voice; so did those fall into the flanks of the creel, like them.

Such ruin too does love wrap round the grey mullets; for them too the female beguiled among the waves, trailed along; let her be plump and sleek of limb; for so, beholding her, countless ones gather round; overcome utterly by her beauty, they will not be left behind, but everywhere the charms of longing lead them on, warmed, even if you guide them on a course unwelcome, drawing the female lure toward the dry land; and they follow in a throng, mindful neither of snares nor of fishers; but like young men who, marking the eye of a most lovely woman, first gaze from afar, wondering at the much-desired form, and then come near, and forget themselves, and no longer go those ways they went before, but follow her rejoicing, charmed by the warm gusts of Aphrodite; so you may see their watery crowd whirled in frenzy; soon their loves come hateful to them; for at once a man lifts the well-wrought casting-net and sends its bosom forth and draws an untold catch, easily, having wrapped them about, caught fast in the meshes.

Cuttlefish too, ill-fated in love, run on to greater ruin; for against them the fishers, mournful of the sea, send neither the deadly creel nor the casting-folds of the net, but they simply trail one alone, fastened, among the waves; and the others, when from afar they see it, at once come against it, and twined about it cling fast, grown into its coils, as when girls from a foreign land have seen a long-absent brother, or a kindly father come home unharmed to the halls; or as a girl, newly taken under the yoke of wedded Aphrodite, captured in the well-caught bond of marriage, twines about the bridegroom, all night long looping fetters about his neck on either side with her white arms; so then do the cunning cuttlefish twist about one another; nor is the work of love let go until the fishers drag them up to the boat; and still they are grown together, and with their love at once they took their doom. These too men beguile with creels in the season of spring; for shading the creels with sprigs of tamarisk or with the budding leaves of the arbutus, or with other foliage, they set them on the much-sanded shores; and these, needing both offspring and a bed, hasten into the creel, and sitting among the leaves there they ceased their longing, and ceased too their wretched life, drawn up by the cunning fishers.

Beyond all the fish a grievous love the merle endures, and his heart blazes for the wrasses, raging with frenzy and jealousy, a heavy-minded daemon. For the merle there is no single mate sharing his haunt, no single wife, no single chamber, but many wives, and many separate clefts hide the home-set beds of his women; in these always, all day long, within the hollow recesses the wrasses dwell, like newly-wedded brides, whom none would see going forth before the chamber; in them burns the modesty of marriage; so these, each shut within the chambers, always linger where their husband himself bids. The merle in turn, sitting by the rocks, never leaves, always keeping watch over his beds, nor ever turns to another, but all day long he wheels about, and now to these, now to those chambers he peers, and his mind is set neither on food nor has any other care, but over his brides he toils, jealous, with ever-watchful labours; by night he thinks of food and rests from his works just so much as breaks his unceasing guard. But when the wrasses are in the throes of bearing their young, then he darts about, beyond restraint, trembling all round them, and goes now to this, now to that wife, much like one trembling in travail. As a mother frets in her heart, shuddering at the swift birth-pangs of her cherished daughter in her first labour, for that is the great fear of women; and to herself comes no lesser wave of Eileithyia's pains, and on all sides she is shaken through the chambers, praying, groaning, with her heart in suspense, until from within she hears the cry that ends the pain; so he, trembling for his brides, his heart greatly blazes. Some such law of marriage, I hear, the Assyrians follow, who hold their towns beyond the ford of Tigris, and the dwellers in Bactra, the far-shooting nation of arrows; for among these too many women hold the marriage-beds, set apart, and all sleep with the man in turn, changing nights; and after them follows the sting of grievous jealousy, and over jealousy they are destroyed, always whetting a heavy war against one another. So no grief worse than jealousy is bred in men, and it makes many laments and many wailings; for it is the comrade of shameless frenzy; and gladly it consorts with frenzy, and into heavy ruin it dances out, and its end is destruction. This too led the wretched merle into ruin to be overcome, and he met a harsh recompense for his loves. For when the angler sees him circling on the rocks, a fish troubled over his brides, he fixes upon his strong hook as quickly as may be a living prawn, and above the hook a heavy cube of lead is hung; and stealthily he lets the heavy snare down toward the rocks, and close by their chambers he whirls it; and the fish, seeing it, at once stirred up rushed forth, hoping the prawn was coming into his home, hostile to his beds and to his brides; and rushing on at once he hopes within his jaws to punish the prawn's coming, nor did he perceive his own doom, gaping wide upon it; but the fisher, marking him at once, pierced him through, jerking up with his bronze jaws, and drew him forth, struggling and gasping his last, and somewhere taunted him with such mocking words: Now indeed, now keep watch and guard your brides, poor wretch, and staying in your chambers take joy in your brides; for not one Cypris pleased you, nor one bed, but greatly you exulted, sole husband in so many beds; yet come here now, your marriage is ready, bridegroom, the gleam of the white-crowned fire on land. Such taunts he flung, telling them to one who could not hear. And the wrasses, when their guardian husband dies, going abroad wander from the chambers, and shared with the man a common doom.

And indeed by love and by mutual aid the dog-fishes perish, and the tribes of the dark horn-bearing rays; the white fish is caught fast upon the hook, and the angler, going where the dim mud sits deep below in the long fathoms, let down the hook, and swiftly one met it and seized the bait; he is hauled up at once, and the others marking it, all in a throng follow close, that they may come to the very boat and the hunters. Then you might take some in the round circle of the landing-net, and others, striking down with the iron three-pronged spears, and with various snares; for they do not turn aside and flee until they see their comrade hauled up, and they wish to perish together. As when from the hall the corpse of a son newly slain, their cherished one, his parents bear to the much-wept tomb, for whom they will toil long in vain; torn with grief, wailing over their child, they cling to the mound and will not return to their home, but are eager to die with the dead in shared mourning; so these will not be left behind when their fellow is hauled up, until they too are destroyed by the hunters.

Others a strange love, not native to the brine, seized, rousing in fish a land-born madness beyond the sea; what a shaft of alien affection comes upon the octopus and the sargue-kind, comrades of the rocks. The octopuses love the shoots of Athena and the grey branches, and they draw a longing for them; a great marvel indeed, to be drawn in heart toward a tree and to rejoice in the sprigs of the sleek plant. For where, near the sea, stands the bright-fruited olive, flourishing on the neighbouring slopes by the shore, thither the octopus's mind is drawn, as upon a scent the keen-nosed Knossian hound's strength is drawn, who in the mountains tracks the beast, searching out its winding path by the unerring message of its nose, and swiftly it seizes the beast and does not fail, but brings it near its master; so too the octopus straightway perceives the flourishing olive near, and emerges from the depths and creeps up the land exulting, and draws near the trunks of Athena; there first, rejoicing about the root, it wreathes the lower stem, winding round like a boy who welcomes his nurse newly come to him, and twines about her, and lifts his hands to her bosom, longing to clasp her neck and throat; so it wreathes about the trunk, rejoicing in the tree. Thence, propping itself on its outermost suckers, it climbs upward eagerly, and about the foliage it folds itself, holding now this branch, now that, as some man returned from abroad greets his comrades, who come thronging to meet him, twining about his neck; or as the moist coil of ivy winds about the tall fir-trees, and stretching from its root it creeps, and flows all round with its tendrils; so it, rejoicing, wraps the sleek shoots of the olive, like one kissing; but when of its love it has its fill, again it creeps back to the bosom of the sea, sated with affection and with longing for the olive. By this very love its capture comes, as the fishers learned; for binding together olive shoots, the most well-grown, they set lead in the midst, and trail them from the boat; and the octopus, perceiving, did not neglect them, but darted and twined about its dear branches; nor thereafter, even while drawn to capture, does it loose the bonds of longing, until it comes within the boat; nor did it hate the olive, even while perishing.

The sargues set their heart on love of goats, and long for goats, and in the mountain-bred herds they take exceeding joy, sea-creatures though they are. A wonder past belief, that kindred tribes were born loving each other—the crags of the mountains and the grey sea. For when the goatherds drive their bleating flocks to the shore-line, to bathe in the salt eddies at noon, when the burning Olympian star stands high, then the sargues, hearing the bleating by the shore and the deep-toned cry of the goat-herds, all together, sluggish though they are, come hurrying borne along, and leap upon the sea's high banks, rejoicing, and fawn about the horned company and lick about them and pour round in a throng, leaping thick; and wonder holds the herdsmen who first behold it; and the goats not unwilling receive their dear chorus; and no satiety of joy holds the fish. Not so much in the covered folds of the shepherds do the kids, exulting from pasture, receive their mothers with much gladness and friendliness, when all the place around rings with the joyful cries of the little ones, and the herdsmen's mind laughs, as those press about the horned herds. But when they have had their fill of the sea-bathing, and the goats go back again to their pens, then the sargues, grieving, all together follow close, where the laughter of the topmost wave passes into the land. As when a mother sends forth her cherished son, or a wife her husband, going to a foreign land far off, grieving, and her mind frets within, how great the stretch of sea between, how many the rounds of months; and stepping upon the topmost waves of the sea she sends a tearful cry from her lips, beseeching him to hasten, and her feet no longer bear her back as she yearns, but she holds her gaze upon the deep; so for these one might say the tears drop from their eyes, left lonely when the goats are driven away. Poor sargue! for soon, I say, an evil love for the goats will fall upon you; such a mind in the anglers turned your loves toward deceit and doom. First the man marks those rocks near the land that rise close together with twin crests, which hold a narrow strait of sea between, bright with the rays of heaven, in which many sargues dwell, having a common-built home; for they rejoice exceedingly in the fires of the sun. There a man, casting a goat-skin over his limbs, fastening two horns about his own temples, sets out, plotting a shepherd's wile, and casts into the sea barley-meal greased with goat-flesh and savour; and the dear smell and the deceitful sight and the well-given food draw them on, nor do they think of any ruin in their hearts, but rejoicing they remain, fawning about the man-foe who resembles a goat; poor wretches, how then they meet a deadly comrade, not knit of goat-nature! For at once against them he arms a stout rod and a line of grey flax, and casts over the hook flesh native to a goat's hoof; and they snatch the food eagerly, and he draws with his thick hand, hauling back; for if any suspect the work of deceit, they would no longer come near, even if he should bring the very shaggy-haired goats, but they flee, loathing all together both the shape and the feast and the very haunts of the rock; but if he escape notice and ply his swift toil, none of the catch would be left, but the goat's look will overcome them all.

Another longing too belongs to the sargues in the season of spring, for one another, and over bed and marriage they contend; one fights for many mates, and whoever in might conquers becomes the husband sufficient for all, and drives the female troop to the rocks; there the fishers have contrived a deep creel, rounded on every side; and they cover all the mouth round with the foliage of plants, of myrtle or fragrant laurel or some other, shading it skilfully with leafy sprigs. The sting drives the suitors on to battle, to fight, and a great bridal War of Enyo arises. But when one, proving best, takes the mastery, at once a smooth rock he scans, a home for his brides, and sees the creel lying there, roofed over with leafy boughs, and there he drives his bridal chorus; and they then sink into the creel, while he outside keeps off all the males, nor lets any other approach the brides. But when he has filled the woven snare, last of all himself he thrust into the chamber, the bed of Hades from which is no return. As when a shepherd, driving from pasture his wool-bearing flocks, leads them home again, and in the doorway standing of the fold he counts in his mind the throng of sheep, ordering them well, whether all are safe for him, and as the flocks press in, the courtyard, filled to overflowing, is crowded, and last among them the shepherd hastened in; so the females first went down into the hollow recess, and last the husband leaped in after, wretched, hastening with his wretched brides. Such are the contests love set up among the fish, and by such love-mad deceits they perished.

The dolphin-fish, when they spy something drifting amid the waves, all in a throng follow close near it; and most of all when a storm-shattered ship, struck by the dread wrath of pitiless Poseidon, and the great wave, dividing it, bears the timbers this way and that, loosed in many fragments. Then the schools of dolphin-fish, following the floating planks, pursue them; and the man who meets with such fishers easily takes a great and unenvied catch. But may the Son of Cronus in the deep keep this from sailors, and may the ships run through the broad wave on gentle breezes, unharmed and unshaken, going about their cargo with toils exchanged in turn; but for the dolphin-fish other devices must be contrived, and without harm to ships their capture won. Binding bundles of reeds together, they set them in the eddies, and below tie a heavy stone as anchor; and all these in the water they whirl quietly; and at once the shade-loving tribes of dolphin-fish gather in a school, and about their backs, delighting in the reeds, they rub themselves, lingering; then the fishers sail upon them for the ready catch, and arming their hooks with baits they send them out; and the fish draw them, hastening their own death. As when a man stirs dogs to a struggle with food, whirling among them the morsels, and they, upon their bellies raging exceedingly, outstrip one another with snatching frenzy, racing past each other and peering at the hand of the man, where he may throw it, and strife of teeth appears; so do these dart readily upon the hooks. Easily you will draw one captive after another, being swift; for they themselves hasten more than the fishers, in their folly speeding their own doom. By such cunning too the pilot-fish is caught; for in them too the heart is alike set on shady loves.

For the squid let a man devise a spindle, fashioning it just like a distaff; and about it let him fasten thickly, bending back the barbs, hooks close beside one another, on which he should pierce the dappled body of a rainbow-wrasse, hiding the upturned bites of the bronze, and in the grey depths of the sea fastening such a snare let him trail it; and the squid, seeing it, darts forth, and clasping it presses with its moist fringes, and is pinned upon the lips of bronze; nor any longer, though it would, can it let go, but unwilling it is drawn, its own self-woven body wrapped about it.

And one too in the unbuffeted harbours of the sea contrived a catching of eels, a boy at play. Taking a sheep's gut of great length, he let it down through the water stretched out, like a long line; and the eel, seeing it, rushed and seized it; and as it gaped he knew it, and at once arched the sheep's-gut with a breath, breathing into the entrail; and it rises with violent gasping, swollen, and fills the stretched mouth of the wretched eel; and it groans, labouring beneath the breath of the man, and is bound though it longs to escape, until, swelling and gasping past restraint, it floats upward and comes into the hunter's hands. As when one, testing a full wine-jar, holding a tube, presses the blow-pipe to his mouth, and with his breath draws back the wine's draught, sucking it up with his outermost lips, and it runs up at the man's breath; so the eels, surging up beneath the breath, are drawn toward the mouth of the deceitful blow-pipe.

There is a wretched and feeble crowd of fish, the close-thronging brood of the weak anchovy, which are called sprats; good food they are for all fishes; and ever in their hearts panic is kindled, and they tremble at everything, and poured together they remain heaped in a mass and grow fast together in a throng, as if bearing the force of a constraining bond; nor could you devise a parting of the wide swarm nor a loosening; so fast do they hold to one another. Often even ships, as upon reefs, have run aground on them, and often the oarsmen of the rowlocks strike them with their oars, and the blade, eager though it is, is held fast, as though it had struck a rocky shoal; and someone, lifting straight up a heavy-mouthed axe, struck the sprats, and did not cleave the whole mass with the iron, but divided off a small portion of the school; and of this it cut off the head, and that it docked of its tail, and that it mowed in the middle, and another it took whole. A piteous sight, bodies like wretched corpses. Yet not even so did they forget, nor did they let go their bond; such a rivet holds them together. And one might gather with his hands, as if meeting deep sand, those very fish, heaping them up. When the fishers mark them crouching upon one another, they wrap them round in the hollow seines gladly, and bring a great catch to the shores without toil, and all their vessels they filled with sprats, and loaded the boats, and on the deep shores they heaped up piles, an endless flood of catch. As when the labourers of Deo, when they have done their work and winnowed the grain by the wind and by hand-oars, have piled up much in the midst of the well-rolled threshing-floor, and all round the grain-receiving rim of the threshing-floor grows white, filled to overflowing within; so then, filled to the brim with countless sprats, the brow of the sea-neighbouring beach grows white.

The tribes of the bonito are by birth from the Euxine sea, the children of the heavy-minded tunny; for those, where the Maeotic lake mingles with the brine, gathering at the marsh's mouth and the watery reed-beds, bethought them of their painful labour of birth; and whatever eggs they find as they course along they devour, but those that remain among the reeds and the rushes bring forth schools of bonito in their season; and these, when first they brush the wave and make trial of the passage, hasten on a strange voyage of the sea, nor will they remain where they were born, small though they are.

There is a certain passage of the Thracian sea, which men say is the deepest, set in Poseidon's allotments; from this it is even called the Black, nor do violent or overstrong winds leap upon it too much; and in it there are hollow recesses below the surface, muddy, unspeakable, in which much is bred that gives feasts to the small fishes. There too for the new-born schools of bonito lie their first paths, since beyond all other sea-creatures they shudder at the ill-blowing onset of winter; and winter dulls the light of the bonito's eyes. There, fallen into the broad flanks of the sea, they simply linger, and growing they await the gentle spring; and then too the desire of the bed comes upon them; and filled with offspring they speed back again to their fathers' wave, having put from their womb their labour. These over the deep gulf of the Black passage the Thracians hunt in the cruel season of winter, a grievous and joyless hunt, beneath the bloody ordinance of war and the savage fate of slaughter. There is a beam not long but as thick as may be, its length a cubit, a stout stake; and at its tip is much poured lead, and many barbs of iron, three-pronged, set close together; and a very long well-plaited cable goes about it. Sailing out with the spar where the sea's passage is deepest, into the misty depth they sent the mighty mass down below with full force from the fir-built keel; and at once with a rush, speeding, weighed down by lead and iron, it darts to the nethermost roots of the sea, where upon the feeble bonito, crouching in the slime, it fell; it took and pierced as many of the wretched throng as it reached. And swiftly they drew them up, driven through with the bronze, quivering piteously with the iron's pains. And one beholding them, even a stout-hearted man, would pity the ill-caught hunt and their fate; for of one the spear-point was driven through the flanks, and of another the swift shaft pierced the head, and one above the tail is wounded, and the belly of another, and another's back the bitter War took, and another is run through the middle of the flank. As when, the warrior tumult decided, men gather up from the dust and blood the spear-slain and send them to the fiery bed, their own comrades mourning; and many and varied upon the corpses' bodies are the wounds, and the shafts of War crowd thick; so upon the bonito too the wounds appear everywhere, an image of war, dear though to the fishers.

Others again with light nets take the tribes of the feeble bonito; for ever in the darkness, whatever falls upon the brine, they tremble, and hold a dread of the gloom; in the gloom they are hunted, terrified throughout the deep. For setting very light nets of thin flax they whirl them round in a circle, striking with force of oars the back of the sea, and with poles they clatter down upon it; and the fish, under the swift-oared flashing and the din, in panic leap, and into the bosom of the net they go, which stands still, thinking it a shelter, foolish ones, who in fear of the noise crossed into death. Then the men press on with the ropes on either side, drawing the net to the shores; and the fish, seeing the ropes moving, holding empty terrors, huddle together and cower and are coiled in a throng. Many a prayer might the net-caster then make to the hunting gods, that nothing leap outside the flax, nor anything stir to show the way; for if the bonito see it, swiftly all over the light flax they dart to the deep and leave the catch unaccomplished. But if none of the sea-roaming blessed ones grudge them, often even dragged over the dry shore, out of the water, they will not leave the net, but cling fast, shuddering at the much-coiling cord itself. So too in the thickets the mountain hunters take the strengthless herd of deer by their lucky craft, wreathing the whole copse with cord; and about it they bind the swift feathers of light birds; and the deer, seeing them, crouch in vain with empty fear, nor do they desire idly to draw near, terrified by the feathers, until the hunters, darting upon them, take them.

And one too, a diver skilled in works of the sea, without a snare, with his hands darting upon them, took the very fish, as though crossing a passage of land instead of brine, both the sargue that trembles in fear and the timid corb. The sargues, in their terror, all in a throng into the recess of the sea huddle and cower, and are poured upon one another, falling sidelong, and bristle up with their spines, bending back their backs, as with stakes on every side the husbandmen fence the running fence of the threshing-floor with thick thorns, a great trouble to the ravagers; nor could anyone enter; for the stakes bar the ways; so one would not readily come near these, nor lay a hand on them; for the dark thorns bristle round in rows, close-set, beneath their points. But let a man by his knowledge dive swiftly beneath the depths of the deep, and mark out on every side the sargues, where their head is and where their tail-set; and casting his hand over their heads, the spines from above let him gently stroke and press them down, bending them; and they stay just as they are, knit together, unmoved, trusting in their sharp defences; then the man, lifting two in his hands on either side, sails up again, having accomplished a most thievish work.

But when fear enters the heart of the rock-haunting corb, swiftly it rushes upon the reefs, and into some hollow hole it enters, a recess running round, or a cleft, or it runs beneath the sea-weeds, or beneath the moist wrack; for it cares not for a shelter such as might receive and save the whole of it, but its head alone it seeks to fence, and hiding its head and eyes it hopes, not seeing, to escape the watcher's onset. As when, with the ravening lion rushing upon her, an antelope in the thickets, turning down her head, sets up a vain defence, nor does she hope to be seen, until the deadly beast, darting upon her, tears her; and like is the corb's heart, nor does it incline its head, but thinks, even while perishing, to escape. Such tricks too the winged crook-necked creature of Libya foolishly devises; and its craft proved vain; so the tender corb, by feeble hopes, hides; for soon, having dragged it up with his hands, the hunter rose and revealed it in its folly.

So much I have learned of the sea-working craft's designs of the fishers, and the bitter doom upon so many fishes; but all the others alike a common fate o'ertakes, of creels and hooks and the deep-woven net and the cast of the trident, all the gear of men's craft. Some the dawn took overcome, others the evening, when at the first gloom of night the fishers, kindling a torch and steering the hollow boat, bring an unseen doom upon the unwary fish. There some, exulting in the bright flame of pine, rush about the boat, and saw an evil evening fire, meeting the cast of the pitiless trident.

There is yet another mode of the hunt for fish-striking poisoners, who devised a baleful poison against the fish, and set a swift-fated end upon the creatures. First with crowded missiles and casts of poles and battering of oars they herd the wretched ranks of the fish into one place, hollow-formed, broken by frequent caverns; there some sink beneath the hollow reefs, and the men set all round the well-fencing nets of flax in a circle, as against hostile men casting about them a double, unfriendly wall of rock. And then the man, lifting up at once rich potter's clay and a root, which the healers have named cyclamen, mixing them in his hands, kneaded two cakes; and into the sea above the nets he leaped, and about those very hollows and chambers he smeared the ill-breathing drugs of the hateful unguent, and defiled the sea. And the man who poured the deadly poison the ship received back again; and the fish at once an evil and hostile smell first reaches in their chambers; and with mist their eyes and head and limbs grow heavy, nor can they remain in the recesses, but in terror they pour out from the reefs; and the sea about them is far more bitter; such a bane is mingled in the waves. And they, like men heavy with wine, drunk on the deadly breath, whirl everywhere and nowhere have a place left free of the evil, and rushing upon the nets in haste they fall, eager to leap through; but there is no release from the harsh ruin, no escape; with much rushing and leaping they surge, tormented; and over Amphitrite spreads the great gasping of the dying, which to the wretched fish became a wail; while outside, the fishers in their pains take pleasure and remain at ease, until silence takes the sea, and from the surge and the grievous tumult they cease, breathing out their groaning last breath. And then they draw up the countless throng of corpses, dead together in a common, defiling doom. As when men set War against their enemies, longing to lay waste a city utterly, and they do not slacken, plotting woes against them, but even the water of the springs they poisoned with destruction; and the people upon the towers, toiling with grievous famine and misery and the hateful water, by a loathsome and shameful death perish, and the whole city is filled with corpses; so these by a deadly fate and a bitter doom, overcome by the poisoning men, were destroyed.