Book 5

5. From this, then, hearing, judge, O lord of the land, that nothing is impossible for mortals, neither on earth their mother to labour, nor through the dank bosom of the sea; but truly some one brought forth a race like the blessed gods, even men, and gave them a lesser strength, whether the offspring of Iapetus, Prometheus of many counsels, fashioned a race to face the blessed ones, joining earth to water, and anointed their heart with the gods' own ointment, or whether we are sprung from the god-flowing gore of the Titans; for nothing is mightier than men apart from the gods; to the immortals alone we yield. For how many beasts upon the mountains, holding unflinching might, overweening creatures, has mortal man quenched! And how many tribes of birds, wheeling in the clouds and the air, has he taken, though his own frame keeps low to the ground! Nor did the lion's pride save it from being tamed, nor did the windy rush of his wings save the eagle, but even the Indian black-hided beast, that overweening burden, by force they bowed, pressing upon it, and set it under the yoke of mules to bear the patient toil of a draught-hauler. And as for the monsters, vast as they are, that in Poseidon's haunts are reared, I say the sea breeds these no less savage than the flesh-eating offspring of the land, but in strength too and in size they surpass them, the shameless terrors of the deep. There is a kind of land-tortoise, and they know no might nor any harm; but with the sea-turtle not very boldly will any man meet in the waves. On the dry land there are fierce dogs, yet with the dogs of the sea no man could vie in shamelessness. The leopard is a deadly bane of the land, but the sea's is more dreadful. Over the dry land walk the hyenas, but far more chilling are those in the surge. There are rams, the tame flock of shepherds, but with the ram of the sea no gentleness will he meet who comes near it. Who carries strength so great as the boar, as the invincible lamnae carry? Whose heart blazes with a lion's might, that could match the shuddersome hammerhead-sharks? The grim seal even on land the long-haired bears shudder at, and meeting it in battle are overcome; in such beasts does the sea delight. But for all that, against these too the burdensome ruin the unconquerable race of men of a day devised, and by the fishers they are destroyed, when they rush into battle with the monsters. Of their hunting I will tell the heavy toil; but hear me, gracious kings, Olympian walls of the land.

Monsters are reared in the mid-flowing seas, most numerous and most vast; and they do not rise from the brine often, but below they keep the floor of the sea by their weight, and rave with the ceaseless frenzy of hunger, ever famished and never from their dread belly loosing their greed; for what food shall be so great as to fill the chaos of their gut, as to lull to surfeit that invincible jaw? And they too destroy one another, the stronger slaying the weaker in might, and to one another are food and feasts. Often too they bring terror, encountering ships on the western Iberian sea, where most of all the neighbouring Ocean's unspeakable water, left behind, gathers, like ships of twenty oars. Often too, wandering, it comes near the shore of deep waters, when one might arm against it. For all the monstrous beasts of the sea, save the dogs, the ways are heavy-limbed and not easily plied; for they neither see from afar nor traverse the whole sea, weighed down by their towering limbs, but very late, rolling, are they borne along. Therefore a fish goes as fellow-traveller with all of them, grey to look upon and long of body, with a slender tail, which above all leads the way of the sea before them, giving signs; and for this they have named it the Guide. To the monster it is an exceedingly welcome comrade, an escort and a guard; and it carries the monster where it will easily; for that one alone the fish follows, keeping a faithful mind ever toward a faithful friend; and near it it turns about, and stretches close before its eyes its tail, which makes plain to it each thing—whether there is some prey to take, or whether some bane is mustering near, or whether the spread of sea is shallow, which it is better to shun; and as if it spoke, the tail shows all things most truly; and the burden of water obeys it. For that fish is the monster's champion and its ears and its light; to it the monster listens, by it it sees, having entrusted to it the keeping of its own life. As a child cherishes his aged father, repaying the nurture with cares that tend his age, and now, when his limbs and eyes have grown feeble, attending him kindly, embraces him, and on the roads holds out his hand, and in all his works himself defends him; for to an aging father his sons are new strength; so that fish in love embraces the bane of the sea, guiding it like a ship by helm and rein. Surely from its first birth a kindred blood fell to it, or it took the monster itself and made it comrade of its heart. So neither of manhood nor of beauty is there profit so great as of wits; and might without sense is foolish; and a small but cunning man has quenched and saved himself from one greatly mighty; since even the invincible monster, of unapproachable limbs, sets before it a little fish. Therefore let one take first as his target that Guide, beguiling it by the hook's force and by a bait; for you could not, pressing upon it while it lives, master the beast, but once it is gone its ruin will be the swifter. For it no longer knows truly the ways of the violet-dark brine, nor how to shun a bane close at hand, but simply, like a merchant-ship whose steersman has perished, it drifts unguarded, helpless, wherever the grey water may drive it, and through dark and trackless passages it is borne, bereft of its helping charioteer. Often too it runs aground on rocks and on shores, drifting; such a mist is spread over its eyes. Then indeed with eager designs to the toil of the hunt the fishers hasten, having prayed to the blessed ones, the slayers of monsters, to take the grievous portent of Amphitrite. As when a strong band of enemies draws stealthily near their foes, watching for midnight, and finds the watchmen asleep before the gates, with War's favour, and falling on them overcomes them; thence then upon the citadel and the very tower boldly they press, bearing the fire-bolt, the city's ruin, the brand that shatters the well-built halls; so then boldly the host of fishers presses on after the unfenced beast, its steersman slain. First in their minds they reckon its weight and its size; and these are the signs from its limbs: if, as it rolls amid the eddies of the deep, it lifts up a little of its ridge and the gleaming top of its crest, then it is great and surpassing; for not even the very sea bears it easily, heaving it up; but if any of its back shows, it announces not so great a weight; for the ways are light for the feebler ones. For these the line is fitted with close-set joinings of many twisted cords, as great as the forestay of a ship neither deep nor small; and its length is stretched out sufficient for the prey; and the well-wrought hook is notched with alternating projections of barbs, sharpened on both sides, such as could grip a rock and pierce a crag, so great a curve of metal, that might cover round the gape. A twisted chain is set about the end of the dark hook, stout, bronze-forged, which the savage force of teeth might withstand, and the points of the jaws; and in the middle of the bond round wheel-like rings are made, close beside one another, to keep off the wild twistings, lest it break straight off the iron, bleeding, racked with deadly pains, but instead let it wind in a wheeling, wandering course. On the hook they make ready a grim feast, the black liver of a bull, set apart, or the raw flesh of a bull, like the jaws of a beast that feeds. And many, as fellow-marchers with the fishers as if to war, are whetted: strong points and stout tridents, sickles and heavy-mouthed axes, and all such shattering tools as are forged on the loud-clanging anvils. Swiftly, mounting the well-benched boats, silently nodding to one another what need there is, they set out, and with quiet oars the sea softly they whiten, guarding against any noise, lest the great monster learn of it and, shunning them, go down to the depths beneath the waves, and they reap their toil in vain. But when they draw near it and join battle in the contest, then boldly from the prow against the monstrous beast they cast the bane of the snare; and it, when it saw the heavy feast, leaped, and did not neglect it, trusting its shameless belly; and rushing on it seized the curved doom, and at once within the sharpened hook sank into its wide gullet, and was fixed in the barbs; and the beast, its heart stirred by the wound, first, fretting, tosses its deadly jaw against it, striving to break the bronze cord; but its toil is spent in vain; and thereafter, speeding, weighed down by fiery pains, it sinks into the gulfs beneath the waves of the sea; and the fishers at once let out to it all the line; for there is not strength in men to draw up and to master, while it refuses, the heavy monster; for easily, deck-timbers and all, it would drag the ships to the depths, when it sets out to rush away. But to it, as it sinks, they send broad skins fastened to the line, filled with human breath, straight into the water; and it, fretting with pains, heeds not the skins, and easily dragged them down, unwilling, longing for the topmost foam of the sea. But when it draws near the bottom with weary heart, it stands, foaming greatly, downcast; and as a horse that has run out his toilsome sweat to the very goal grinds his jaw under the bloody foam upon the crooked bit, and the hot panting spreads through his mouth, so the monster, gasping greatly, takes its rest, nor do the skins allow it, though it longs, to remain below, but swiftly they speed upward and dart out of the brine, lifted by the breath; and for it another contest stands. Then first it darts with its jaws a vain rush, eager to ward off the skins that drag it; but they fly up, nor do they wait for it, fleeing like living things that escape; and it, fretting, makes for the inmost brine again, and winds in many a twisting, now by constraint, now of its own will, drawing and drawn back in turn. As when timber-cutters labour at a common toil, plying the saw busily, when a keel or some other need they hasten to accomplish for seafarers, and both, with the rough iron pressed home, draw back its strength, nor ever does the file of teeth turn one way, but, hurrying from either side, it grates and saws and is drawn back ever again; such is the strife of the skins and the bloody beast, the one hauled up, the others forcing it from the other side. Much bloody foam over the sea it spewed, seething with pains, and below the waves bellows the raving creature's gasping, and the water about it groans, heaving up; you would say that beneath the waves all the breath hidden of ill-blowing Boreas was lodged. So great a fierce force it gasps out; and round it the thick eddies, whirling in swollen rings, hollow the surge as the passage parts asunder. As at the mouth of the Ionian and the loud-roaring Tyrrhenian sea, midway in the strait, a rift is whirled, raging beneath the violent gasps of Typhon, maddened, and the dreadful stretching eddies bend the swift wave, and dark Charybdis is turned about, dragged in by the back-sucking whirlpools, so then beneath the monster's gaspings the place on every side, torn up, whirls into the spinning-tops of Amphitrite. There let one of the fishers, swiftly rowing his hollow boat, put in to shore, and from a shore-side rock make fast the line, and at once return, having moored the beast as a ship by its stern-cables. But when, as it plunges, surfeit takes it, and from its pains the deadly beast grows drunk, and with weariness its savage heart inclines, and the scale of its hateful doom sinks down, a skin first runs up, announcing the issue of victory, and lifted high the heart within the fishers. As when, from grievous war returning, the herald in silver raiment and with bright face his comrades, exulting, attend, expecting at once to hear good tidings, so they exult, beholding below the skin rising up with its good news; and at once the other skins rise up and emerge from the sea, dragging the heavy monster; and it is hauled along, the deadly beast, unwilling, fretting its heart with toil and with the wound. Then the boldness of the fishers wakes, and close the ships, well-oared, they drive with hurrying oars; and great is the din, great over the sea the shout of those hastening, and as they call one another to the contest; you would say you saw the warrior toil of men; such valour stands in their hearts, so great the uproar and the longing for the fray. And one of these, even far off, hearing the harsh din— a goatherd, or one tending a thick-fleeced flock in the glens, or a woodcutter, slayer of pines, or one killing wild beasts— in wonder comes near the sea and the shore, and standing on a jutting headland gazes on the overweening toil of men in the battle of the deep, and the end of the splendid hunt; and them the watery War, unquenched, stirs. There one in his hands brandishes the long-barbed trident, another the shaft of the sharp point, others bear the well-bent sickle, another stretches a double-edged axe; and for all is the toil, and for all the iron's stout jaw arms their hands, and close they strike the beast, they wound it, driving down upon it. But it has forgotten its overweening manhood, nor can it any longer, though it would, keep off with its jaws the ships that rush upon it, but with the over-heavy rush of its fins and the tip of its tail, cleaving the deep wave, it thrusts the ships back toward their sterns, and bends back again the work of the oars and the manhood of the men, like a contrary wind that rolls the wave against the prows; and their cry rings out as they call to the labour, and all the wave is fouled with the gore poured forth from the deadly wounds; and the boundless water boils with the monster's blood, and the grey brine grows red. As when, a wintry river coming down, into the surging gulf from the red-crested hills bloody mud is rolled by the rush of the water, mingled with the eddies; and far off the water grows red with the yellow dust, and the gore holds the sea fast; so then the passage is befouled with the monster's gore, crimson in the river-mouths as it is torn by the shafts. And into its wounds they pour bilge-water drawn up, bitter and dripping; and the salt, mingling with the wounds, like a burning fire kindled the deadliest ruin. As when the heavenly fire smites a keel with the lash of Zeus, as it crosses the sea, and the smouldering rush feeds upon it, and the sea still more rouses and arms it, mingling with the divine flames, so for the monster the harsh blows and pains the foul rotting bilge of ill breath, savage water, rouses. But when, overcome by the many-cleaving pains, at the doors now of grievous death fate bears it, then indeed, making it fast, toward the shore exulting they drag it; and it is hauled, unwilling, pierced with many barbs like nails, nodding, heavy with the wine of its deadly end's last hour; and they, glorifying with a great paean of victory, hurrying with the oar, strike up upon the sea a shrill measure, singing as the oar-blades hasten on. As when, the sea-battle decided, men, making fast the ships, the hostile men who manned the ships toward the shore, hastening, lead down exulting, and shout the far-piercing paean of the sea-fight's rowing; while the others, unwilling, grieving, are constrained to follow their foes; so they, making fast the dread-monstrous bane of the sea, exulting drag it down to the shores; but when to the dry land it draws near, then truly a real doom rouses it, the last; it gasps and rends the sea with its terrible fins, as round a well-built altar a bird wheels in the dark whirl of death, ill-fated; truly much it longs to reach the waves, but the strength of its manhood is undone, nor do its limbs obey, and to the shore it is hauled, gasping dreadfully, like a broad, many-benched merchantman, which from the sea men drag out, leading it up to the dry land as winter sets in, to breathe again from the toil of the sea-faring; and the heavy task lies upon the sailors; so they bring the heavy-limbed monster to the land; and it filled all the shore with its unapproachable limbs laid low, and the corpse is stretched out, most dread to behold. And of it, dead and laid out upon the land, one still is afraid to draw near the ghastly corpse, and dreads it though it is no more, and even gone shudders at the very teeth in its jaws. Late, taking courage, they gather all about, gazing in wonder at the ruin of the flesh-eater. There some marvel at the deadly rows of its jaws, the dread tusks, shameless, like javelins grown in triple rows with close-set points; others rinse out the bronze-pierced wounds of the much-contested monster; and one gazes at the sharp-prowed spine that rises in dreadful stakes; others marvel, seeing its tail, others its capacious belly and its measureless head. And one man, looking on the grim bane of Amphitrite, lingering on the dry land far rather than on ships, spoke among his comrades near at hand: Earth, dear nurturer, you bore me and reared me on the land's own food; in your bosom may I die, when the fated day shall come; and the works of the sea may I look kindly on, but on land revere Poseidon; and may no little ship send me upon the grievous waves, nor may I scan the winds and the clouds in the air; for not so great is the fear of the sea's surge, nor of the grievous seafaring that men endure and the misery they suffer, ever riding with the harsh-roaring storms, nor enough for the perishing is a watery death, but still such banqueters await them, and, missing an unburied tomb, they have filled the recesses of a beast's gullet, when they fall in its way; I dread the nurse of such sorrows; but, O sea, hail to me from the land, and from afar be gentle to me.

The monsters, then, with such toils were laid waste, all whose bodies have grown vast beyond nature, burdens of the deep. But those that have lesser limbs, for them too the hunt is lesser, and the gear is to match the beasts, smaller lines, a smaller hook's jaw, less bait, the snare of the jaws, and in place of skins of goat-hide, fastened bladders of dry gourd draw up again the beast's body from below. When the fishers meet with the whelps of the lamna, often even the oar-strap itself, the fitted bond of the oar, they loose and stretch out among the waves; and it, seeing it, darts, and lets loose the force of its jaws, and at once on the cord its teeth are caught and held fast, as in bonds, curved; and thereafter the task is easiest, to destroy the lamna under the strokes of the three-pronged iron. Above all, among the hateful monsters there rage in gullet and in greed the overweening brood of the dogs; above all are they insolent and proud, nor would they quail at any encounter, ever holding a shameless, unbridled, surging frenzy in their hearts; often too, darting upon the fishers and into the net, and falling on the creels, they have ravaged for the fishers the fishy catch, fattening their own minds. But one, an angler, watching for them among the very fish, piercing them on the hook, a welcome spoil of the hunt, easily will draw them up as they rage about their belly. For the seal no hooks are fashioned, nor any point three-grooved that could take its body; for above all a stiff hide is given over its limbs, a mighty fence; but when in well-woven nets they encircle the seal among the fish unwillingly, then for them is swift toil and haste to draw down the net to the shores, since the seal in its eagerness none could restrain, even were there very many nets at hand, but easily by force and by the points of its claws it will rend and dart out and be a defence to the fish hemmed in, and a great grief in the fishers' hearts. But if they draw it down quickly near the land, then with trident and with strong clubs and with stout staves, driving down upon it, they slay it upon the temples; for to seals destruction comes most swiftly when the head is struck. Yes, and the turtles too very often, meeting them, have spoiled the hunt and become a bane to men. And of these the toil to take is the easiest of all for a bold man with a fearless heart; for if one, diving, should turn the hard turtle in the waves onto its back, upon its shell, no longer can it, though it long greatly, escape its doom; but it floats up high in a light course, beating with its feet, longing for the sea; and laughter holds the hunters. And it now they smite with iron casts, now, making it fast in nooses, they ply. As when a boy with childish thoughts overturns a rough mountain-roaming turtle he has caught, and it, upon its back laid, greatly longs to reach the ground, shaking its wrinkled feet and crooked knees, with toil struggling thick, and laughter holds whoever sees it; so its kindred bane of the sea, on its back in the brine is borne, ruined, by the fish-striking men. Often too it comes up onto the dry land, and by the rays of the sun its scales are scorched all round, and dry of limb it bears itself into the sea; but it no longer, though it long, does the black wave receive, but bears it and rolls it high, eager though it is, away from the lowest sea; and the fishers, seeing it, very easily and gladly overcome it.

But the hunting of dolphins is forbidden, nor to the gods could that sacrificer come near, dear no more, nor of the altars purely could he touch, and he defiles those who share his roof, whoever willingly devises destruction for dolphins. For equally with human murders the daemons of the sea abhor the deadly doom of the guides; for equal to men's are the thoughts and the ministers of sea-resounding Zeus; therefore in love of kindred they delight, and greatly are joined in fellowship with one another. Already, indeed, dolphins kindly to men have armed a hunt easy of capture upon the fish in the isle of Euboea amid the Aegean waves; for when the fishers ply the toil of the evening hunt, bringing the menace of fire to the fish, the swift gleam of the bronze lantern, the dolphins follow, hastening on the shared destruction. There some, trembling, in flight turn aside, the fish; the dolphins, darting from outside together, frighten them, and as they would turn to the depths they drive them back toward the unfriendly land, leaping thick upon them, as for the hunting men hounds drive the beast with answering barkings. And these, terrified near the shore, the fishers easily strike with the well-barbed trident. For them the ways are inescapable, and they dance about in the sea, driven both by the fire and by the dolphins, their kings. But when the work of the goodly hunt is accomplished, then they ask, drawing near at hand, the wage of their fellowship, the apportioned share of the hunt; and the men did not refuse, but gladly gave them a goodly portion of the catch; for if any deal overweeningly unjust, no longer are the dolphins helpers to him in the hunt. And one has heard the long-told work of the Lesbian singer, how, riding on a dolphin's back, he crossed the black wave, sitting, fearless of heart, singing, and escaped the doom of the pirates, and came to the Taenarian headlands of Laconia. And someone knows, hearing, the love of the Libyan boy, of whom once, as he tended his flock, a dolphin conceived a warm love, and played with him by the shores, and rejoicing in the loud-sounding pipe, longed to mingle with the very flocks, and to leave the sea and come to the woods. But not even the loves of the youth has all Aeolis forgotten—no old tale, but in our own generation; how once a dolphin loved an island boy. On an island it dwelt, and ever kept a sheltered anchorage, like a townsman, and refused in its heart to leave its comrade, but stayed there, a house-fellow, from its earliest youth, a whelp reared up, a little nursling, in the boy's ways nurtured; but when they reached the goal of limb-strong youth, and the one excelled among the young men, while the other in the sea was a swiftest dolphin, surpassing all the rest, then indeed a marvel strange and not to be told nor hoped for it was for strangers and for the dwellers to behold; and many did rumour rouse, setting out to see the wonder, the youth and the dolphin growing up as comrades together; and many gatherings on the shores, day after day, of those eager, stood to gaze on the great wonder. There the boy, embarking in his boat, before the hollow harbour would row out, and call the dolphin, crying aloud that name by which it had been called from its first birth; and the dolphin, like an arrow, when it heard the boy's voice, running swiftly came close beside the dear boat, fawning with its tail and lifting its head aloft in pride, longing to touch the boy; and he with his hands gently stroked it, embracing his comrade with tendernesses, and its heart yearned to come right up to the boat, near the boy; but when into the brine he plunged lightly, it swam close beside the youth, laying side to side along his sides, jaw close beside jaw, and pressing its head against his head; you would say it longed, in love, to kiss the youth and clasp him to its breast; in such a rush it swam beside such a comrade. But when it drew near the shores, at once the boy, grasping its crest, mounted upon its wet, wet back; and it, gladly receiving the boy's body with willing heart, went where the mind of the youth drove it, whether it bade him set out far over the wide sea, or simply to pass through the harbour's space, or to draw near the land; and it obeyed his every command. No colt so soft in the jaws follows the charioteer beneath the well-bent bits, nor any hound, used to the hunter when he urges it, yields so far and obeys, wherever he leads, nor do the servants of a lord, when he commands, obey and do their willing work so willingly, as beneath the youth the dear dolphin, when he urged it, obeyed, without yoke or constraining bits. Not him alone did it wish to carry, but another too it obeyed, whomever its own master bade, and bore him up on its back, refusing no toil, in love. Such was its friendship while the boy lived; but when fate took the boy, first, like one in mourning, the dolphin ran along the shores, seeking the boy of its own age; you would say you heard a true voice of one lamenting; such helpless grief enwrapped it; and no longer, though the island townsmen called it often, did it obey, nor would it take the food held out, and very soon out of that sea it became unseen, nor did anyone mark it, nor any longer to that place did it come; surely the longing for the boy now gone quenched it, and with its dead comrade it hastened to die.

But for all that, though they surpass in kindness so far and hold a mind so concordant with men, the insolent Thracians and all who hold the city of Byzas hunt them with iron-hearted designs; truly are they baneful and reckless; nor of children, nor of fathers would they spare, and brothers they would slay easily; such is the law of their joyless hunt. To a hapless mother there goes near a twin brood of dolphins, like to tender youths; and the Thracians upon them, pitiless, make ready, fitting out a light spear for the reckless toil of the hunt. And they, seeing the boat hurrying straight at them, stay unafraid and look to no fear, deeming no guile of mortals, nor any harm, will come, and they fawn upon the men like kindly comrades, rejoicing, drawing near—rejoicing at their own destruction. And they, swiftly driving with the casting trident, launch the point, the most chilling shaft of the hunt, and struck one young dolphin with unforeseen ruin; and it, doubled up, under the bitter pain grieving, straightway plunges within the waves beneath the surface, fretting with the spasm and grievous pangs; and they do not drag it up by force; for truly of the hunt they would reap an idle and vain labour; but for it, eager, they let out a long cord to be drawn along, and speed the ship with oars, following the courses of the terrified dolphin. But when, sickening with grievous pains, it grows weary and quivers about the iron's barbs, then indeed, feeble, it rises up, its strong limbs worn out, lifted on the light waves, breathing its last; and the mother never leaves it, but ever follows it in its anguish, both when it rises from the deep, like one grieving and groaning most dreadfully; you would say you saw a mother lamenting over a sacked city, for her enemies, and her children dragged off as spoil under the constraint of the spear; so she, in dreadful grief over her wounded child, as if herself toiling and pierced by the iron, wheels about; but her other child she sends away from her path, falling upon it and rousing it, driving it on: Flee, my child; for men are no longer friendly, no comrades to us, but ready the iron and the hunt; already against dolphins too they make War, having broken the truces of the immortals and the concord with us which of old we made one with another. Such things, though speechless, she yet tells her young; and the one she turned to flee afar, but with the other, cruelly suffering, suffering alongside, close beside the boat she follows, nor forsakes it; nor could anyone, however eager, turn the mother away, neither by striking nor by bringing other terror; but with her child hauled up the wretched mother is hauled too, until she comes beneath the hands of the foe; pitiless they, truly great sinners, these, who neither pity her in her terror as they look on, nor bend their iron mind, but even her with the bronze points, driving down upon her, child and mother together they destroyed in a common doom; they destroyed her not unwilling, since over her dead child the mother, both knowing and longing, was rent. As when, upon young swallow-nestlings, helpless, below, under the roof, a serpent chancing comes near, and slays them and draws them within its teeth, the mother first, in terror, is shaken, shrieking the deadly lament of slaughter; but when her young she sees slain, she no longer seeks escape from doom, but under the very jaws of the dragon wheels, until the child-slaying ruin takes the bird; so then with her young dolphin perished the mother too, self-taken, coming beneath the hands of the fishers.

The shell-skinned tribes that creep in the sea, the whole report is, that as the moon waxes in her circle they swell with flesh and dwell in a rich home; but as she wanes, again with feebler limbs they shrivel; such a constraint is upon them. Of these some, diving below, men gather with their hands out of the sand, others they drag from the reefs, grown fast unceasingly, others the waves spat out upon the very shores and into the pits of the dug-out sand. The purple-shells, beyond all the oysters, are gluttonous; such a true hunt is set for them. Little creels, like baskets, are made, fashioned of thick rushes; and in them periwinkles, run together with cockles, they set; and the purple-shells, when they draw near, drunk with the love of food, thrust out from their chamber a long tongue; and it is made slender and sharp, and through the rushes they stretch it, longing for food, but met a grievous meal; for the tongue, pressed among the thick rushes, swells, and the noose of withies tightens it, nor any longer back can it draw, though it long, but stays stretched in pains, until they draw them up, eager about their tongue, winning the fairest bloom for purple weavings.

Of the sponge-cutters I say there is no other contest worse, nor for men a more wretched work. For they, first, when they arm themselves for the toil, busy themselves with feebler food and drink, and soften themselves with sleep unlike a fisher's. As when a man, sweet-voiced, arms himself for the contest, holding the Phoebean boast of well-lyred song, all his tending is his care, and on every side he guards himself, fattening for the lists the strain of his clear-toned voice, so they keep kindly, well-watchful tending of themselves, that their breath may stay sound as they go to the depths, and that they may recover from their former toil. But when they contend, accomplishing the great toil, praying to the blessed ones who rule the deep sea they beseech to ward off from them the monster's bane, that no harm of the sea may meet them; but if they spy the beauty-fish, then great courage comes upon their mind; for never in those pastures is the invincible monster, no biting beast, nor any other sea-bane appears, but ever in clean, unharmful passages they delight; therefore they named it the sacred fish. Rejoicing in it, they hasten on their toils. With a long cord above the middle of his loins a man is girt, and in both his hands he lifts— in the one, gripping a heavy mass of lead, and in the right he stretches a well-edged sickle; and in his jaws beneath his mouth he keeps white oil; and standing above the prow he scans the sea's swell, pondering the heavy toil and the unspeakable water. And they urge him on and speed him with words of courage to the toil, like one set at the starting-post, a man skilled in fleetness; but when in his heart he takes courage, he leaps into the eddies, and the rush of the grey, heavy lead draws him down, eager. But when he comes to the bottom, he spits out the oil; and it gleams greatly and mingles its light with the water, like a torch in the gloom that gives the eye light through the dark; and drawing near the rocks he sees the sponges; they grow on the lowest level surfaces, fixed in the reefs; and there is said to be breath in them, as in others too, all that grow upon the loud-resounding reefs. And swiftly, darting on, with the sickle in his thick hand he cuts the body of the sponges, like a reaper, nor does he tarry, lingering, but quickly shakes the rope, signalling to his comrades swiftly to draw him up; for a hateful blood straightway spurts from the sponges, and about the man it gathers, and with its ill breath often the heavy ichor, caught in his nostrils, has quenched the man. Therefore swiftly he rises up like thought, hauled along; and one, seeing him escaped from the sea, would both rejoice and, in pity, grieve; for so, with his feeble limbs unstrung, by fear and heart-grieving toil his limbs are loosed. Often, meeting with a most hateful and pitiless hunt, plunging into the deep passage of the sea, he came up no more, ill-fated, having met a grim-eyed monstrous beast; and he, shaking the cord often to his comrades, calls to be drawn up again; but his body, half-torn, the monster's force and his fellow men together dragged— piteous to see, still longing for the ship and his comrades; and they swiftly that passage and the grievous contest, grieving, leave, and to the dry land go down, weeping bitterly over the remains of their wretched comrade.

So much I have learned, O sceptred and god-nurtured one, of the works of the sea. For you may the ships ever be steered unharmed, sped by warm and straight-going winds, and ever may the fishful sea be filled to overflowing, and may Poseidon the Securer keep unshaken from the land the deep-rooted foundations, guarding them below.