The man who first discover'd all the good
Of the most precious head of a large grayling,
And then how dainty was the tunny's meat,
Caught where the waves are by no tempests tost,
How good in short is the whole race of fish,
Nereus his name, dwells in this place for ever.

And Amphis, in his Seven against Thebes, says—

Whole graylings, and large slices of the head.

And in his Philetærus, he says—

Take a small eel, and a fine grayling's head,
And slices of a pike fresh from the sea.

And Antiphanes, in his Cyclops, out-heroding even the epicure Archestratus, says—

Give me an Hymettian mullet,
And a ray just caught, a perch
Split open, and a cuttle-fish,
And a well-roasted synodon;

[[464]] A slice of grayling, and a head
Of mighty conger, luscious food;
A frog's inside, a tunny's flank,
A ray's sharp back, a cestra's loin,
Sea-sparrows, and sea-thrushes too,
Sprats, and anchovies, let me not
Complain of any want.

47. And Nausicrates says, in his Captains of Ships,—

A.They say there are two kinds of fish most tender
And beautiful to see, which oft appear
To sailors wandering o'er the spacious plains
Of ocean. And they say that one foretells
To mortals all the evils which hang o'er them.
B.You mean the grayling.
A.You are right, I do.