And Pythionica will receive you gladly,
And very likely will devour the gifts
Which you have lately here received from us,
For she's insatiable. Still do you
Bid her give you a basket of cured fish;
For she has plenty; and she has indeed
A couple of saperdæ; ugly fish,
Ill salted, and broad nosed.
And before this she had a lover whose name was Cobius.
24. But with respect to Callimedon, the son of Carabus, Timocles, in his Busybody, tells us that he was fond of fish, and also that he squinted:—
Then up came Carabus Callimedon,
And looking on me, as it seem'd to me,
He kept on speaking to some other man.
And I, as it was likely, understanding
No word of what they said, did only nod.
But all the girls do keep on looking at him,
While they pretend to turn their eyes away.
FISH.
And Alexis, in his Crateua, or the Apothecary, says—
A. I am now, these last four days, taking care of
These κόραι for Callimedon.
B. Had he then
Any κόραι (damsels) for daughters?
A. I mean κόραι,
The pupils of the eyes; which e'en Melampus,
Who could alone appease the raging Proetides,
Would e'er be able to keep looking straight.
And he ridicules him in a similar manner in the play entitled The Men running together. But he also jests on him for his epicurism as to fish, in the Phædo, or Phædria, where he says—
A. You shall be ædile if the gods approve,
That you may stop Callimedon descending
Like any storm all day upon the fish.
B. You speak of work for tyrants, not for ædiles;
For the man's brave, and useful to the city.
And the very same iambics are repeated in the play entitled Into the Well; but, in his Woman who has taken Mandragora, he says—