Although Xenocrates and Galen differ as to the firmness or reverse of its flesh—I wonder whether the latter got hold of a Lemon Sole!—the ancient agrees with the modern faculty in accounting it “very nourishing, and of most pleasant flavour.”[666] It then as now was almost always the first fish ordered, “as soon as men be sick or ill at ease“ in Plutarch’s time and words.
From likeness to a tongue sprang its first Greek and Latin names; from likeness to a sandal its second, σανδάλιον and solea. Thus we find Matron[667] establishing, or merely perpetuating, the pretty myth that these fish, possibly from some adhesive power—and is it heresy to suggest their breadth?—served the Goddesses of Ocean as sandals or shoes:
Σάνδαλα δ’ αὖ παρέθηκεν ἀειγενῆ ἀθανατάων Βούγλωσσον, ὂς ἔναιεν ἐν ἅλμη μορμυρούση.
As Yonge renders them—
“And next (the goddesses such sandals wear) Of mighty soles, a firm and well-matched pair,”
the verses have the double demerit of being uncomplimentary to Aphrodite et Cie, and of reading into Matron an allusion unwarranted by his lines.[668]
A not dissimilar use of the Sole is instanced in Polynesian theology. Ina the daughter of Vaitooringa attempted flight to the sacred island. Fish after fish essayed to bear her thither, but unequal to the burden dropped her in the shallow water. At last she besought the Sole, who managed to carry her as far as the breakers. Here, again unshipped, she lost her divine temper, and stamped with such fierceness on the head of the unfortunate helper of distressful maids that its under eye was squeezed right through to the upper side. “Hence the Sole is now obliged to swim flat on one side of its face, having no eye.”[669]
Plautus puns or makes play on Solea, which means, first, a shoe or sandal (as does σανδάλιον), and, second, the fish, and sculponeæ, a kind of wooden shoe (which Cato[670] remembers being worn only by country folk) often employed for striking a person.[671]
Then comes the other play on Lingulaca, which in its first sense equals a chatterbox, and in its second the fish.
Lysidamus: Soleas. Chalinus: Qui, quæso, potius quam sculponeas, Quibus battuatur tibi os, senex nequissime?