As the Greeks and Latins at times saw not eye to eye as to the palatal primacy of certain fishes, the people of the Middle Kingdom eat not, and never ate, tooth to tooth with those of the West. To the Sinitic opsophagist his salmon, indeed most of the deep sea fishes, appeals not at all.
“We delight,” says Mr. Yen, “in eating those of the finny tribe whose meat is soft and fine, and they are caught for the most part in rivers, brooks, lakes, ponds, and the surface of the ocean. On the other hand, there are products of the sea which are regarded by us as delicacies of the table, but which have little or no consumption in the West. Just to mention a few well-known ones, the fins of the shark,[1115] the bêche-de-mer, the cuttlefish, the jellyfish, and the scollop form important articles of domestic commerce, but are not bought or sold to any extent in the West.”[1116]
The cuttlefish as a dining delicacy appealed to very early palates. The Records of Chou recount that on the appointment of Yi Yin to Viceroyalty, T’ang “bestowed—could he do more?—on him cuttlefish condiment.”[1117]
In China, as elsewhere, the priority of fishing implement furnishes a problem not easy of solution. Professor Giles’s statement that “it is clear the net preceded the hook” demands for its gainsaying a knowledge equal, if possible, to his, and, in addition, more than triple brass. Mr. Yen, in his “our ancient classics refer to a time when our primitive ancestors tied ropes together to form fishing nets,” seemingly confirms Giles. Legge is uncommittal: “they fished with the line, but the ordinary method was with the net.”[1118]
Search in the great Chinese Encyclopædia endorses the precedence of the Net over the Rod, but not by overwhelming length of time. Its first reference to the former comes from the I Ching or Book of Changes, which may date from the eleventh century b.c.; to the latter from the Shih Ching or Book of Odes, which apparently ranges from the eleventh to the seventh century b.c.
This last passage runs—“What are used in Angling? Silk threads formed into lines. The son of the reverent Marquis and the grand-daughter of tranquil King.” The startling identification of the silk threads with a son of a reverent Marquis and a grand-daughter of a King of Peace (according to another translation) shows that in the matter and measure of his metaphors in the millennium preceding the Christian era the Turanian was far from played out.
Fortunately our deus ex machina Prof. Legge again comes to our aid by his assurance that “the allusion to silk threads twisted into fishing lines would seem simply to be to the marriage of the princess and the young noble—not to the lady’s holding fast of wifely ways to complete the virtues of reverence and harmony.”[1119] Another interpretation—“the metaphor indicates that the union of man and wife, like the silk twisted into fishing lines, is a lasting one”—recks not of post-war divorce courts, or post-war tackle.
The next reference in the Shih Ching strikes a sad note. Unless we knew that it was not the grand-daughter of the peaceful King, we might almost fancy we hear the heroine of the silk-line boast bewailing her virginal home.
“With your long and tapering[1120] bamboo rods you angle in the Ch’i” (a river in Honan). “How should I not think of you? But I am too far away to reach you. When a maiden leaves her home to be married, her parents and brethren are left behind. Calmly flows the current of the Ch’i. There are oars of cypress and boats of pine. Would that I might drive thither and rid me of my sorrow.”
The third reference strikes also a note of sadness, caused now by the absence of a husband. “When he went a-hunting, I put the bow in the case for him. When he went a-fishing, I arranged his line for him. What did he take in Angling? Bream and tench—bream and tench, while the people looked on to see.”[1121]