The devices for fishing, which in Oppian, I. 54-5, are—
“The slender-woven Net, Viminious Weel,[411] The Taper Angle, Line and Barbed Steel Are all the Tools his constant Toil employs, On arms like this, the Fishing Swain relies,”
are amplified in III. 73 ff. in number and detail.
“y those who curious have their art defined, Four sorts of fishers are distinct assigned. The first in Hooks delight: here some prepare The Angle’s Taper Length, and Twisted hair. Others the tougher threads of flax entwine, But firmer hands sustain the sturdy Line. A third prevails by more compendious ways, While numerous Hooks one common Line displays.”
We then pass to fishing by Nets, Mazy Weel, and Spears or Tridents. A spirited passage, spoilt in the translation by superfluous verbiage, sings of nocturnal fishing with spears and an attracting light. The method probably obtained the world over, certainly in China, Rome, and Greece, where Plato (Soph., 220 D.) classes it under the heading πυρευτική next to Angling. In Scotland it prevailed extensively, if illegally, as Burning the Water, or Leistering, a Norse term, and practice which Thor himself did not disdain. A passage from a lost comedy—The Trident—perhaps by Philippides, shows a fisher armed with a three-pronged fork and horn-lantern off a-Tunnying.[412]
The lines ring as true to-day as when Oppian[413] penned them.
“Erected torches blaze around the Boat, And dart their pitchy Rays ... Admiring shoals the gaudy flames surround, And meet the triple spear’s descending wound,”
while if fishing were legally permitted only to those who came up to his ideal of what an angler should be (III. 29-31),
“First be the Fisher’s limbs compact and sound, With solid flesh, and well braced sinews bound, Let due proportion every part commend, Nor Leanness shrink too much, or Fat distend,”
rents the world over would speedily abate, and many a river would know its tenant no more.