82 HOMER— METHODS OF FISHING 



off, covers a soft woollen line, to which is tethered a live rat, 

 a common bait for a big Nile fish, with a pipe or tube of maize 

 stalk. Here the similarity ends ; on the Nile no hook is 

 employed ; the sportsman harpoons the fish while hanging 

 on to the rat, 



(2) Kipag, according to Paley (quoting Spitzner), was a 

 bit of horn fastened to the hook and plummet to disguise 

 their appearance ; this, from being nearly the same colour 

 as the sea, served better to deceive the fish, 



(3) Kepag, according to Trollope and others, was the horn 

 or tube, but in it only the leaden weight was enclosed, 



(4) Kipag was a kind of tress, made out of the hair of a 

 bull. Plutarch, however, states flatly, " But this is an error." 

 Damm and others insist that the word in this sense is post- 

 Homeric, and agree with Plutarch that these tresses, if ever 

 used, would have been of the hair of a horse, and not of a 

 bull,i 



{5) Ktpag, according to Hayman and others, was simply a 

 prong of horn attached to a staff to pierce and fork out the 

 fish while feeding ; hence the prehminary baits, uSara (similar 

 to baiting a swim on the Thames), are of course not on or 

 attached to the horn, 2 



The epithet in C. is TrepifxriKtjg, not merely long, but very 

 long. The adjective, if not redundant, lends weight to Hay- 

 man's theory of spear as against fishing rod. Against it, 

 however, in Od., X. 293, the pd[5^og, or wand of Circe, which 

 thrice appears (in Od., X. 238, 319, 389) minus any adjective, 

 suddenly takes unto itself TTzpifii^K^g, very long, without apparent 

 reason for the distinction. 



(6) Mr. Minchin's explanation is ingenious, if open to two 

 objections. "As to the ox horn puzzle," he writes to me, 

 " I feel no doubt that the Cherithai (as the Bible calls the 

 Kretans) cut a ring out of the horn of an ox, and then cut a 



^ Apollonius Sophista, Lexicon Homericum, (ed. Bekker, Berlin 1833), p. 52, 

 was evidently aware of interpretation (i), and also, from his words fvioi 5e tV 

 Tplx°- Kepas, of (4). Cf. Plutarch de Sol. an. 24. 



' " The remarks of the Schohast here {Od., XII. 251) citing as authority 

 Aristarchus perhaps illustrate fishing tackle as later known. The Homeric 

 tackle was far simpler, a staff shod with a native horn" (Hayman). 



