FISHING RIDDLE CAUSES HOMER'S DEATH ^7 



If left to a jury composed of or even leavened by fishers 

 instead of to the king, the verdict would surely have gone the 

 other way, were it only on the ground that while Homer affords 

 several spirited pictures of fishing, we search in vain all Hesiod's 

 genuine works for any mention, for even any allusion to 

 fishing. 



The word fish occurs only in Works and Days, Une 277. 

 Even if we allow The Shield of Heracles to be by Hesiod, we 

 find but one passage (lines 214-5) relating to fishing, and this 

 with a Net.i Hesiod's silence on the subject surprises, for 

 {a) he boasts himself the poet of country life, (6) states that 

 as a youth he fed and led his flocks on the sides and amid the 

 streams of Mount Helicon, and (c) passed the rest of his Hfe 

 on the banks of the river Cephissus.2 



Homer had previously, on consulting the Pythian Priestess 

 as to the country whence he sprang, received a response, 

 which I render — 



" Thy mother's home is los, where in time 

 Thou'lt lie ; but 'ware the young lads' riddling rhyme." ^ 



But now let the 'Aywi^ speak. " After the contest the poet 

 sailed unto los, and there abode a long time, being already 

 an old man. Sitting one day on the sea-shore, he asked some 

 lads returning from fishing, 



" ' Fishermen from Arcadia, have we aught ? ' 



and Days a reputation like that enjoyed by Hesiod, especially if we remember 

 that at Thespiae, to which the village of Ascra, the birthplace and early home 

 of Hesiod, was subject, agriculture was held degrading to a freeman " (Smith, 

 Diet. Gk.-Rom. Biog, and Myth., s. v. " Hesiod"). 



^ When Pausanias came to Thespiae on his Boeotian round, the representa- 

 tives of the Corporation who owned the land told him dogmatically that the 

 Works and Days alone came from the Master's hand, and showed him the 

 ne varietur copy on lead, wanting the prooemium which we read at the head of 

 the poem (Pans., 9. 31. 4). 



* The passage, attributed by Euthydemus (in his Treatise on Pickled Fish) 

 to Hesiod, which mentions seven fish, does not upset my statement, because 

 the paternity of the work has long been deemed spurious. Even Athenaeus 

 brands the verses as " the work of some cook, rather than that of the great 

 accompUshed Hesiod," and concludes from intrinsic evidence, such as the 

 mention of Byzantium, etc., and the Campanians, etc., " when Hesiod was 

 many years more ancient than any of these places or tribes," that they were 

 written by Euthydemus. See Athen., III. 84. 



' 'AWa vecjv TralSuv alviyua <pv\a^at. For other epigrammata, see Anth. Pal. 

 VII. I to 7, and Plutarch, de vita Homeri, i. 4. 



