NOAH'S ARK— SOLOMON'S RING 443 



derivation, the whimsical treatment of the prophet's imprison- 

 ment in a poem by the Rev. Zachary Boyd, Rector of Glasgow 

 University in the seventeenth century, demands some quota- 

 tion : — 



" What house is this ? here's neither coal nor candle ; 

 Where I no thing but guts of fishes handle ; 

 The like of this on earth man never saw, 

 A living man within a monster's mawe ! " 



He then goes on to contrast Noah's freedom of movement in 

 the ark with his enforced immobihty : 



" He and his ark might goe and also come. 

 But I sit still in such a straitened roome. 

 As is most uncouth, head and feet together 

 Among such grease as would a thousand smother ; 

 I find no way now for my shrinking hence. 

 But here to byde and die for mine offence ; 

 Eight persons were in Noah's hulk together, 

 Comfortable they were each one to other. 

 In all the earth like unto me is none 

 Farre from aU hving I heere byde alone. 

 Where I, entombed in melancholy sink, 

 Choakt, suffocat, with excremental stink." ^ 



I close this, as my other chapters, with a legend which 

 makes fish directly or indirectly responsible for some historical 

 happening. 



It was through a fish (according to the Talmud) that 

 Solomon regained his kingdom. The King one day, while 

 bathing, confided his signet ring to one of his many concubines, 

 Amina. Was it her eyes, I wonder, or those of that Queen, 

 Pharaonic or other (by whose happy influence Solomon, eschew- 

 ing evil and cleaving only unto her, was perhaps inspired to 



1 Four Poems from Zion's Flowers, etc., by Mr. Zacharie Boyd, printed 

 from his manuscripts in the Library of the University of Glasgow, edited by 

 G. Neil, Glasgow, 1855. Perhaps the Rector's Muse was spurred to these 

 heights of poesie by the fact that the arms of the City of Glasgow bear a salmon 

 with a ring in its mouth, illustrative of the miracle wrought by St. Kentigern, 

 the founder of the See and first bishop. At the Reformation the revenue of 

 the church included one hundred and sixty-eight salmon. See T. Moule, 

 Heraldry of Fish (London, 1842), pp. 124-5. In the recovery of the keys of 

 cathedrals and episcopal rings, fish play a part, as the adventures of St. Egwin 

 (vol. i. 161), of St. Benno (vol. vi. 224), and of St. Maurilius (vol. x. 188), 

 described by Baring-Gould {op. cit.) all testify. 



2 G 



