284 FISH IN MYTHS, SYMBOLS, DIET, MEDICINE 



Among the Greeks and Latins aphrodisiacs and anta- 

 phrodisiacs, i.e. incentives to, or prophylactics against love, 

 were accounted of potency, and meet with frequent mention. 

 Each kingdom of Nature, animal, mineral, vegetable, piscine, 

 was impressed to compass these purposes. 



The list submitted by Pliny — a weighty natural historian, 

 mark you !— of those drawn from the first would be scouted 

 by any modern Obeah or Ju-ju man, however powerful, as 

 taxing too severely the credulity of his ignorant clientele. 

 Even Haitian superstition would reject its obvious absurdities. 

 "The ashes of a spotted lizard" — here even the compiler is 

 compelled to caution ' si verum est ' — "held in the left hand 

 stimulate, but in the right kill desire," ranks far from being 

 the most incredible of the prescriptions.! 



The Ancients specialised not only in gods, but also in 

 fishes which made, or made not, for passion. We, however, 

 while enjoying a hundred sects, have brutally boiled down our 

 aphrodisiacs to one, stout and oysters ! 



The salacious properties of many fishes — inherited or 

 acquired, according to ancient legends, from their mother or 

 protectress. Aphrodite — furnish the theme of classical authors, 

 grave and gay ; e.g. of Epicharmus in Hebe's Wedding — at 

 wedding feasts fish were an absolute essential ; of Varro,^ 

 tunc nuptice videhant ostream Lucrinani ; of Plautus,^ where 

 at the marriage of Olympic the old man in love orders the 

 purchase of stimulating fish. 



" Emito sepiolas, lopadas, loligunculas." 



Even Pythagoras, according to Lilius Giraldus, believed 

 that cupidity could be aroused, not by fish, which were ap- 

 parently banned to his disciples, but by Urtica marina.'^ 



Pliny's list of proved aphrodisiacs and antaphrodisiacs 

 includes among the former " the eye-tooth of a crocodile 

 attached to the arm," and among the latter " the skin from the 

 left side of the forehead of the hippopotamus attached fast to 

 the body in lambskin." ^ 



1 N . H., XXX. 49. Cf. /Iilian, op. cit. passim, for aphrodisiacs. 



* Fragment, Varro Sexagesis, ap. Man. Marc, p. 319. 15 £f., Lindsay. 



=• Cas., II. 8, 57; cf. also Aul., at the wedding of Euclid's <l.Tiigbter. 



» See ibid., Riuhvs, II. i, 9. ^ A^. H., XXXI 1. 50. 



