76 HOMER— METHODS OF FISHING 



124) two with the Net [Od., XXII. 386 ; //., V. 487), and one 

 with the Rod [Od., XII. 251). 



A. The Spear [Od., X. 124) : " And hke folk spearing fishes 

 they bare home their hideous meal." This gives a very Uvely 

 image, because the companions of Odysseus, whose boats had 

 been smashed by the thrown rocks, are in the water, and are 

 being speared Hke fish by the Lsestrygones.i 



B. The Net {Od., XXII. 383 ff.) : " But he " (Odysseus after 

 the slaughter of the suitors) " found all the sort of them fallen 

 in their blood in the dust, like fishes that the fishermen have 

 drawn forth in the meshes of the net into a hollow of the beach 

 from out the grey sea, and all the fish, sore longing for the 

 salt waves, are heaped upon the sand, and the sun shines 

 forth and takes their life away : so now the wooers lay heaped 

 upon each other." 2 



In Iliad, V. 487 ff. : " Only beware lest, as though entangled 

 in the mesh of all-ensnaring flax, ye be made unto your foemen 

 a prey and a spoil." 



C. The Rod [Od., XII. 251 ff.) : " Even, as when a fisher on 

 some headland ^ lets down with a long rod his baits for a 

 snare to the little fishes below, casting into the deep the horn 

 of an ox of the homestead, and as he catches each flings it 

 writhing, so were they " {i.e. the companions of Odysseus) 

 " borne upward to the cliff " (by Scylla). 



D. Line and Hook {Iliad, XXIV. 80 ff.) : "And she " (Iris 

 on her Zeus-bidden mission) " sped to the bottom hke a weight 

 of lead, that mounted on the horn of a field-ox goeth down, 

 bearing death to the ravenous fishes." 



E. Iliad, XVI. 406 ff. : " As when a man sits on a jutting 

 rock and drags a sacred fish from the sea with line and 



* The translations from the Odyssey are by Butcher and Lang (London, 

 1881), and those from the Iliad by Lang, Leaf, and Myers (London, 1883). 



2 So too the Egyptians hkened the men slain at the battle of Megiddo : 

 " Their champions lay stretched out hke fishes on the ground." See J. H. 

 Breasted, Records of Egypt (London, 1906), vol. ii. par. 431. 



3 Alike, and yet unlike, is 



" His rod was made out of a sturdy oak. 

 His hne a cable which in storms ne'er broke ; 

 His hook he baited with a dragon's tail, 

 And sat upon a rock, and bobbed for whale." 



