THE ROD IN HOMER 77 



glittering hook of bronze, so on the bright spear dragged he 

 Thestor," etc.i 



F. Odyssey, IV. 368 f. : " Who " (the companions of Menelaus) 

 " were ever roaming round the isle, fishing with bent hooks, 

 for hunger was gnawing at their belly." 



Odyssey, XII. 330 f. : " They " (the companions of Odysseus) 

 " went wandering with barbed hooks in quest of game, as needs 

 they must, fishes and fowls, whatever might come to their 

 hand, for hunger gnawed at their belly." ^ 



The Rod finds one express mention — in passage C. Is its 

 use impHed in passages D. and E. ? The answer depends greatly 

 on whether the adjectives employed are really descriptive of the 

 qualities and sizes of the fish, or whether they are merely (as 

 often the case in Homer) ornamental or conventional epithets 

 more suited for general than particular use, or are redundant. 



Our wonder, if the adjectives are really descriptive, grows 

 by the Rod being only specifically mentioned when " little 

 fishes " are the prey. If the contention of modern fishermen — 

 the value of the rod as an implement increases in proportion 

 to the weight of the fish on the hook — ^holds good, why does 

 Homer cite the Rod in connection only with "little" fishes, 

 more especially as the prey in the simile (the companions of 

 Odysseus) can hardly be classed as " httle " ? 



1 See Eustathius ad loc. The spear with which Telegonos wounded 

 Odysseus was tipped with the nevrpof of a Roach, according to A. G. Pearson, 

 Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge, 1917). vol. ii. p. 105 ff., d propos of the lost 

 'Ohvauivs aKavdoTr\-fi^. Van Leeuw en {Odyssey, 2nd ed., Leyden, 1917), in his 

 note on xi. 134-7, makes the fish the sting-ray (radio raics pastmaccB), which 

 from its deadly character (cf. PHny, N. H., ix. 67) is to my mind much more 

 probable, despite Liddell and Scott's translation of rpvywu as ' roach,' the 

 absolutely harmless Roach ! Cf. Epicharmus, Frag. 66 Kaibel, rpuy6rfs 

 t' dwia-eSKeurpoi, and Aristotle, N. H., ix. 48. Whatever the fish were, it is good to 

 know that it too came to an untimely death at the hands of Phorcys, because 

 of its cannibal propensities. See Eustathius, O^., p. 1676, 45, commenting on 

 xi. 133. In The Life of Apolloniusof Tyana, vi. 32, Philostratos says Odysseus 

 was wounded by the aixi^v Trjs Tpuy6vos. Van Leeuwen instances among some 

 old armour preserved at Bergum the weapon of an Indian pirate, " which is 

 made of the tail of the ray." 



2 It is with something of a shock I find such careful translators as Butcher 

 and Lang translating yvaixwro^aiv ayKlaTpoitriv in Od., IV. 369, as " bent," 

 and in Od., XII. 332, as " barbed" hooks, without one word of explanation. 

 These weapons differ in appearance, execution, and date of invention. To 

 evolve the barbed from the bent hook required probably as many generations 

 of men, and centuries of effort, as the development of the bent hook from the 

 primitive gorge. See Introduction. 



