FISHES IN ARTS AND SCIENCES. 51 



And it is by the Gate of Cancer, Mercury standing at the 

 starry portals, that souls descend to take possession of the 

 bodies of men. Not that the reasons of the crustacean's 

 exaltation commend it to popularity ; for when Hercules 

 was fighting with the Hydra, Juno meanly sent Cancer to 

 bite the hero's heel ; but Hercules merely stopped for a 

 moment in his job, killed the crab, and then went on 

 with the Hydra. The goddess, however, translated the 

 smashed crustacean to the skies, the crabs thus rising 



" On stepping-stones 

 Of their dead selves to higher things." 



In astrology, fish forms were in great request, the mystery 

 attaching to sea-things commending them to the special 

 service of the necromancer. But besides the strange fish 

 with which the man of dark science made his studio dreadful, 

 and which in his computations played such high pranks as 

 might have made Herschel weep, he professed a knowledge 

 of occult influences in fishy products that opened up vast 

 possibilities. Coral and amber, nacre and ambergris, were 

 potentially dreadful. From the heads of fishes he took you 

 the dread cimedia, that, properly handled, worked Darwinism 

 backwards ; and from the tortoise the gem chelonia, which, 

 smeared with honey and laid upon the tongue, bestowed 

 the gift of divination, provided the stars were in auspicious 

 conjunction. This precious thing bore the tortoise shape, 

 and the Magi told wonderful stories of its powers in 

 appeasing storms ; nevertheless the kind starred over with 

 gold spots, if thrown together with a beetle into boiling 



were in the constellation of the Fishes (a fish is the astrological symbol 

 of Judaea) in the latter half of the year of Rome 747, and were joined 

 by Mars in 748. . . Their first union in the East awoke the attention 

 of the Magi, told them the expected time had come, and bade them 

 set off without delay towards Judaea (the fish land). 



E 2 



