HALIEUTICA, IV. 247-271 



hook and s-wiftly some fish meets it and seizes his 

 doom. And he is straightway pulled in and the 

 others percei\"ing it all follow close in a body, until 

 they come right to the boat and the fishermen. 

 Then one may take them — some with the curving 

 circle of the bag-net," some with downward-sweeping ^ 

 blows of the iron trident or by other devices. For 

 they do not turn to flee while they see their comrade 

 being haled, but wish to perish with him. Even 

 as when parents convey from the house to the tearful 

 tomb the body of their newly slain boy — their only 

 son for whom they have laboured much and vainly — 

 'and tearing their cheeks for grief they bewail their 

 child and cling to the grave and are unwilhng to 

 return home but rather would die with the lamented 

 dead : even so the fishes will not leave the captured 

 fish till they die the same death at the hands of the 

 fishers. 



Others are taken by a passion strange and not 

 native to the brine, which wakes in fishes a landward 

 frenzy foreign to the sea : such as the alien love 

 whose shaft smites the Poulpes " and the race of 

 the Sargues ** which companion with the rocks.* 

 The Poulpes indeed love the trees of Athena ■^ and 

 have caught a passion for the grey-green ^ foliage. 

 \Vrily it is a great marvel that their mind should 

 be drawn by desire for a tree and dehght in the 



i. 37 Xeyovffi Se aXieh xal iroXi'ToSas et'j tt]v yfjv irpoieVai, iXaiai 

 OaWov itri ttjj -govos Kei/xevov ; ix. -to dypov yeiTViQvros daXdr-rr] 

 Kai <PvtQ)v vapiuribTiiiv iyKapvuiv yf(i}pyoi 7ro\\d/cts KaTaXan^d- 

 vovcLv (V Cipq. Oepeiij) iroXvwoSds re Koi oaixvXov^ iK rwv KVfxdrijiv 

 TrpoeXdovrai Kai Sid tQiv Trpe/xvwv dvepirvaamas Kai toTs KXdSois 

 irepiveaovras Kai oirwpit^ovTas ktX, Cf. Phil. 102. 26 S. 



' Pind. 0. iii. 13 yXavKoxpoa Koafiov iXaias ; Soph. O.C. 

 yXavKcii 7raiSoTp6<pov <pvXXoi' eXaiat. 



423 



