1 6 Gleanings from the 



in the Homeric poems. The monfter Scylla is 

 faid to fim, with her hands groping to catch dog- 

 fim or dolphins. Plato notices that the Homeric 

 heroes in their feafts never eat fim, and that their 

 viands are always roafted, never boiled. It is a 

 curious confirmation of the former ftatement that 

 when the men of Odyffeus fifh in the Ifle 

 Thrinacia, with "crooked hooks," for fim or fowl, 

 under the preflure of famine, their mafter will 

 have nothing to do with it, but wanders off 

 alone. 1 Yet in a picture drawn by the hero of 

 a righteous and profperous king, one touch is that 

 "the fea for him gives fim." 2 



Afingular paflage occurs in the " Odyffey, "v. 432, 

 where Odyffeus is compared, while in danger of 

 drowning, to a cuttle-fim "which is dragged out 

 of its hole, the many pebbles clinging to its 

 fuckers ;" juft in the fame manner the hero's {kin 

 is torn off from his hands as he grafps at the 

 rocks, and the mighty wave covers him. Again, 

 a man ftricken with a mortal wound, who falls 

 headlong from his chariot, is jeered at in the 

 " Iliad " " if only he were in the fifhy deep, this 

 man would fatiffy many men by grafping for 

 oyfters, plunging in from a mip, although it was 

 ftormy weather." 3 Were it not for thefe curious 



1 Plato, "Repub.," 404, B. ; " Odyffey," xii. 331. 



2 " Odyffey," xix. 113. That fifh were eaten, too, appears 

 from Od. xxii. 383, where Odyffeus fees the flam wooers lie 

 " like fim which fifhermen have drawn from the grey fea in a 

 many-mefhed net to a hollow beach, and they all longing for 

 the fea-waves are heaped upon the fand, and the fun mining on 

 them takes away their life." 



3 " Iliad," xvi. 745. 



