82 HOMER—METHODS OF FISHING 
off, covers a soft woollen line, to which is tethered a live rat, 
a common bait for a big Nile fish, with a pipe or tube of maize 
stalk. Here the similarity ends; on the Nile no hook is 
employed ; the sportsman harpoons the fish while hanging 
on to the rat. 
(2) Képac, according to Paley (quoting Spitzner), was a 
bit of horn fastened to the hook and plummet to disguise 
their appearance; this, from being nearly the same colour 
as the sea, served better to deceive the fish. 
(3) Képac, according to Trollope and others, was the horn 
or tube, but in it only the leaden weight was enclosed. 
(4) Képac was a kind of tress, made out of the hair of a 
bull. Plutarch, however, states flatly, “‘ But this is an error.” 
Damm and others insist that the word in this sense is post- 
Homeric, and agree with Plutarch that these tresses, if ever 
used, would have been of the hair of a horse, and not of a 
bull! 
(5) Képac, according to Hayman and others, was simply a 
prong of horn attached to a staff to pierce and fork out the 
fish while feeding ; hence the preliminary baits, «dara (similar 
to baiting a swim on the Thames), are of course not on or 
attached to the horn.? 
The epithet in C. is zepmhxnc, not merely long, but very 
long. The adjective, if not redundant, lends weight to Hay- 
man’s theory of spear as against fishing rod. Against it, 
however, in Od., X. 293, the paBdoc, or wand of Circe, which 
thrice appears (in Od., X. 238, 319, 389) minus any adjective, 
suddenly takes unto itself repxujxnc, very long, without apparent 
reason for the distinction. 
(6) Mr. Minchin’s explanation is ingenious, if open to two 
objections. “As to the ox horn puzzle,” he writes to me, 
“‘T feel no doubt that the Cherithai (as the Bible calls the 
Kretans) cut a ring out of the horn of an ox, and then cut a 
1 Apollonius Sophista, Lexicon Homericum, (ed. Bekker, Berlin 1833), p. 52, 
was evidently aware of interpretation (1), and also, from his words &10: 38 rhy 
tplxa xépas, of (4). Cf. Plutarch de Sol. an. 24. 
2 The remarks of the Scholiast here (Od., XII. 251) citing as authority 
Aristarchus perhaps illustrate fishing tackle as later known. The Homeric 
tackle was far simpler, a staff shod with a native horn” (Hayman). 
