FISHING RIDDLE CAUSES HOMER’S DEATH 87 
If left to a jury composed of or even leavened by fishers 
instead of to the king, the verdict would surely have gone the 
other way, were it only on the ground that while Homer affords 
several spirited pictures of fishing, we search in vain all Hesiod’s 
genuine works for any mention, for even any allusion to 
fishing. 
The word fish occurs only in Works and Days, line 277. 
Even if we allow The Shield of Heracles to be by Hesiod, we 
find but one passage (lines 214-5) relating to fishing, and this 
with a Net.! Hesiod’s silence on the subject surprises, for 
(a) he boasts himself the poet of country life, (0) states that 
as a youth he fed and led his flocks on the sides and amid the 
streams of Mount Helicon, and (c) passed the rest of his life 
on the banks of the river Cephissus.? 
Homer had previously, on consulting the Pythian Priestess 
as to the country whence he sprang, received a response, 
which I render— 
‘Thy mother’s home is Ios, where in time 
Thow'lt lie; but ’ware the young lads’ riddling rhyme.” 3 
But now let the "Aya speak. “ After the contest the poet 
sailed unto Ios, and there abode a long time, being already 
an old man. Sitting one day on the sea-shore, he asked some 
lads returning from fishing, 
“© Fishermen from Arcadia, have we aught ?’ 
and Days a reputation like that enjoyed by Hesiod, especially if we remember 
that at Thespie, to which the village of Ascra, the birthplace and early home 
of Hesiod, was subject, agriculture was held degrading to a freeman” (Smith, 
Dict. Gk.-Rom. Biog, and Myth., s. v. “‘ Hesiod”). 
1 When Pausanias came to Thespiz on his Boeotian round, the representa- 
tives of the Corporation who owned the land told him dogmatically that the 
Works and Days alone came from the Master’s hand, and showed him the 
ne varietuy copy on lead, wanting the procemium which we read at the head of 
the poem (Paus., 9. 31. 4). 
2 The passage, attributed by Euthydemus (in his Tveatise on Pickled Fish) 
to Hesiod, which mentions seven fish, does not upset my statement, because 
the paternity of the work has long been deemed spurious. Even Athenzus 
brands the verses as ‘‘ the work of some cook, rather than that of the great 
accomplished Hesiod,” and concludes from intrinsic evidence, such as the 
mention of Byzantium, etc., and the Campanians, etc., ‘‘ when Hesiod was 
many years more ancient than any of these places or tribes,” that they were 
written by Euthydemus. See Athen., III. 84. 
3 ANAL véwy waldwy alviyua piActu. For other epigrammata, see Anth, Pal, 
VIL: to 7, and Plutarch, de vita Homeri, 1. 4. 
