SOLES, THE SANDALS OF GODDESSES 265 
From likeness to a tongue sprang its first Greek and Latin 
names; from likeness to a sandal its second, cavdad\iov and 
solea. Thus we find Matron! establishing, or merely per- 
petuating, the pretty myth that these fish, possibly from some 
adhesive power—and is it heresy to suggest their breadth ?— 
served the Goddesses of Ocean as sandals or shoes : 
Davhara § ad rapéyxev devryevg dDavarawv 
BovyAwocor, O¢ Evatev év GApy popmupoboy. 
As Yonge renders them— 
“« And next (the goddesses such sandals wear) 
Of mighty soles, a firm and well-matched pair,” 
the verses have the double demerit of being uncomplimentary 
to Aphrodite ef Cie, and of reading into Matron an allusion 
unwarranted by his lines.? 
A not dissimilar use of the Sole is instanced in Polynesian 
theology. Ina the daughter of Vaitooringa attempted flight 
to the sacred island. Fish after fish essayed to bear her 
thither, but unequal to the burden dropped her in the shallow 
water. At last she besought the Sole, who managed to carry 
her as far as the breakers. Here, again unshipped, she lost her 
divine temper, and stamped with such fierceness on the head 
of the unfortunate helper of distressful maids that its under 
eye was squeezed right through to the upper side. ‘‘ Hence 
the Sole is now obliged to swim flat on one side of its face, 
having no eye.’ 3 
Plautus puns or makes play on Solea, which means, first, 
a shoe or sandal (as does cavSéXsov), and, second, the fish, and 
sculponee, a kind of wooden shoe (which Cato 4 remembers 
juditious Directorie, of Methodicall Instructions for the guide and governing 
the health of Man”: 
“Si pisces molles sunt, magno corpore tolles. 
Si pisces duri, parvi sunt plus valituri.” 
Cf. Regimen Sanitatis Salerni, London, 1617, but better still Sir A. Croke’s ed., 
Oxford, 1830. 
1 In Athen., 4, 13, line 76 ff. 
*? It is noteworthy that two of the Nymphs on the “‘ Nereid Monument ”’ 
are supported by fish (A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the British 
Museum (London, 1900), ii. 35, Nos. 910, 911). 
3 Cf. Robinson, op. cit., 82. 
* De Re Rust., 59. 
