NET BEFORE ROD—ANGLING 455 
to our aid by his assurance that “ the allusion to silk threads 
twisted into fishing lines would seem simply to be to the 
marriage of the princess and the young noble—not to the 
lady’s holding fast of wifely ways to complete the virtues of 
reverence and harmony.’’! Another interpretation—‘‘ the 
metaphor indicates that the union of man and wife, like the 
silk twisted into fishing lines, is a lasting one ’’—recks not of 
post-war divorce courts, or post-war tackle. 
The next reference in the Shih Ching strikes a sad note. 
Unless we knew that it was not the grand-daughter of the 
peaceful King, we might almost fancy we hear the heroine of 
the silk-line boast bewailing her virginal home. 
“ With your long and tapering 2 bamboo rods you angle in 
the Ch’i”’ (a river in Honan). ‘‘ How should I not think of 
you? But I am too far away to reach you. When a maiden 
leaves her home to be married, her parents and brethren are 
left behind. Calmly flows the current of the Ch’i. There are 
oars of cypress and boats of pine. Would that I might drive 
thither and rid me of my sorrow.” 
The third reference strikes also a note of sadness, caused 
now by the absence of a husband. ‘‘ When he went a-hunting, 
I put the bow in the case for him. When he went a-fishing, 
I arranged his line for him. What did he take in Angling? 
Bream and tench—bream and tench, while the people looked 
on to see.”’ 3 
Angling appears in the Mu tien tz chuan, a work assigned 
to the tenth century B.c., but probably of much later date. 
‘“ The pith of the ¢z, tied half-way up the fishing-line,”’ about 
1 Op. cit., vol. IV., Pt. L., 36. 
2 Ibid., IV. 5, v. ‘‘ Tapering ” according to Prof. Giles should be “' very 
long.” To judge from representations, the rod was about six feet long, 
although for fresh-water turtles a stouter one of four feet was more 
usual. 
3 Ibid., II. 8, ii. (3, 4). Neither the value nor the valour of the fishes 
seem worthy of onlookers. Perhaps the husband had invented—China seems 
to have anticipated most of our inventions—and was displaying the Double 
Spey or Steeple cast. But a rod, like a wedding, invariably attracts a crowd, 
as a stroll on the Seine any Sunday will verify. Some years ago Mr. Kelson 
and I were trying a new salmon rod, faute de mieux, from the south bank of 
the Thames. In ten minutes the Surrey side of the Waterloo Bridge was 
black with folk, hoping, perchance, to witness a capture of the mythical 
Thames salmon. 
