Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

y8HOMER—METHODS OF FISHINGFour differing explanations are possible :1. That " little " is an ornamental or redundant adjective.2. That pa[iSog, which is usually translated rod, i.e.Jishing-Tod, is(according to Hayman and others) not a fishingrod,but merely a staff, or spear, shod with horn, and that" httle " signifies only fish suitable for food, not large fish,such as dolphins, etc.3. That the fishermen of Homer (anticipating our professionaldeep-sea fishermen in Kent and the Channel Islands,who for quickness and certainty, especially in the case ofheavy fish, prefer hand-Unes to rods), Hmited the use of theRod to " little," i.e. not large, fish.i4. That " little " is partly ornamental, partly intentional,because fish caught close inshore are normally smaller thanthose caught farther out.From the adjectives in passages D. and E. can we infer theuse of the Rod ? Of the adjective in E., Butcher and Langwrite : " It is difficult to determine whether hp6g in Homerdoes not sometimes retain its primitive meaning of " strong " (seeCurtius, Etym., No, 614) ;in certain phrases, this may perhapsbe accepted, as an archaism. ... On the whole we have notfelt so sure of the archaic use as to adopt it in our translation."Paley, " Upog means huge, as if a favourite of or dedicatedto some sea-god." Was it from this shade of meaning thatTheocritus in his Fisherman's Dream 2 drew his conceptionthat certain fish might be KupriXiov 'Afxcpirpirag, a pet of thesea-goddess ?Faesi seems to incHne to Paley's view, but fora more general reason : hpog equalling avsrog earmarks " allherds and shoals of fish, especially those in the Sea, as consecrateto the Gods."Granting this, why should one fish be singled out by theepithet when the whole " herd or shoal " is equally up6g ?The infrequent coupHng of the adjective with txOvg suggestssome less general meaning, if it mean anything.1There are of course limitations to the " pulley-hauley " of a hand-line ;with a 700 lb. Tuna a Rod may be a very present help, a windlass even moreso. The practice in vogue among the Spanish Tunny lishers is to throw asidethe Rod at the moment of hooking and man-handle the fish with the Line.a Idyll. XXI. 55.