Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

134 THEOCRITUS—GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTSThe threshold had never a door, nor a watch-dog ; all things,to them seemed superfluity, for poverty was their sentinel.allThey had no neighbour by them, but ever against their cabinfloated up the sea." The chariot of the moon had not yet reached the midpointof her course, but their familiar toil awakened the fishermen; from their eyelids they cast out slumber, and rousedtheir souls with speech."Asphalion, after complaining that even the nights insummer are too long—for " already have I seen ten thousanddreams, and the dawn is not yet " —is somewhat comforted bythe thought that thus " we have time to idle in, for what coulda man find to do lying on a leafy bed beside the waves andslumbering not ? Nay, the ass is among the thorns, thelantern in the town hall, for they say it is always sleepless." iThen he begs his friend to interpret to him the dream hehas just dreamt." As I was sleeping late, amid the labours of the salt sea,(and truly not too full fed, for we supped early, if thou dostremember, and did not overtax our bellies), I saw myself busyon a rock, and there I sat and watched the fishes and keptspinning the bait with the rods." And one of the fishes nibbled, a fat one ; for, in sleep,dogs dream of bread, and of fish dream 1. 2 Well, he wastightly hooked, and the blood was running, and the rod Igrasped was bent with his struggle.^ The meaning is as follows : Asphalion is complaining of wakefulness, andhe compares his condition to two things ; to a donkey in a furze-bush (as wemight say), and to the light of the town-hall, whose sacred fiame was perpetual(Snow).^ Mr. Lang adopts the reading Hfyrov, bread ; Ahrens substitutes &pktov,bear, which seems to fit the context far better, as it keeps up the whole spirit of," I dreamed of large-sized fish, and a lively fight, just as a sleeping dog dreamsof chasing bears." Cf. Tennyson's Locksley Hall—" Like a dog he hunts in dreams,"and his Lucretius—" As the dogWith inward yelp and restless forefoot pliesHis function of the woodland,"passages alike inspired by the Unes in which Lucretius (iv. 991 f.) proves thatwaking instincts are reflected in dreams" venantumque canes in moUi saepe quietejactant crura tamen subito."