Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

150 PLINY—MARTIAL—WAS THE ROD JOINTED?epigram, instead of levis, as evidently did Hay, the Scotch poet,in translating the couplet," Could I a trout, now, with my angle get,Or cover a young partridge with my net."Much can be said for the view that line three applies tofishing.So much, indeed, that were it not for one, apparently fatal,omission, wc might confidently proclaim the first definite mentionof a jointed rod. To this omission, conclusive to my mind ofthe meaning of harundo, I have so far found no allusion.Let us suppose that the firstline of the couplet does referto fishing. The poet would like to give some birds or fish,or both,to his friend Cams, but bewails his inability to sendanything better than some chickens. He does explain fullywhy he cannot send birds, but he omits entirely any reason, oreven any hint, as to what prevents him sending fish. Weare not allowed to imagine that the weather was too bad, forthe whistling ploughman imitating the magpie in his call, thestarlings, the linnets, all negative that.The whole epigram seems to refer to fowling.The application,even if vadis for levis be adopted, would not necessarilybe altered.Are there not wild duck and snipe to be caughtin the shallows [vadis] as well as fish, and probably by othermeans than birdlime, though with the use of a rod ?If levis, or even vadis be read, two arguments lean heavilyagainst harundo being the fisher's Rod. The first, in a poemdealing entirely with birds this somewhat obscure reference tofish would be extremely abrupt ; the second, the line following" harundine praeda " runs, " Pinguis et " (not " aut " as before)" implicitas virga teneret aves," " and (not or) the sticky reedline,"etc.Save for this omission and the trend of the whole context,a strong argument might be easily advanced for fishing in theapparent redundancy of harundo and virga. But these twowords may refer to two different weapons of capture, or, whatis more probable, to two different ways of catching birds—thefirst, by a long reed with a noose, and the second by a branchwith birdhme.i^ The best reeds for fowling purposes {harundo aucttpatoria) came from