Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

—: —SOLES, THE SANDALS OF GODDESSES 265From likeness to a tongue sprang its first Greek and Latinnames ; from likeness to a sandal its second, aavdaXiov andsolea. Thus we find Matron 1 establishing, or merely perpetuating,the pretty mjdih that these fish, possibly from someadhesive power—and is it heresy to suggest their breadth ?served the Goddesses of Ocean as sandals or shoes"^tCtvSaXa §' av iraf)l9riK£V dtiytvi] duavaTadJVBodyXuxraov, og 'ivaitvAs Yonge renders themIv aXfUj finpfivpovarj." And next (the goddesses such sandals wear)Of mighty soles, a firm and well-matched pair,"the verses have the double demerit of being uncomplimentaryto Aphrodite et Cie, and of reading into Matron an allusionunwarranted by his lines. ^A not dissimilar use of the Sole is instanced in Polynesiantheology. Ina the daughter of Vaitooringa attempted flightto the sacred island. Fish after fish essayed to bear herthither, but unequal to the burden dropped her in the shallowwater. At last she besought the Sole, who managed to carryher as far as the breakers. Here, again unshipped, she lost herdivine temper, and stamped with such fierceness on the headof the unfortunate helper of distressful maids that its undereye was squeezed right through to the upper side. " Hencethe Sole is now obliged to swim flat on one side of its face,having no eye." ^Plautus puns or makes play on Solca, which means, first,a shoe or sandal (as does (jav^uXiov), and, second, the fish, andsculponecB, a kind of wooden shoe (which Cato * remembersjuditious Directorie, of Methodicall Instructions for the guide and governingthe health of Man " :"Si pisces molles sunt, magno corpore toUes.Si pisces duri, parvi sunt plus valituri."Cf. Regimen Sanitatis Salevni, London, 1617, but better still Sir A. Croke'sed.,Oxford, 1830.2 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 BritishMuseum (London, 1900), ii. 35, Nos. 910, 911).^ In Athen., 4, 13, line 76 ff.^ Cf. Robinson, op. cit., 82.* De Re Rust., 59.