Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

284 FISH IN MYTHS, SYMBOLS, DIET, MEDICINEAmong the Greeks and Latins aphrodisiacs and antaphrodisiacs,i.e. incentives to, or prophylactics against love,were accounted of potency, and meet with frequent mention.Each kingdom of Nature, animal, mineral, vegetable, piscine,was impressed to compass these purposes.The list submitted by Pliny—a weighty natural historian,mark you !—of those drawn from the first would be scoutedby any modern Obeah or Ju-ju man, however powerful, astaxing too severely the credulity of his ignorant clientele.Even Haitian superstition would reject its obvious absurdities." The ashes of a spotted lizard " —here '— even the compiler iscompelled to caution ' si verum est "held in the left handstimulate, but in the right kill desire," ranks far from beingthe most incredible of the prescriptions.!The Ancients specialised not only in gods, but also infishes which made, or made not, for passion. We, however,while enjoying a hundred sects, have brutally boiled down ouraphrodisiacs to one, stout and oysters !The salacious properties of many fishes—inherited oracquired, according to ancient legends, from their mother orprotectress. Aphrodite—furnish the theme of classical authors,grave and gay ; e.g. of Epicharmus in Hebe's Wedding—atwedding feasts fish were an absolute essential ; of Varro,^tunc nuptice videhant ostream Lucrinani ; of Plautus,^ whereat the marriage of Olympio the old man in love orders thepurchase of stimulating fish." Emito sepiolas, lopadas, loligunculas,"Even Pythagoras, according to Lilius Giraldus, believedthat cupidity could be aroused, not by fish, which were apparentlybanned to his disciples, but by Urtica marina.'^Pliny's list of proved aphrodisiacs and antaphrodisiacsincludes among the former " the eye-tooth of a crocodileattached to the arm," and among the latter " the skin from theleft side ofthe forehead of the hippopotamus attached fast tothe body in lambskin." ^1 N. H., XXX. 49. Cf. .(Elian, op. cit. passim, for aphrodisiacs.^ Fragment, Varro Sexagesis, ap. Man. Marc, p. 319. 15 ff., Lindsay.» Cas., II. 8, 57; cf. also AuL, at the wedding of Euclid's daughter.« See ibid.. Rudens, II. i, 9, * N. H., XXXII. 50.