Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

—TIGHT-LINE UNIVERSAL TILL 17TH CENTURY 13But the existence of some method of releasing line ratherearlier than Barker and Walton may perhaps be inferred fromthe following passage in William Browne's Britannia'sPastorals (Fifth Song), published 1613-16:"He, knowing it a fish of stubborn sway,Puis up his rod, but soft : (as having skill)Wherewith the hooke fast holds the fishe's gill.Then all his line he freely yeeldeth him,Whilst furiously all up and downe doth swimmeTh' insnared fish, . . .By this the pike, cleane wearied, underneathA willow lyes and pants (if fishes breathe) :Wherewith the fisher gently puis him to him,And, least his haste might happen to undo him,Lays down his rod, then takes his line in hand.And by degrees getting the fish to land,Walkes to another poole."A few years suffice to span the interval between WilliamBrowne and Barker, whereas between Theocritus and Barkera great gulf of time yawns unbridged. Thus we have renderingsof the former (Idyll XXI.) and of other classical authors bytranslators (more especially when they happen to be alsoanglers !) which demonstrate ignorance or ignoring of thefixity of line and the absence of reel.These, if not palpably anachronous, afford at any rateevidence of incuriosity concerning facts. Their " then I gavehim slack " and other similar expressions, true enough of ourstrained construing—that theirpresent line, can be no way applicable to the conditions ofancient Angling, unless the words mean—and then only by" slack" was given by depressionof Rod rather than by lengthening of line.With the hook also we are confronted with a similar slownessof development. This is so well attested that we needmore than even the authority of Butcher and Lang to establishwhat their slip in translating jvafXTrra ayKiarpa as bent hooksin Odyssey IV., 369, and as barbed hooks in Odyssey XII,, 332,would suggest, viz, a synonymous form of a synchronousinvention.