Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

CHAPTER XXIXTHE RING OF POLYCRATESIn accordance with my custom of ending the Fishing of eachnation by a story in which fish play directly or indirectly animportant part, I searched for an Egyptian tale or legend.The serpent Apep in the Ra myth is merely a variant of similarhis story,beasts figuring in the Bel and Andromeda legends :moreover, lacks the stir of battle of the former, or the humaninterest of the latter, i The absence of any such legend isdue doubtless to the bad esteem in which fish were held bythe priests, who in the early days, at any rate, wrote thehistory of the country.As Maspero in his Contes Populaires de I'ancienne £gypie(which by the by differs in The Two Brothers from the accountgiven by Plutarch) failed to provide provender, I perforce fallback on a story, which, if ^Egean in locale, is Egyptian in effect,the tale of the ring of Polycrates.This has been used by Cicero and other ancient writersdeath,to point the moral of calling no man happy until hisand by modem to adorn many a tale of good luck, but sinceits historical importance has often been neglected, I ventureto recall shortly what Herodotus sets forth. 2* But as one of the earliest instances of imitative magic the story isIn the tale of Overthrowing Apep, based on the XXXI Xth Chapternotable.of The Book of the Dead, the priestly directions for destroying this enemy ofRa, or the Sun, run as follows ": Thou shalt say a prayer over a figure ofApep, which hath been drawn upon a sheet of papyrus, and over a wax figureof Apep upon which his name has been cut : and thou shalt lay them on thefire, so that it may consume the enemy of Ra." Six figures in all, presumably" to mak siccar," are to be placed on the fire at stated hours of the day andnight. Cf. Theocritus, Id., II. 27 ff., where the sUghted damsel prays, " Evenas I melt this wax, with the god to aid, so speedily may he (her lover) bylove be molten."« III. 40 fl.344