FISH.
But Jove pursued her (and with eagerness
His soul desired her). In vain she took
The form of some large fish who bounds along,
Borne on the vast high-crested roaring wave;
Sometimes she fled along the ocean, where
The earth's most distant boundaries extend;
Sometimes she fled along the fertile land;
And took all shapes of every animal
Which the land bears, to flee from amorous Jove.
11. I know, also, what is related about the fish called apopyris, which is found in the lake Bolbe; concerning which Hegesander, in his Commentaries, speaks thus:—"Around Apollonia of Chalcis two rivers flow, the Ammites and the Olynthiacus, and they both fall into the lake Bolbe. And on the river Olynthiacus there is a monument of Olynthus, the son of Hercules and Bolbe. And in the months Anthesterion and Elaphebolion, the natives say that Bolbe sends Apopyris to Olynthus; and that about this time a most enormous number of fish ascend out of the lake into the river Olynthiacus: and this is a shallow river, scarcely deep enough to wet a man's ankles; but for all that there does not the less come a great number of fish, so that all the people of the district get enough cured fish for their use for the year. And it is a wonderful fact that they never pass above the monument of Olynthus. They say, in explanation of this, that the people of Apollonia did formerly, in the month Elaphebolion, celebrate sacrifices to the dead, but that they do so now in the month Anthesterion; and that on this account this ascent is made by the fish in those months alone in which the natives are accustomed to pay honour to their national heroes."
12. And this is the state of the case, O men fish; for you, having collected together every kind of thing, have thrown us out to be food for fishes, instead of giving them as food for us,—making such long speeches as not even Ichthys, the philosopher of Megara, nor Ichthyon (and this also is a proper name), who is mentioned by Teleclides in his Amphictyons, would make to us. And, on your account, I will give this advice to the servant, as it is said in the Ant Men of Pherecrates:—
Mind that you never, O Deucalion,
(Even if I bid you,) set a fish before me.
For in Delos, as we are told by Semus the Delian, in the second book of the Delias, when they sacrifice to Brizo,—and
