full of holes have drawn out of the hoary sea to a hollow bay, and all of which, deprived of the waves of the sea, are poured upon the sands." Although the general term [Greek: diktyon] is here used, it is evident that the net intended was the sean, or dragnet.
In one of the passages of Alciphron already referred to, mention is made of the use of the sean in a similar situation. Some persons, who are fishing in a bay for tunnies and pelamides, inclose nearly the whole bay with their sean, expecting to catch a very large quantity[1]. This circumstance proves, that the sean was used with the ancient Greeks, as it is with us, to encompass a great extent of water.
We have seen that the sean supplied figures of speech no less than the purse-net ([Greek: arkys]), and the casting-net ([Greek: amphiblêstron]). It is applied thus in the case of persons who are ensnared by the—Epist. i. 17.
A few miscellaneous passages, which refer to the use of the sean, may be conveniently introduced here:
Diogenes, seeing a great number of fishes in the deep, says there is need of a sean to catch them; [Greek: sagênês deêsis].—Lucian, Piscata, § 51. tom. i. p. 618, ed. Reitz.
The sean is called, from its material, [Greek: sagênaion linon], in an epigram of Archias.—Brunck, Anal. ii. 94. No. 10.
Plutarch, describing the spider's web, says, that its weaving is like the labor of women at the loom, its hunting like that of fishermen with the sean.—De Solertia Animalium, tom. x. p. 29, ed. Reiske. He here uses the term [Greek: sagêneutês] for a fisher with the sean. This verbal noun is regularly formed from [Greek: sagêneuein], which means to inclose or catch with the sean: e. g. [Greek: en diktyois sesagêuenmenoi].—Herodian, iv. 9, 12.
Lucian uses the same verb in reference to the story of Vulcan inclosing Mars and Venus in a net; [Greek: sagêneuei tois desmois].—Dialogi Deor. tom. i. p. 243. Somnium, tom. ii. p. 707, ed. Reitz.
Leonidas of Tarentum, in an epigram enumerating the ornaments of a lady's toilet (Brunck, Anal. i. p. 221), mentions [Greek: o platys trichôn sagêneutêr]. Jacobs (Annot. in Anthol. i. 2. p. 63) supposes this to mean the lady's comb; but, judging from the known meaning of [Greek: sagênê] and its derivatives, we may conclude that it was the [Greek: kekryphalos], or net, which inclosed and encircled the hair, like a sean.
The following verse of Manilius (lib. v. ver. 678.) is remarkable as a rare instance of the adoption of the Greek word sagena by a Latin poet:—
Excipitur vasta circumvallata sagena.
]
- ↑ [Greek: Te sagênê mononouchi ton kolpon olon perielabomen.
