Note 613 — Chapter XVII

Athenæus, XII. 15 and 20. If the fish found favour helluously, medically condemnation attended it. Hippocrates warns against its use; Seneca, Nat. Qu., III. 19, 3, terms it “gravis cibus.” If to the gastronomic virtues of the Murænidæ both Greeks and Latins were more than kind, to other characteristics they were far indeed from blind—e.g. their slipperiness, etc., was proverbial. See Lucian, Anach., I, and Plautus, Pseud., II. 4, 57. Further, did the fish but hap in a dream, then good-bye to all hopes and desires, which slipped away, as surely as Alice’s “slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” See Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, II. 14. The phallic character of the fish prevalent in ancient times continues in modern Italy, e.g. the proverbs (1) about holding an Eel by his tail, and (2) that when it has taken the hook, it must go where it is drawn. De Gubernatis, op. cit., II. 341.