Note 313 — Chapter VII · THEOCRITUS—THE GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTS
Reading edition
This is but one instance of anachronistic translation, or the use of terms, which, if true of our modern line, are inapplicable to ancient angling, for if, as I have shown in the Introduction, all ancient angling was with a tight line, the operation translated as “I took in line” should rather be rendered “I tightened on him.” The alternation of easing and tightening is a well-known device. It is a question of the degree of strain involved. If you want to keep a big fish quiet in a confined space or in difficult circumstances, you can generally do so by keeping a very light strain on him, so that, though the line is never absolutely slack, he hardly knows that he is hooked and is often landed without the angler having to yield a foot of his line. Thus the roach-fisher without a reel sometimes lands a 4 lb. chub or bream with a foot link of single hair, entirely by this method of suaviter in modo. There seems no particular reason why Asphalion should not have been cognisant of these secrets, which three lines in James Thomson’s The Seasons, although the fight is, I admit, with a running line, fairly disclose.
“With yielding hand That feels him still, yet to his furious course Gives way, you, now retiring, following now Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage.”