Note 314 — Chapter VII · THEOCRITUS—THE GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTS

To a practical angler this passage is not clear. How is it possible, after you have taken out the hook (the only apparent method of holding the big fish), to fasten round him ropes and drag him ashore, unless he were beached high and dry? Of this we have no evidence beyond ἀνείλκυσα, if used here in its nautical sense “to haul up high and dry.” The readings suggested by Wordsworth and others are numerous, but none seem quite satisfactory, even those preferred by J. M. Edmonds, The Greek Bucolic Poets, London, 1912, and R. J. Cholmeley, op. cit. Perhaps the least improbable text is that given by E. Hiller (Leipzig, 1881), καὶ τὸν μὲν πίστευσα καλῶς ἒχεν ἠπειρώταν, “and I really believed that I had him fairly landed.” This has the positive merit of sticking close to the manuscript reading, and the negative merit of refusing to admit the absurd ‘ropes.’