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Ente some FISHERMEN, with lines and nets.
A FISHERMAN.
Persons who are poor live wretchedly in every way, especially those who have no calling and have learned no art. Of necessity must that be deemed enough, whatever they have at home. From our garb, then, you pretty well understand how wealthy we are. These hooks and these rods here are as good to us as a calling and as our clothing. Each day from the city do we come out hither to the sea to seek for forage. Instead of exertion in the wrestling-school and the place for exercise, we have this: sea-urchins, rock-mussels, oysters, limpets1, cockles, sea-nettles, sea-mussels and spotted crabs2, we catch. After that, we commence our fishing with the hook and among the rocks, and thus we take our food from out of the sea. If success does not befall us, and not any fish is taken, soaked in salt water3 and thoroughly drenched, we quietly betake ourselves home, and without dinner go to sleep. And since the sea is now in waves so boisterous, no hopes have we; unless we take some cockles, without a doubt we've had our dinners. Now let's adore good Venus here, that she may kindly befriend us to-day. They advance towards the door of the Temple.
1 Limpets: "Balanos." It is not known what shellfish the "balani" really were.
2 Spotted crabs: It is not known what kind of fish the "plagusia" was.
3 Soaked in salt water: -- "Salsi lautique pure." Thornton says, "Madame Dacier supposes that a joke is intended here, from the equivocal meaning of the words, which might mean that they had been entertained with high-seasoned cates, or that they had been washed and cleansed with salt water. 'Salsi,' says she, because sea-water is salt; 'pure,' because sea-water washed away all impurities."
The Comedies of Plautus. Henry Thomas Riley. London. G. Bell and Sons. 1912.
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