Kitap 6
10
And it was not without some wit that Diphilus, in his Merchant, speaks in this manner of fish being sold at an exorbitant price— I never heard of dearer fish at any time. Oh, Neptune, if you only got a tenth Of all that money, you would be by far The richest of the gods! And yet if he, The fishmonger I mean, had been but civil, I would have given him his price, though grumbling; And, just as Priam ransom'd Hector, I Would have put down his weight to buy the conger. And Alexis says in his Grecian Woman— Living and dead, the monsters of the deep Are hostile to us always. If our ship Be overturn'd, they then at once devour Whatever of the crew they catch while swimming: And if they're caught themselves by fishermen, When dead they half undo their purchasers; For with our whole estate they must be bought, And the sad purchaser comes off a beggar. And Archippus, in his play called the Fish, mentions one fishmonger by name, Hermæus the Egyptian, saying— The cursedest of all fish-dealers is Hermæus the Egyptian; who skins And disembowels all the vilest fish, And sells them for the choicest, as I hear. And Alexis, in his Rich Heiress, mentions a certain fishmonger by name, Micio.
