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Side 70 av 112
Plutarch, in THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS, tells a
capital fish-story of the manner in which the Egyptian Cleopatra
fooled that far-famed Roman wight, Marc Antony, when they were
angling together on the Nile. As I recall it, from a perusal in
early boyhood, Antony was having very bad luck indeed; in fact he
had taken nothing, and was sadly put out about it. Cleopatra,
thinking to get a rise out of him, secretly told one of her
attendants to dive over the opposite side of the barge and fasten a
salt fish to the Roman general's hook. The attendant was much
pleased with this commission, and, having executed it, proceeded to
add a fine stroke of his own; for when he had made the fish fast on
the hook, he gave a great pull to the line and held on tightly.
Antony was much excited and began to haul violently at his tackle.
"By Jupiter!" he exclaimed, "it was long in coming, but I have a
colossal bite now."
"Have a care," said Cleopatra, laughing behind her sunshade, "or he
will drag you into the water. You must give him line when he pulls
hard."
"Not a denarius will I give!" rudely responded Antony. "I mean to
have this halibut or Hades!"
At this moment the man under the boat, being out of breath, let the
line go, and Antony, falling backward, drew up the salted herring.
"Take that fish off the hook, Palinurus," he proudly said. "It is
not as large as I thought, but it looks like the oldest one that has
been caught to-day."
Such, in effect, is the tale narrated by the veracious Plutarch.
And if any careful critic wishes to verify my quotation from memory,
he may compare it with the proper page of Langhorne's translation; I
think it is in the second volume, near the end.
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