did not stop at the town, but at some distance off, on the seashore. Homer, feeling himself very ill, was carried on shore. Contrary winds retarding the departure of the vessel, the travellers remained several days at anchor. Some of the inhabitants visited Homer, and they no sooner heard him speak than they felt a great degree of veneration for him.
XXXV. While the sailors and the townspeople were speaking with Homer, some fishermen's children ran their vessel on shore, and descending to the sands, addressed these words to the assembled persons: "Hear us, strangers, explain our riddle if ye can." Then some of those that were present ordered them to speak. "We leave," say they, "what we take, and we carry with us that which we cannot take." No one being able to solve the enigma, they thus expounded it.
"Having had an unproductive fishery," say they in explanation, "we sat down on the sand, and being annoyed by the vermin, left the fish we had taken on the shore, taking with us the vermin we could not catch."[1] Homer, on hearing this, made these verses: "Children, your fathers possess neither ample heritages, nor numerous flocks."
XXXVI. Homer died in Ios of the disease he had contracted on his arrival, and not, as some authors have related, [caring more for interest than truth,] of grief at not understanding the enigma of the fisher-boys.[2] He was buried
- ↑ The enigma is founded on the distinction made by the ancients between having and possessing, which Plato (Theætet. § 126) causes Socrates to define. "To possess, therefore, does not appear to me to be the same as to have; for instance, if any one, having bought a garment, and having it in his power, should not wear it, we should not say that he has it, but that he possesses it." Cary's trans. vol. i. p. 348. Bohn's Classical Library. Similarly our own poet wrote, (Othello, iv. 1,) "They have it very oft that have it not," where the word is used in two different senses. Somewhat akin to it is the riddle alluded to by Plato, Rep. v. c. 22. Lactantius has translated this Homeric enigma into Latin, Symposium, tom. ii. p. 255.
- ↑ The following passage occurs in Pseudo-Plutarch's Life of Homer.
