Page:Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica.djvu/651

 To this they replied:

"All that we caught, we left behind, and carry away all that we did not catch."

Homer did not understand this reply and asked what they meant. They then explained that they had caught nothing in fishing, but had been catching their lice, and those of the lice which they caught, they left behind; but carried away in their clothes those which they did not catch. Hereupon Homer remembered the oracle and, perceiving that the end of his life had come composed his own epitaph. And while he was retiring from that place, he slipped in a clayey place and fell upon his side, and died, it is said, the third day after. He was buried in Ios, and this is his epitaph:

"Here the earth covers the sacred head of divine Homer, the glorifier of hero-men." 597