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him; and so he gets cast on shore, and is eaten himself by the gulls and cormorants; and he is sometimes, when in this state, caught by men who give themselves up to hunting such large fish. And Timachides the Rhodian mentions the pompili in the ninth book of his Banquet, and says—

The tench o' the sea, and then the pompili, The holiest of fish.

And Erinna, or whoever it was who composed the poem which is attributed to her, says—

O pompilus, thou fish who dost bestow A prosp'rous voyage on the hardy sailor, Conduct ([Greek: pompeusais]) my dear companion safely home.

19. And Apollonius the Rhodian or Naucratian, in his History of the foundation of Naucratis, says, "Pompilus was originally a man; and he was changed into a fish, on account of some love affair of Apollo's. For the river Imbrasus flows by the city of the Samians,—

And join'd to him, the fairest of the nymphs, The young and noble Chesias, bore a daughter, The lovely maid Ocyrhoe—her whose beauty Was the kind Hours' heaven-descended gift.

They say then that Apollo fell in love with her and endeavoured to ravish her; and that she having crossed over to Miletus at the time of some festival of Diana, when the endeavour was about to be made to carry her off, being afraid of such an attempt being made, and being on her guard, entreated Pompilus, who was a seafaring man and a friend of her father, to conduct her safe back again to her own country, saying this,—

O Pompilus, to whose wise breast are known The rapid depths of the hoarse roaring sea, Show that your mind doth recollect my sire, Who was your friend, and save his daughter now.

And they say that he led her down to the shore, and conducted her safely across the sea: and that Apollo appeared and carried off the maiden, and sunk the ship with stones, and metamorphosed Pompilus into a fish of the same name, and that he made

The Pompilus an everlasting slave Of ships that swiftly pass along the sea.

20. But Theocritus the Syracusan, in his poem entitled