Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/80

 Situation, Theophrastus says that there are no polypi about the Hellespont; for that that sea is cold, and not very salt, and that both these circumstances are unfavourable to the polypus.

105. "But the fish called the nautilus," says Aristotle, "is not a polypus, though it resembles a polypus in its feelers. And the back of the nautilus is covered with a shell; and it rises up out of the bottom of the sea, having its shell upon its back, in order that it may not catch the water. But when it has turned round, then it sails on, putting up two of its feelers, which have a thin membrane growing between them, just as the feet of some birds are which have a membrane of skin between their toes. And their other two feelers they let down into the sea, instead of rudders; but when they see anything coming towards them, then out of fear they draw in those feet, and fill themselves with salt water, and so descend to the bottom as rapidly as possible." But, in his treatise on Animals and Fishes, he says—"Of the polypi there are two sorts; one, that which changes its colour, the other the nautilus."

106. Now, on this nautilus there is an epigram quoted of Callimachus of Cyrene, which runs thus:—

I was a shell, O Venus Zephyritis, Now I'm the pious offering of Selena, The gentle nautilus. When balmy winds Breathe soft along the sea, I hold my course, Stretching my sails on their congenial yards. Should calm, the placid goddess, still the waves, I row myself along with nimble feet, So that my name suits rightly with my acts. Now have I fallen on the Iulian shore, To be a pleasant sport to Arsinoe. No more shall Halcyons' dew-besprinkled eggs, My dainty meal, lie thick within my bed As formerly they did, since here I lie. But give to Cleinias's daughter worthy thanks; For she does shape her conduct honestly, And from Æolian Smyrna doth she come.

Posidippus also wrote this epigram on the same Venus which is worshipped in Zephyrium:—

Oh, all ye men who traffic on the streams, Or on the land who hold a safer way,