Ovid’s pretty fancy to account for the Syrian abstention doubtless hangs together with the Greek conception of Atargatis and Aphrodite being one and the same. When the Giants revolted against the Gods, Venus fleeing with Cupid reaches, but is stayed by, the Euphrates: thither, _Palæstinæ margine aquæ_, in answer to her piteous plaints to heaven above and earth below, two fish approach and convey mother and child safely across the flood.[286] “Inde nefas ducunt genus hoc imponere mensis Nec violant timidi piscibus ora Syri.” _Fasti_, II. 473-4. But other books, other legends! for the same author (in _Met._, V. 331) tells us that in the battle Venus changes herself into a fish. Ktesias gives another account.[287] Derceto by the wiles of Aphrodite “fell in love with a beautiful young man and was brought to bed of a daughter: being ashamed of what she had done, she slew the young man, exposed in the desert the child (who, fed with milk and then with cheese by pilfering pigeons, grew up to become the famous Semiramis) and then cast herself into the lake at Ascalon and was transformed into a fish—whence it came to pass that at this very day the Syrians eat no fishes, but adore them as gods” (Booth’s Trans.). Of the instances of _calliditas_ or shrewd wit of fishermen, the story (_supra_) of the fisher lads’ answer to Homer and the following from Alciphron (I. 16) must suffice, although from Æsop, etc., many others can be gleaned. The whole passage is far too long for quotation, but the final retort of the fisher, whose request for a battered disused boat has been selfishly refused by its owner, furnishes, according to a German critic, “a perfect gem of the Art of the Sophist, and sounds itself like an insoluble riddle.” To enable the reader to form his own judgment on this particular instance of _calliditas_, I subjoin the retort: οὐκ ᾔτησά σε ἃ ἕχεις ἀλλ’ ἃ μὴ ἓχεις ἐπεὶ δὲ οὐ βούλει ἃ μὴ ἓχεις ἕτερον ἕχειν, ἕχε ἃ μὴ ἓχεις, “I didn’t ask you for what you have, but for what you haven’t. Since, however, you don’t wish another to have what you haven’t, what you haven’t you can have!” But apart from this and similar instances of _calliditas_, the mood of piscatory poetry is generally serious or melancholy, and in keeping with the surroundings; we look in vain for the sunny warmth of Sicilian meadows, where youths pipe and sing gaily. Like their modern brethren fishermen offered, before setting sail or after returning safe from dangers encountered, gifts to the gods of their craft, of whom first came Poseidon or Neptune, usually represented with a trident[288]; second, Hermes or Mercury, the most venerated, because of his wily cunning and ready ruses[289]; third, Pan, a son of Mercury, who taught him all his craft,[290] and fourth, Priapus.[291]