The immediate sequel to these lines is of interest. The poet, transported from earth to heaven at the thought of his favourite dainty, describes it in wording which recalls the most solemn rites of Hellenic religion. There were certain foods reserved for communicants. There were mysteries which none but advanced initiates might witness. There were objects of peculiar sanctity borne by virginal ministrants. There were divinatory pebbles shaken in the glittering caldron of Apollo. These sacred associations are all suggested by the language of our enthusiast: “It is not meet for every man to taste, Nor see it with his eyes. Nay, he must hold The hollow woven-work of marsh-grown wicker And rattle pebbles in his glittering count.” But the words, though reminiscent of actual cult, have a double _entendre_ and are meant to bear a more mundane meaning. In plain prose, then, “it needs a wealthy man with capacious cash-box (literally a basket, _fiscus_) and a rattling big bank-account (pebbles to reckon L. S. D.) to afford such a luxury as this!” Not far behind it among Greek epicures came the _Glaucus_, possibly the sea-grayling, of whose “most precious head” Anaxandrides is enamoured, and Antiphanes and Julius Pollux write with appreciative gusto. But are not all things about the _Glaucus_ written in the seventh book of the _Deipnosophistæ_, chapters 45, 46, and 47? 9. The _Buglossus_, or _Lingulaca_ (_Solea vulgaris_, the “Sole”[665]), alike at Rome and at Athens the most prized, if not the most lauded in verse, of the Flatfish, held rank as high as any, actually far higher than its so-called cousin, the _Passer_. Although Xenocrates and Galen differ as to the firmness or reverse of its flesh—I wonder whether the latter got hold of a Lemon Sole!—the ancient agrees with the modern faculty in accounting it “very nourishing, and of most pleasant flavour.”[666] It then as now was almost always the first fish ordered, “as soon as men be sick or ill at ease“ in Plutarch’s time and words. From likeness to a tongue sprang its first Greek and Latin names; from likeness to a sandal its second, σανδάλιον and solea. Thus we find Matron[667] establishing, or merely perpetuating, the pretty myth that these fish, possibly from some adhesive power—and is it heresy to suggest their breadth?—served the Goddesses of Ocean as sandals or shoes: Σάνδαλα δ’ αὖ παρέθηκεν ἀειγενῆ ἀθανατάων Βούγλωσσον, ὂς ἔναιεν ἐν ἅλμη μορμυρούση. As Yonge renders them— “And next (the goddesses such sandals wear) Of mighty soles, a firm and well-matched pair,” the verses have the double demerit of being uncomplimentary to Aphrodite _et Cie_, and of reading into Matron an allusion unwarranted by his lines.[668]