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unicorns, it was at once assumed that they had the horse-like form assigned to
the land-unicorn, and in some of the old authors the sea-unicorn is represented
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as of purely equine form, plus the horn.32
In a book published in 1639, entitled  A Helpe to Memorie and Discourse, we
find this question asked,  Whether doth a dead body in a shippe cause the shippe
to sail slower, and if it doe, what is thought to be the reason thereof. The answer
to the query is that  the shippe is as insensible of the living as the dead, and as the
living make it goe the faster, so the dead make it not goe the slower; for the dead
are no Rhemoras to alter the course of her passage, though some there be that
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thinke so, and that by a kind of mournful sympathy. 33 The potent influence of
the remora or sucking-fish to arrest the progress of a ship by merely adhering to
its keel is a curious fancy that has been handed on for centuries. Pliny and many
other ancient writers had full belief in this foe to the mariner, and references to it
in much more recent authors are by no means uncommon. Thus Ben Jonson
alludes to it in the lines
 I say a remora,
For it will stay a ship that s under sail.
While Spenser in his  Visions of the World s Vanity, writes
 Looking far forth into the ocean wide,
A goodly ship, with banners bravely dight,
And flag in her top-gallant I espied,
Through the main sea making her merry flight:
Fair blew the wind into her bosom right,
And th Heavens looked lovely all the while
That she did seem to dance, as in delight,
And at her own felicity did smile:
All suddenly there clove unto her keel
A little fish that we call remora,
Which stopt her course, and held her by the heel,
That wind nor tide could move her thence away.
We may indeed be thankful that this mysterious power, worse even than the
more prosaic barnacles and other sea impedimenta that plague the modern
shipowner by fouling the bottom of his good ship, and so retarding her course,
seems to be no longer exercised. The merchantman speeding home with
perishable cargo, the yachtsman burning to carry off the challenge cup, the great
record-breaking Atlantic liner, carrying under heavy penalty for delay Her Majesty s
mails, would all be terribly hampered in their several ambitions in presence of so
potent yet so apparently insignificant a foe. Well might Spenser add
 Strange thing meseemeth that so small a thing
Should able be so great an one to wring.
One old writer feeling the impossibility of giving a satisfactory explanation of
the marvel is content to say  of which there can be no more reason given than of
the loadstone drawing iron; neither is it possible to shew the cause of all secrets
in Nature, a statement as true to-day as the day it was written, though this
particular secret of Nature has in the interval been disestablished.
That the dolphin was the swiftest of all living creatures, more rapid than a bird,
swifter than an arrow shot from a bow, will probably be an entirely new idea to
most of our readers, yet such was the ancient belief. The dolphin occurs very
freely in blazonry, on ancient coinage, and in classic and renaissance decoration,
and it is almost always represented either as  embowed, that is to say, bent
round like a bow, such being the significance of the heraldic term, or else it is
introduced with its lithe body coiled gracefully round an anchor or trident. In
either case the representation suggests an easy-going and leisurely state of affairs
that is very different to the picture conjured up by the arrowy rush of the creature
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through the waves, as Pliny paints it for us.34
It is a very old belief that the dolphin has an especial fondness for man.  Of a
man he is nothing afraid, neither avoideth from him as a stranger: but of himselfe
meeteth their ships, plaieth and disporteth himselfe, and fetcheth a thousand
friskes, and gambols before them. He will swimme along by the mariners, as it
were for a wager, who should make way most speedily, and alwaies outgoeth
them, saile they with never so good a forewind. The representation of the
dolphin with the anchor is not simply a type of maritime supremacy, but is a
distinct illustration of this belief in the dolphin s kindly regard for man. Thus
Camerarius asserts that  when tempests arise, and seamen cast their anchor, the
dolphin, from its love to man, twines itself round it, and directs it, so that it may
more safely lay hold of the ground.
The works of the ancient writers abound with illustrations of the friendly
regard of the dolphin for mankind. Thus in one wonderful story we have a
schoolboy, the son of a poor man, who had to travel each day from Baianum to
Puteoli, who used at the water s edge to call a dolphin to his aid. The dolphin
would at once respond to the call, and the boy used to mount upon his back and
be taken across the sea, and be brought back again at night. This went on for
some years, and at last, when the boy fell sick and died, his constitution probably
not being able to stand the constant wetting and exposure, the dolphin was
inconsolable, and promptly died of a broken heart. In another story, equally
veracious, the rider was so unfortunate as to pierce himself with one of the sharp
spines of the dorsal fin, and an artery being severed, he bled to death. The
dolphin, seeing the water stained with blood, and finding that his rider did not sit
on his back in the light and active way that had been his wont, concluded that
some catastrophe had happened, and when he realized the full truth, resolved
not to outlive him whom he had affectionately loved, and therefore ran himself
with all his might upon the shore, and so perished. Pliny, Mecaenas, Fabianus,
Flavius Alfius, Ælian, Aulus Gellius, Apion, Egesidemus, Theophrastus, and many
other old writers, all give equally surprising illustrations of this wonderful love of
the dolphin for mankind.
The dolphin is also a great lover of music, and equally wonderful stories are
told in illustration of this taste also. Another well-known belief in connection
with it is the imaginary brilliancy of its changeful colours when dying. The idea
has been a favourite one with poets in all ages: an example from Byron s  Childe
Harold s Pilgrimage will suffice as an illustration:
 Parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away;
The last still loveliest, till  tis gone, and all is gray.
Another strange fish believed in by our forefathers was the Acipenser,  a fish
of an unnatural making and quality, as an old writer terms him; and indeed he
may very well do so, as we are told that  his scales are all turned towards his.
head. We are not therefore much surprised to learn that  he ever swimmeth
against the stream, though we might well be more astonished, if we ever found
him swimming at all. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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