Fishing with Ovid

 

In this paper I analyze Ovid’s use of fishing in his poetry, and suggest that he transforms fishing into a sustained metaphor for artistry. Throughout the Ars Amatoria, Ovid likens the pursuit of a love-interest to the art of hunting or fishing; the otherwise lowly profession of angling becomes a creative endeavor whose craft is dependent upon deception.

 

Ovid also features the motif of fishing throughout his Metamorphoses; Books 1-3, 8, and 13-15 all include cameo appearances by various anglers who, oddly, never fish for fish. While always portrayed as being, on the surface, from the lower classes, Ovid’s fishermen nevertheless are able to deceive their prey, thus using their status as inhabitants of a non-epic generic world to fool their opponents using the tricks of their trade.

 

Ovid’s fishermen use deceptive strategies and rely upon the credulity of their prey. The art of fishing becomes, in Ovid, a close analogue to the art of writing; the chief weapon of the angler, the fishing pole (harundo) is also a word for a pen. Angling, then, is a metaphor for his own art, which requires the art of deception in order to lure and catch the reader’s attention.