Oppian. Halieutika – Poemat o rybach i rybakach
Oppian: Halieutica – A Poem about Fish and Fishermen

Contributor(s): Krystyna Bartol (Translator)
Subject(s): Literary Texts, Poetry
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: Oppian, ancient Greek didactic poem; fish; fishing; fishers
Summary/Abstract: The epic Halieutica, written by the second-century AD poet Oppian, was a work thematically and artistically attractive for the ancient reader. It remains such for the contemporary reader, too. In the poem, Oppian tells a common story about the habits of marine animals, and the key principle in presenting the underwater world and its inhabitants is anthropomorphisation. The poetic presentation of fishermen's struggles with deep-sea creatures is, in the author's view, a moral-philosophical reflection on the unity of different elements of the world and the place occupied by humans. Consisting of more than three thousand hexametric verses and dedicated to Emperor Mark Aurelius, the poem is still dazzling with its different moods, refined erudition and elegance of poetic phrase. The epic poem measure of the original was rendered in the Polish translation using a traditional thirteen-syllable meter (retaining an identical number of verses).

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