The Literary Fly Fisher

I have been reading Dialogue between a Hunter and a Fisher, first published by Fernando Basurto in 1539.  It is translated from the Spanish by Richard C. Hoffman and can be found in his Fisher’s Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts of Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997).  I have resolved to memorize the Fisher’s (F’s) first line, below.  I think I could find plenty of use for it, both on and off the stream.

F: I am not such a fool that I am not very wise next to you, for you are not wise enough to understand me, nor I simple enough to understand you.  And if I answer you from Ephesians, it is because you question me from Corinthians. And above all you say that my works are low.  If you gentlemen hunters would judge you own [works] with discretion you would see that those of the poor fishers are of more carats than those of the rich hunters.

H: You are not right to say that ….

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