Chapter X.
“
Being
accustomed
to eat fish at the time of Easter, he enquired a little before the hour
for refreshment, whether it was in readiness. Then Cato, the deacon, to
whom the outward management of the monastery belonged, and who was
himself a skillful fisher, tells him that no capture had fallen to his
lot the whole day, and that other fishers, who used to sell what they
caught, had also been able to do nothing. ‘Go,’ said he,
‘let down your line, and a capture will follow.’ As
Sulpitius there has already described, we had our dwelling close to the
river. We all went, then, as these were holidays, to see our friend
fishing, with the hopes of all on the stretch, that the efforts would
not be in vain by which, under the advice of Martin himself, it was
sought to obtain fish for his use. At the first throw the deacon drew
out, in a very small net, an enormous pike, and ran joyfully back to
the monastery, with the feeling undoubtedly to which some poet gave
utterance (for we use a learned verse, inasmuch as we are conversing
with learned people)—‘And brought his captive boar
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to wondering Argos.’
“Truly that disciple of Christ, imitating the
miracles performed by the Saviour, and which he, by way of example, set
before the view of his saints, showed Christ also working in him, who,
glorifying his own holy follower everywhere, conferred upon that one
man the gifts of various graces. Arborius, of the imperial bodyguard,
testifies that he saw the hand of Martin as he was offering sacrifice,
clothed, as it seemed, with the noblest gems, while it glittered with a
purple light; and that, when his right hand was moved, he heard the
clash of the gems, as they struck together.
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“captivum
suem.” Probably there is here an allusion to the capture of the
Erymanthian boar by Hercules, with a punning reference to a secondary
meaning of
sus
as a kind of fish.