A True Story (1.7)

When we had gone forward through the wood about three furlongs from the sea, we saw a slab of bronze, inscribed with Greek letters, faint and obliterated, which said: “To this point came Hercules and Dionysus.” There were also two footprints in the rock close by, one of which was a hundred feet long, the other less—to my thinking, the smaller one was left by Dionysus, the other by Hercules. [*] We did obeisance and went on, but had not gone far when we came upon a river of wine, just as like as could be to Chian. [*] The stream was large and full, so that in places it was actually navigable. Thus we could not help having much greater faith in.the inscription on the slab, seeing the evidence of Dionysus’ visit. I resolved

to find out where the river took its rise, and went up along the stream. What I found was not a source, but a number of large grapevines, full of clusters; beside the root of each flowed a spring of clear wine, and the springs gave rise to the river. There were many fish to be seen in it, very similar to wine in colour and in taste. In fact, on catching and eating some of them, we became drunk, and when we cut into them we found them full of lees, of course. Later on, we bethought ourselves to mix with them the other kind of fish, those from the water, and so temper the strength of our edible wine.