Record #120
Remora
A tiny fish believed capable of stopping ships through mysterious force.
Original Text
Remora, in Latin, means ‘delay’ or ‘hindrance’ . This is the strict meaning of the word which was figuratively applied to the Echeneis, a genus of sucking fishes credited with the power of holding a ship fast by clinging to it. The Remora is a fish of an ashen hue; on the top of its head it has a cartilaginous disc with which it creates a vacuum that enables it to cling to other underwater creatures. Here is Pliny’s acclamation of its powers (IX, 4I):
There is a quite small fish that frequents rocks, called the sucking-fish. This is believed to make ships go more slowly by sticking to their hulls, from which it has received its name; and for this reason it also has an evil reputation for supplying a love-charm and for acting as a spell to hinder litigation in the courts, which accusations it counterbalances only by its laudable property of stopping fluxes of the womb in pregnant women and holding back the offspring till the time of birth. It is not included however among articles of diet. It is thought by some to have feet, but Aristotle denies this, adding that its limbs resemble wings.
(Pliny then goes on to describe the murex, a variety of purple fish also credited with bringing ships under full sail to a standstill: ‘ . . . it is a foot long and four inches wide, and hinders ships, and moreover . . . when preserved in salt it has the power of drawing out gold that has fallen into the deepest wells when it is brought near them.’) It is remarkable how from the idea of delaying ships the Remora came to be associated with delays in lawsuits and later with delayed births. Elsewhere, Pliny tells that a Remora decided the fate of the Roman Empire in the Battle of Actium, detaining the galley in which Mark Antony was reviewing his fleet, and that another Remora stopped Caligula’s ship despite the efforts of its four hundred oarsmen. ‘Winds blow and storms rage,’ exclaims Pliny, ‘but the Remora overmasters their fury and holds ships fast, achieving what the heaviest of anchors and the thickest of hawsers could never achieve.’
‘The mightiest power does not always prevail. A ship may be detained by a small remora,’ repeats the fine Spanish writer Diego de Saavedra Fajardo in his Political Emblems (I64O).
There is a quite small fish that frequents rocks, called the sucking-fish. This is believed to make ships go more slowly by sticking to their hulls, from which it has received its name; and for this reason it also has an evil reputation for supplying a love-charm and for acting as a spell to hinder litigation in the courts, which accusations it counterbalances only by its laudable property of stopping fluxes of the womb in pregnant women and holding back the offspring till the time of birth. It is not included however among articles of diet. It is thought by some to have feet, but Aristotle denies this, adding that its limbs resemble wings.
(Pliny then goes on to describe the murex, a variety of purple fish also credited with bringing ships under full sail to a standstill: ‘ . . . it is a foot long and four inches wide, and hinders ships, and moreover . . . when preserved in salt it has the power of drawing out gold that has fallen into the deepest wells when it is brought near them.’) It is remarkable how from the idea of delaying ships the Remora came to be associated with delays in lawsuits and later with delayed births. Elsewhere, Pliny tells that a Remora decided the fate of the Roman Empire in the Battle of Actium, detaining the galley in which Mark Antony was reviewing his fleet, and that another Remora stopped Caligula’s ship despite the efforts of its four hundred oarsmen. ‘Winds blow and storms rage,’ exclaims Pliny, ‘but the Remora overmasters their fury and holds ships fast, achieving what the heaviest of anchors and the thickest of hawsers could never achieve.’
‘The mightiest power does not always prevail. A ship may be detained by a small remora,’ repeats the fine Spanish writer Diego de Saavedra Fajardo in his Political Emblems (I64O).