The _cyprinus_, _par excellence_, the carp (Lat. _carpus_), is celebrated, in connection with gold, in an elegant little Latin poem of Hieronimus Fracastorus. Carpus was the name of a ferryman of the Lake of Garda, who, seeing Saturn fleeing, took him for a robber who was carrying gold away, and endeavoured to despoil him of this gold; then Saturn cursed him and his companions in the following manner:--
"Gens inimica Deum dabitur quod poscitis aurum: Hoc imo sub fonte aurum pascetis avari. Dixerat: ast illis veniam poscentibus et vox Deficit, et jam se cernunt mutescere et ora In rictum late patulum producta dehiscunt, In pinnas abiere manus; vestisque rigescit In squamas, caudamque pedes sinuantur in imam; Qui fuerat subita obductus formidine mansit Pallidus ore color, quamquam livoris iniqui Indicium suffusa nigris sunt corpora guttis; Carpus aquas, primus numen qui læsit, in amplas Se primus dedit et fundo se condidit imo."
From the comparisons which we have made hitherto, it is impossible not to admit that the enterprise of the fish who seeks the gold or the pearl, who finds it, or who contains it in himself, is a very ancient Âryan tradition. In the Vedic hymns we see now Indras, now the Açvinâu, saving the heroes from shipwreck, and bringing riches to mankind; we have also seen the çiṅçumâras (sea-urchin, dolphin, or Vishṇus) draw the chariot of the Açvinâu, who are bringing riches. The Greeks called a fish of a strange shape by the name now of Zeus, now of chalkeüs (the name given to Hêphaistos, or Mulciber, or Vulcanus, the worker in metals), or blacksmith, whence the name of _Zeus faber_, by which it was known to the Latins. This fish is of a really monstrous shape. Its back is brownish, with yellow stripes; the rest of its body is of a silvery-grey colour; on its sides it has two spots of the deepest black. Its dorsal fin opens like a fan, with rays going out on all sides, and furnished with strong quills, which make this prominence resemble a crest. We remember that the cock and the lark were compared to Christ and to Christophoros, on account of their crest; the same happened in the case of the Zeus faber.[504] The Italian legend says that those two black spots (which make the fish's body resemble a forge, whence its name of blacksmith) were caused by the marks left upon it one day by St Christopher, while carrying Christ upon his shoulders across the river. The fish which wears the crest and Christopher are here identified with each other. But this is not all; at Rome, at Genoa, and at Naples, this same fish is called the fish of St Peter, because it is said to be the same fish which was caught by St Peter in the Gospels, in the mouth of which (as a blacksmith or chalkeüs, it must have known well how to coin money), by a miracle of Christ's, St Peter found the coin which was to serve for the tribute. Is it probable that the legend of the fish with gold in its mouth, so common in Âryan legends, was current in Judea? I do not think so; inasmuch as _petrus_ and the _petra_, upon which Christ makes a bad Græco-Latin pun, in connection with the fish, is another mythical incident which calls me back to the Âryan world, and tears me away from the Semitic world, and from childish faith in the Judaic authenticity of the evangelical story, though without prejudice to my belief in the holiness of the doctrine.