This is taken from a photograph of a small bronze image in the Mayer
collection of the Free Museum, in Liverpool. The figure stands about
nine inches high, and represents Isis, Horus, and the fish. It is an
apt illustration of an ancient custom, still prevalent amongst certain
Christians, of reverencing a woman, said to be a virgin, giving suck
to her child, and of the association of Isis, Venus, and Mary with the
fish. Friday, for example, is, with the Romanists, both "fish day," and
"dies Veneris." Fish are known to be extraordinarily prolific. There was
a belief that animals, noted for any peculiarity, imparted their virtues
to those who ate them; consequently, tigers' flesh was supposed to give
courage, and snails to give sexual power. The use of fish in connubial
feasts is still common. Those who consider it pious or proper to eat
fish on Venus' day, or Friday, proclaim themselves, unconsciously,
adherents to those heathen ideas which deified parts about which no
one now likes to talk. The fish has in one respect affinity with the
mandrake.
Since the first publication of this work, a friend has suggested to me
another reason, besides its fertility, for the fish being emblematic of
woman. From his extensive experience as a surgeon, and especially among
the lower order of courtesans, he has repeatedly noticed during the hot
months of the year that the parts which he had to examine have a very
strong odour of fish. My own observations in the same department lead me
to endorse his assertion. Consequently, I think that in warm climates,
where the utmost cleanliness can scarcely keep a female free from odour,
scent, as well as other attributes, has had to do with the selection of
the fish as an emblem of woman.
Still further, I have been informed by another friend that in Yorkshire,
and I understand in other counties of England, the double entente
connected with the fish is so marked that it is somewhat difficult to
render it into decent phraseology. It will suffice to say that in the
county mentioned, Lais or Phryne would be spoken of as "a choice bit
of fish," and that a man who bore on his features the stamp which is
imprinted by excessive indulgence, would be said to have indulged too
much in "a fish diet." I do not suppose that in the Yorkshire Ridings
the folks are unusually well acquainted with mythology, yet it is
curious to find amongst their inhabitants a connection between Venus
and the Fish, precisely similar to that which has obtained in the most
remote ages and in far distant climes.
It is clear from all these facts that the fish is a symbol not only of
woman, but of the yoni.