gambling

I've been reading The Determined Angler, an 'anthological' work about fishing by Charles Bradford. It was published in New York in 1916 and it includes a wide range of quotations about angling. I think that - as today's contribution to the blog - I'll just post a few that struck me. The first raises the question of luck again. Like many of the writers quoted by Bradford, this one uses a pseudonym:

Speculation in Angling.—I often wonder if the basis of fishing is not founded upon the element of chance, and whether fishing does not fascinate because it is a species of gambling. To a degree it is a hazard. You take your best tackle, select your choicest bait, and you do more, for you pray to the goddess of success.—"Ancient Mariner."

I posted here about the poem by Leonidas of Tarentum in which the fisherman, Parmis, becomes the victim of Tyche, another capricious goddess and one to whom the Greeks did indeed offer prayers in the hope of success: 'I entreat you, child of Zeus the Deliverer, saving Tyche, keep protecting [the city], and make her powerful' (Pindar, Olympian 12).