ABSTRACT
To recount ab ovo, or from the church-book of his birth, how the herring first came to be a fish, and then how he came to be King of Fishes, and gradationately how from white to red he changed, would require as massy a tome as Holinshed; but in half-a-pennyworth of paper I will epitomize them. Let me see. Hath anybody in Yarmouth heard of Leander and Hero, of whom divine Musaeus sung, and a diviner muse than him—Kit Marlowe? Two faithful lovers they were, as every apprentice in Paul’s Churchyard will tell you for your love, and sell you for your money. The one dwelt at Abydos in Asia, which was Leander; the other—which was Hero, his mistress or Delia—at Sestos in Europe; and she was a pretty pinkany and Venus’ priest; and but an arm of the sea divided them. It divided them, and it divided them not; for over that arm of the sea could be made a long arm. In their parents the most division rested, and their towns, that—like Yarmouth and Lowestoft—were still at wrig wrag, and sucked from their mothers’ teats serpentine hatred one against each other; which drove Leander—when he durst not deal above-board, or be seen aboard any ship—to sail to his lady dear, to play the didapper and ducking water-spaniel to swim to her; nor that in the day, but by owl-light.
