THE FIN AND THE FURY

Beware of sharkless waters.

- KATHERINE RUNDELL

Some sharks swim their entire lives without ceasing; others are centuries old. They terrify us, but they should amaze us.

One of the earliest written accounts of a man being eaten by a shark is also the account of a shark in love. It appears in “History of the Wars,” an eight-book chronicle by Procopius of Caesarea Palaestinae, born around 500 C.E. Composed under the censoring eye of the Emperor Justinian, the work is mostly so dry that it would be easier to eat than to read. But among the encomiums on war is the tale of an oyster “swimming not far from the shore.” According to Procopius, “Both its valves were standing open and the pearl lay between them, a wonderful sight and notable, for no pearl in all history could be compared with it at all, either in size or in beauty.”

As the oyster swam (Procopius does not seem entirely clear on how an oyster moves, and imagines it flapping like a butterfly), a shark “of enormous size and dreadful fierceness, fell in love with this sight and followed close upon it, leaving it neither day nor night; even when he was compelled to take thought for food, he would only look about for something eatable where he was, and when he found some bit, he would snatch it up and eat it hurriedly.” Then “he would sate himself again with the sight he loved.”

A fisherman, Procopius writes, reported the pearl’s existence to Peroz I, the King of Kings of Iran. Peroz—a man who depicted himself on three different coins with three different crowns, and surely enjoyed a glistening accessory— begged the fisherman to procure it for him. The fisherman waited, “watching for an opportunity of catching the pearl alone without its admirer.”