Indo-European Poetry and Myth

earth and sun endure’ (Theognis 252); ‘so long as waters flow and trees grow tall, and the sun rises and shines, and the radiant ...

seeing upon the earth’; ‘this man... who has hit me and boasts of it and claims that I will not see the sun’s bright light for m ...

The idea that the heart is ‘eaten’ by cares or by the person who suffers from them appears in Greek and Old Norse, as well as in ...

element has taken adjectival form (*neryo-). In the Vedas we find also the nounnr ̇ mn ̇ ám‘heroism, heroic deed’, and in Homer ...

ca, ‘utterance sweeter than ghee and honey’; with the feminine noun va ̄c-, 2. 6 sva ̄dma ̄ ́nam ̇ va ̄cáh ̇ , ‘sweetness of u ...

Cho. 449; Hor. Epod. 17. 53 quid obseratis auribus fundis preces?; Virg. Aen. 5. 234, 6. 55.^51 Where we would say ‘for two days ...

The root *wes‘clothe’ has similar metaphorical applications in the Rigveda and in Homer.^58 An unseen divinity may be clothed in ...

Hearing I ask from all holy-born, the greater and lesser sons of Heimdall! You desired me, Odin, to tell forth well the old tale ...

Dathó his name’.^64 The subject need not of course be a king; the same struc- ture appears in Od. 20. 287 f. 6ν δ τι $ν μνηστH ...

You are men’s kinsman, Agni, you are their dear partner, a friend for friends to call upon. (RV 1. 75. 3–4) The question is addr ...

earth and stars in the sky and drops in the rain’. In the Armenian oral epic armies are described as being as numerous as the st ...

θα ̃ σσον ... N σC ξυνα ́ ψαι βλφαρα βασιλεοι κο ́ ραι, ‘quicker than you could close the lids of your kingly eyes’. A numbe ...

one that would have occurred naturally to the earliest pastoralists. It is found already in the Rigveda (9. 110. 9), of Soma: ‘a ...

Again the Indian epic supplies a parallel: ‘Like a tired swimmer in water when he reaches the land, Yuyudha ̄na became comforted ...

up.^83 One may say that bipolarity (not trifunctionality) is the fundamental structuring principle of Indo-European thought. For ...

put in the dual number. In Greek both words have been replaced by younger synonyms: Hes. Op. 558 προβα ́ τοι ... α, νθρ.ποι, c ...

‘unmentioned and mentioned, spoken and unspoken of ’ (Hes. Op. 3–4); κα? δκαια κEδικα‘through right or wrong’ (Solon fr. 30 and ...

man thinning out a clump of trees is directed to say si deus si dea es quoium illud sacrum sit, ‘be you god or goddess to whom t ...

thanks to the wondrous voice that they have breathed into him (Th. 32, 38). The Nart hero Syrdon ‘could not only relate what had ...

Positive reinforced by negated opposite Modern politicians often emphasize a concept by adding ‘not (the opposite)’: ‘the many, ...