Indo-European Poetry and Myth

Epanadiplosis

We now come to a series of figures involving repeated words. The first and
simplest is iteration: an urgent or emotive word is uttered twice (or more) in
succession. This is really an elementary tactic of language, not intrinsically a
feature of the high style, though it can be employed deliberately for poetic
purposes.^105
Two particular uses may be mentioned here. One may be called liturgical-
magical, where a word or formula is repeated to enhance its potency, as in
AV 17. 6. 7 úd ihy úd ihi Su ̄rya, ‘rise, rise, O Sun’; Y. 10. 20 gave nəmo ̄, gave
nəmo ̄, ‘homage to the bull, homage to the bull’;Hænsa-Þóris saga 8 brenni,
brenni Blundketill inni‘let burn, burn, Blundketill within’; or in the Valkyries’
song in Njáls saga 157 (Edd. min. 59) vindum, vindum vef darraðar, ‘wind we,
wind we the web of spears’.
The other may be called mimetic repetition. It expresses repeating or pro-
tracted action.^106 So in RV 1. 12. 2 Agním-Agnim hávı ̄mabhih
̇

sáda ̄ havanta,
‘they keep invoking “Agni, Agni” with invocations’; 8. 12. 19 devám
̇

-devam

̇

vo
ávasa, Índram-Indram
̇

gr

̇

n

̇

ı ̄s

̇

án

̇

i, ‘laud the god, the god for your aid, (laud)
Indra, Indra’. Very similar is Aeschylus, Ag. 1144 nΙτυν nΙτυν στνουσα, of
the nightingale who is always lamenting ‘Itys, Itys’, and the parallel passages
in later poets. A different example in the same broad category is Euripides,
Bacch. 1065 κατη


γεν 6γεν 6γεν $ μλαν πδον, ‘he bent it down, down,
down to the earth’;Iph. Taur. 1406 μα



λλον δC μα


λλον πρ: πτρα @ιει
σκα ́ φο, ‘further and further towards the rocks went the vessel’; Arist. Nub.
1288 πλον πλον τα, ργ3ριον α!ε? γγνεται, ‘the money keeps getting
more and more’. Similar expressions are commonplace in other languages,
as in Old Irish móo assa móo‘more and more’,messa assa-mmessa‘worse and
worse’; Norse meirr oc meirr‘more and more’,ey ok ey‘for ever and ever’, etc.

Epanalepsis

Epanalepsis is the figure in which a word or a whole phrase from one verse is
picked up in the next. RV 1. 133. 7 sunva ̄nó hi s
̇

ma ̄ yájati áva dvís

̇

o, | deva ̄ ́naam
áva dvís
̇

ah

̇

, ‘for the soma-presser turns away enmity, | (turns) away the gods’
enmity’; 5. 85. 3 f. téna vís ́vasya bhúvanasya... ví unatti bhu ̄ ́ma, | unátti
bhu ̄ ́mim pr
̇

thivı ̄ ́m utá dya ̄ ́m, ‘with it, of the whole world he waters the ground,

(^105) Cf. Hofmann (1930), 12–48; Gonda (1959), 325–32; Campanile (1977), 112 f.; for Greek,
E. Schwyzer–A. Debrunner, Griechische Grammatik, ii (Munich 1950), 699 f.; for Norse, Detter–
Heinzel (1903), ii. 14, 41.
(^106) Cf. Hofmann (1930), 26–35.
106 2. Phrase and Figure