She has not gone to one of her sisters-in-law or yours,
or to the temple of Athena, where the other
women of Troy propitiate the dread goddess:
she has gone to the great wall of Ilios...I could fill several pages with examples from Hittite, from the Indian epics,
from Old English and Norse, from Armenian, Russian and Serbo-Croat
heroic poems, and from Lithuanian ballads, but it is sufficient to note the fact
and to cite references.^112
AnaphoraPerhaps the commonest of all figures is simple anaphora, the repetition of
an important word in successive phrases or clauses. This word is normally
placed in the emphatic initial position, and it is noteworthy that the verb,
whose ‘normal’ or default position in Indo-European was after the subject
and object, happily stands initially in anaphora, as well as in other situations
where it carries some thematic weight.^113
The repetition may be just twofold, but it is quite commonly threefold, as
in Y. 36. 4 vohu ̄θβa ̄ manaŋha ̄, vohu ̄θβa ̄ asˇ
̇
a ̄, vaŋhuyåθβa ̄ cisto ̄is ˇ sˇ ́yaoθana ̄is ˇc a ̄
vacəbı ̄sˇc a ̄, ‘(thee) with good mind, with good truth, with good thoughts,
deeds, and words’, cf. 36. 5, 39. 5; Il. 5. 385–95τλH μCν ... τλH δC ... τλH δC
...; Vaf þrúðnismál 4. 1–3 heill þú farir, heill þú aptr komir, heill þú á
sinnom sér, ‘safe go thou, safe come thou back, safe be thou on the way’; or
fourfold, as in RV 4. 25. 5 priyáh
̇
sukr ́
̇t, priyá Índre mana ̄yúh
̇, priyáh
̇supra ̄víh
̇,
priyó asya somı ̄ ́, ‘dear is the doer of good, dear to Indra the pious, dear the
attentive, dear to him the soma-bringer’; of εo,Il. 2. 382–4εo μν τι ... εo
δC ... εo δ τι ... εo δ τι ...; Táin (I) 2936–8Cú na hEmna Macha,
Cú co ndelb cach datha, Cú chreichi, Cú chatha, ‘the Hound of Emain Macha,
the Hound with beauty of every colour, the Hound of spoils, the Hound of
battle’.
One characteristic use of anaphora is to emphasize quantity, as in Il. 11.
494 f., ‘many the withered oaks, many the pines that it bears off, and much
the débris that it casts in the sea’ (cf. 20. 326, 23. 30, Od. 1. 3, 9. 45, 22. 47, 23.
(^112) Il. 6. 374–86, cf. 1. 65/93, 16. 36 f./50 f.; Od. 2. 30–45, 11. 397–410; myth of Wasitta, J.
Friedrich, Jahrbuch für kleinasiatische Forschung 2 (1952/3), 150–2 (CTH 346); MBh. 3. 61. 69 f.;
Rm. 2. 10. 6/14; 5. 48. 6–11; Finnesburh 1–4; Helgakviða Hundingsbana B 40 f.; Sassountsy David
158 f.; Chadwick (1932), 119, lines 79ff.; 147, lines 117ff.; Sulejman Fortic ́,The Capture of
Budapest, in SCHS i. 227; Alija Fjuljanin, The Captivity of Osmanbey, ibid. 315; Avdo Meedovic ́,
The Wedding of Smailagic ́ M e h o, ibid. iii. 94; Rhesa (1825), 94/5 f., 114/15 f., 158/9, 176/7. There
are several instances also in Ugaritic: West (1997), 198.
(^113) Cf. Gonda (1959), 128–65; Watkins (1995), 88, 107, 305, 502, 510 f.
108 2. Phrase and Figure