wetland’; in Old English poems, wı ̄dre eorþan, Genesis 1348; geond ginne
grund,Widsith 51, cf. Judith 2, Judgment Day A 12.
We saw that Vedic and Greek agree in speaking of heaven as the ‘seat’ of the
gods (sádas-, sádman-,aδο). The term is used of the earth too. In RV 1. 185.
6 Heaven and Earth, the recipients of the hymn, are called urvı ̄ ́ sádmanı ̄, the
two broad seats, that is, the dwelling-places for gods and mortals. Hesiod
(Th. 117 f.) speaks of Γα4 , ε1ρ3στερνο,πα ́ ντων aδο qσφαλC α!ε | qθανα ́ των,
‘Earth the broad-breasted, ever the sure seat of all the immortals’. The associ-
ation of ‘broad’ and ‘seat’ in relation to the earth is clearer in Simonides’
phrase ε1ρυεδο ... χθονο ́ , ‘the broad-seated earth’ (PMG 542. 24), and it
may well underlie the Homeric formula χθον: ε1ρυοδεη, where the irregu-
larly formed epithet is suspected of having taken the place of an older
*ε1ρυεδεη.^53
In the Atharvaveda Earth is characterized as ‘bearing all (things or crea-
tures)’:vis ́vabhr ́
̇
t (5. 28. 5), vis ́vam
̇bhara ̄ ́ (12. 1. 6). Similarly the Ga ̄tha ̄of the
Seven Chapters speaks of ima ̨m ... za ̨m ... ya ̄ nå baraitı ̄, ‘this earth that bears
us’ (Y. 38. 1). The same verb is often used in Greek of the earth ‘bearing’ its
produce; one of its traditional epithets is φερσβιο, ‘bearing (bringing
forth) (the means of ) life’, and Aeschylus calls flowers παμφο ́ ρου Γαα
τκνα, ‘the offspring of all-bearing Earth’ (Pers. 618). The universality
expressed in the Vedic vis ́va- and Greek παν- compounds is a typical theme.
So too, for instance, in RV 2. 17. 5 pr
̇
thivı ̄ ́m
̇vis ́vádha ̄yasam, ‘the all-nurturing
earth’;Cypria fr. 1. 4 παμβ.τορα γα4αν, Soph. Phil. 391 παμβ;τι Γα
, with
the same meaning; Hymn. Hom. 30. 1 f. Γα4αν παμμ τειραν ... u φρβει
$π? χθον? πα ́ νθ, +πο ́ σ, $στν, ‘Earth the all-mother... who nourishes every-
thing there is’. The common epic formula, with the original word for ‘earth’,
isχθο ́ να πουλυβο ́ τειραν, ‘much-nurturing’.
In many traditions the earth is characterized as ‘dark’ or ‘black’. In Hittite
literature dankui degan, ‘the dark earth’, is a frequent formula, used especially
of the underworld, but sometimes also of the earth’s surface. The adjective,
like the noun, is Indo-European; it is related to German dunkel. It is possible
to imagine a PIE alliterative phrase *dhegho ̄m dhn
̊
gu-/dhengwo-.^54 Outside Hit-
tite, however, other adjectives are current. The Greek epic formula is γα4α
μλαινα. In Old Irish it is domun donn, properly ‘brown earth’.^55 In Slavonic
poetries we find the reflexes of a proto-Slavonic *cˇr
̊
na ̄(ya ̄) zemya ̄: Igor 67
cˇru ̆ na zemlya; SCHS ii, no. 4. 12 zemlje crne, 1562 crne zemlje; no. 11. 477
(^53) See Schmitt (1967), 246–8.
(^54) Cf. N. Oettinger, Die Welt des Orients 20/21 (1989/90), 83–98; Meid (1978), 9 f. with 22 n.
30; Bader (1989), 230.
(^55) Examples are quoted by Meid (1978), 21 n. 28.
- Sky and Earth 179