Indo-European Poetry and Myth

‘Look on us’

Less common than ‘hear’, but still documented on a wide front, is the appeal
to the god to direct his gaze at those who seek his blessing or aid. So in a
Hittite prayer to the Sun-goddess of the earth, CTH 371. 12′f. sakuwa la ̄k, nu
a ̄ssu uttar istamas, ‘incline your eyes, and hear the good word’. From the
Rigveda one may quote 3. 23. 2 Ágne ví pas ́ya br
̇

hata ̄ ́bhi ra ̄ya ̄ ́, ‘Agni, look here
with great wealth’; from the Avesta Yt. 17. 15 apa ma ̨m apa.daiδya, fra ̄.ma ̨m
aiβi.urvae ̄sayaŋuha marzˇdikəm Asˇ
̇

isˇ bərəzaiti, ‘look here on me, show me
favour, O high Fortune’; from Greek, Hes. Op. 9 κλθι !δdν qϊ.ν τε, ‘hearken,
seeing and hearing’; Aesch. Sept. 106–10p χρυσοπληξ δα4μον, #πιδε πο ́ λιν

... θεο? πολια ́ οχοι... Aδετε παρθνων Tκσιον λο ́ χον, ‘O gold-helmed god,
look, look upon your city... City-gods of the land, see the maidens’ crouch-
ing supplication’; id. Supp. 79, 104, 531, 811, etc. In an Eddic poem the
Valkyrie Sigrdrífa, awakened from her magic sleep by Sigurd, greets the light:

Heill Dagr, heilir Dags synir,

heil Nótt oc nipt!

óreiðom augom lítið ocr þinig,

oc gefit sitiondom sigr!

‘Hail Day, hail Day’s sons,

hail Night and her kin!

With unwrathful eyes look on us from there,

and give us who sit here victory!’ (Sigrdrífumál 3)

A fifteenth-century chronicler describes a Volhynian bull-sacrifice per-
formed to confirm a treaty. Those present smeared their hands and faces with
the animal’s blood and shouted ‘Rogachina roznenachy gospanany, quod
interpretatur: Deus ad nos et animas [animal?] cornutum respice, iuramen-
tum per nos promissum hodie persolutum.’^19

‘Come’

Very often the deity is implored not just to hear or see but to come, whether
to take part in a religious ceremony or to provide first-hand assistance in
some other need.^20 In a Luwian sacrificial ritual to rid the land of an epidemic
a goat was consecrated to the god Sanda, and the master of the house, holding

(^19) Chronicon Dubnicense ap. Mannhardt (1936), 119; Clemen (1936), 107. For Semitic paral-
lels see West (1997), 270.
(^20) Campanile (1977), 61–3; cf. West (1997), 271.
318 8. Hymns and Spells