The one dog’s likeness is with eight: it behaves like a priest, it behaves like a warrior,
it behaves like a cattle-farmer, [and so on, each likeness then explained in turn]
(Vd. 13. 44–8).
From these four things came the types of women: one from a bitch, one from a bee,
one from a hairy sow, and one from a long-maned mare: [the characteristics of each in
turn then explained] (Phocylides fr. 14 West).
For there are ten things which overwhelm the falsehood of every sovereign...
sovereignty and worth, fame and victory, children and kindred, peace and life, destiny
and tribes.... There are four sovereigns: the true sovereign and the sovereign by
his wits, the sovereign who takes possession with warbands and the bull sovereign
[these are then each in turn further defined] (Audacht Morainn 56–62, trs. J. T. Koch in
Koch–Carey [2000], 192 f.).
Three Fair Princes of the Island of Britain: Owain son of Urien, Rhun son of
Maelgwn, Rhufawn the Radiant son of Dewrarth Wledig (Trioedd ynys Prydein 1,
trs. Bromwich).
This last item comes from a Middle Welsh work consisting, in Rachel Brom-
wich’s edition, of 96 triadic canons.^61 Its title means ‘Triads of the Island of
Britain’. The older material in it relates to the body of British saga tradition.
The triads probably evolved as part of the teaching given in the bardic
schools, serving as mnemonics encapsulating the essential facts.^62 There are
many other Welsh triads; the form was extensively used in legal codes, and in
a treatise on the poetic craft.^63
Numbered canons may also appear in question and answer form:
‘Ya ̄jñavalkya,’ he said, ‘tell me –– how many graspers are there and how many over-
graspers?’ Ya ̄jñavalkya replied: ‘There are eight graspers and eight overgraspers.’
‘What are the eight graspers?’ ‘The out-breath is a grasper... Speech is a grasper.. .’,
etc. (Br
̇
hada ̄ran
̇
yaka Upanis
̇
ad 3. 2. 1–9, trs. P. Olivelle; cf. 3. 1. 7–10).
In general, wisdom is often presented as uttered by a sage or divinity in
response to questioning. Zarathushtra composes a poem of twenty stanzas
each containing a question to Ahura Mazda ̄, and all but the last begin with the
same formula tat
̃
θβa ̄ pərəsa ̄,ərəsˇ m o ̄i vaoca ̄, Ahura ̄, ‘this I ask thee, tell me
straight, Lord’ (Y. 44; cf. 31. 14–16). He is certainly following a traditional
pattern, reflected also in the anaphoric series of pr
̇
ccha ̄ ́mi tva ̄... ‘I ask thee’
(= Ga ̄thicθβa ̄ pərəsa ̄) in RV 1. 164. 34. In the Vedic poem the answers follow
in the next stanza. There may have been another traditional pattern in which
(^61) Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd ynys Prydein (2nd edn., Cardiff 1978).
(^62) Bromwich (as n. 61), lxv–cvii.
(^63) Bromwich, lxiii. It is likely that they were originally transmitted orally (ead., cviii). Cf. also
Watkins (1995), 46 f.
360 9. Cosmos and Canon