qοιδwν κα? $μ:ν κλο, so far as singing and my own fame can assure it’
(PMGF S151. 47 f.). Pindar, bidding for reward from Hiero, says that if he is
enriched, he is confident of achieving high κλο for the future. ‘We know of
Nestor and Sarpedon $ξ $πων κελαδενν;ν, from resounding verses, that
skilled craftsmen have built:
> δ, qρετw κλεινα4 qοιδα4 χρονα τελθει.
It is through famous songs that excellence endures. (Pyth. 3. 110–15)An early British bard avowed that ‘as long as there are singers, Hyfaidd will be
praised’ (Y Gododdin 56). A thirteenth-century Irish poet makes the point at
some length that if poetry disappeared, the people’s knowledge of its past
would be lost, the great fiery warriors forgotten. ‘Conall and Conchobar live,
because their praises live, and Fergus is with us still, his name being known
abroad.... If poems did not give life to their deeds, however great, a pall
would settle far and wide on Niall and Cormac and Conn.’^95
The embedding of names in poetryIn life, in situations where a man’s own name was not sufficient to identify
him unequivocally, his father’s was commonly appended, ‘X (son) of Y’. In
poetic narrative patronymics and patronymic expressions were extensively
used, not only when a character was first introduced or when there might
be ambiguity, but to make a fuller, more verse-filling phrase, or as a use-
ful substitute for the primary name, a simple kenning. A verse from the
Maha ̄bha ̄rata (7. 136. 1) will serve to exemplify both usages:
tata Yudhis
̇t
̇hiras ́ caiva Bhı ̄masenas ́ ca Pa ̄n
̇d
̇avah
Dron ̇
̇
aputram
̇
, maha ̄ra ̄ja, samanta ̄t paryava ̄rayan.
Then Yudhis
̇t
̇hira and Bhı ̄masena the son of Pa ̄ndu,
O great king, surrounded Drona’s son on all sides.Further examples of the solitary use were given in Chapter 2 (‘Kennings’).
Another artifice, also illustrated in that chapter, was to invert the normal
order and place the patronymic before the name.
(^95) Giolla Brighde mac Con Midhe, A thechtaire thig ón Róimh, stanzas 20–32, trs. Thomas
Kinsella, The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (Oxford 1986), 100–2. See further Durante (1960),
244–6∼ (1976), 180–2. Anglo-Saxon nobles often eased their sons’ path to poetic immortality
by making sure that they had alliterating names: R. W. Chambers, Beowulf. An Introduction
(3rd edn., Cambridge 1959), 316 f.; K. Sisam, PBA 39 (1953), 288, 300 f., 322 n.; de Vries (1956),
i. 182.
404 10. Mortality and Fame