Indo-European Poetry and Myth

This latter root also appears in Middle Irish creth‘poetry’ (< *kwrto-) and
Welsh prydydd‘poet’. It can have associations with sacral and magical activity,
as in Vedic kártram‘spell, charm’, Lithuanian kerai ̃‘magic’,keréti‘bewitch’,
and Church Slavonic cˇaro-deˇj ı ̆‘magician’.^32
Not all making requires special skills, but composing poetry does. It is a
craft, a job for professionals. As with other crafts, its practitioner is in a
position to earn profits from his work. Early Welsh has a word cerdd meaning
both generally ‘craft, profession’ and more specifically ‘poetry, poem, music’.
Its Old Irish equivalent cerd has similar meanings, and may also stand for
‘craftsman’ or ‘poet’. These words have a Greek cognate in κρδο‘gain,
profit’.^33

Poesy as weaving

In Indo-Iranian, Greek, Celtic, and Germanic we find poetic composition
described in terms of weaving.^34 From the Rigveda we may quote:

asma ́ ̄ íd u gna ́ ̄s ́ cid devápatnı ̄r

Índra ̄ya arkám ahihátya u ̄ vuh

̇

.

For him, for Indra, the women, the wives of the gods,

have woven a song at his killing of the dragon. (1. 61. 8)

tatám me ápas tád u ta ̄yate púnah

̇

.

My work (previously) stretched out (sc. as on a loom) is being stretched

out again. (1. 110. 1)

ma ̄ tántus ́ ́ chedi váyato dhíyam me.

Let the thread not break as I weave my poem. (2. 28. 5)

vís ́va ̄ matı ̄ ́r a ́ ̄ tatane tuva ̄ya ́ ̄.

All my mindings/songs (matı ̄ ́s, root *men) I have stretched out for

thee. (7. 29. 3)

anulban

̇

ám

̇

vayata jóguva ̄m ápah

̇

.

Weave ye the singers’ work without a knot! (10. 53. 6)

(^32) Durante (1960), 234 f. ~ (1976), 170 f.; Watkins (1963), 214 = (1994), 369; (1995), 117;
E. Hamp in Papers from the Thirteenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (1977),
148.
(^33) Campanile (1977), 37; Watkins (1994), 677 f.; (1995), 75 f.
(^34) Cf. T. Aufrecht, ZVS 4 (1855), 280; Pictet (1863), 481 f.; Schmitt (1967), 298–301; Durante
(1960), 238–44 ~ (1976), 173–9 (the most thorough study); H. Wagner, ZCP 31 (1970), 50–4;
Campanile (1977), 36 f.; John Scheid–Jesper Svenbro, The Craft of Zeus: Myths of Weaving and
Fabric (Cambridge, Mass. 1996), 111–55; Nünlist (1998), 110–18.
36 1. Poet and Poesy