Indo-European Poetry and Myth

In Welsh gweu‘weave’ was often used of poetic composition.^37 The Old
English poet Cynewulf writes in the epilogue to his Elene (1237) þus ic fród
and fús... wordcræft wæf and wundrum læs, ‘Thus I, old and ready to go,
wove word-craft and gleaned wonders’. Snorri Sturluson quotes a Norse
skald’s verse in praise of Earl Skúli Bárðarson: ‘Skúli was most outstanding

... The eulogy shall not be delayed; I am putting together a many-stranded
encomium (mærðfio ̨lsnœrða) for the generous prince.’^38

Poesy as carpentry

The Latin evidence is deliciously ambiguous. The Latin for ‘weave’ or ‘plait’ is
texere, and this is applied to poetic and other literary composition at least as
early as Plautus, Trinummus 797, quamueis sermones possunt longei texier.
Hence comes the word ‘text’, which has won its place in many modern
languages. But texere is also employed of building ships or other wooden
structures, and this is certainly an old use, as its cognates in other Indo-
European languages are associated above all with carpentry. The underlying
root is *tes. In Vedic we have táks
̇

an-‘carpenter’ and the corresponding verb
taks
̇

; in Avestan the equivalents tasˇan- and tasˇ; in Greek τκτων‘carpenter,
builder’,τεκτανω‘construct, fashion’, and τχνη (< tekˆs-na ̄) ‘craft’.^39
In all these languages words from the tes root are used of poetic com-
position,^40 so that the Latin use of texere may belong in the same tradition and
may have had, at least originally, the corresponding sense of ‘build’. In the
Rigveda we have, for example,

eva ́ ̄ te Gr

̇

tsamada ́ ̄h

̇

s ́u ̄ ra mánma... taks

̇

uh

̇

.

So the Gr

̇

tsamadas have fashioned a song for thee, mighty one. (2. 19. 8)

abhí tás

̇

t

̇

eva dı ̄dhaya ̄ manı ̄s

̇

a ́ ̄m.

I have thought out the song like a carpenter. (3. 38. 1)

ápu ̄rviya ̄ purutáma ̄ni asmai... váca ̄m

̇

si... taks

̇

am.

Unprecedented, original words will I fashion for him. (6. 32. 1)

(^37) L. C. Stern, ZCP 7 (1910), 19 n.; J. Vendryès, RC 37 (1917), 281; H. Wagner, ZCP 31 (1970),
50–4.
(^38) Háttatal st. 68, trs. A. Faulkes.
(^39) See further Ernout–Meillet (1959), s.v. texo; Chantraine (1968–80) s.v. τκτων; Gam-
krelidze–Ivanov (1995), 611, 734.
(^40) Cf. T. Aufrecht, ZVS 4 (1855), 280; Pictet (1863), 481 f.; J. Darmesteter, Mémoires de la
Société de Linguistique de Paris 3 (1878), 319–21=Études iraniennes ii (Paris 1883), 116–18
(German version in Schmitt (1968), 26–9); Durante, (1960), 237 f. ~ (1976), 172 f.; Schmitt
(1967), 14, 296–8; Campanile (1977), 35 f.; Nünlist (1998), 101 f.
38 1. Poet and Poesy