Indo-European Poetry and Myth

Rishi says to Indra, ‘I come to you with prayer, as to the ship of eloquence in
the (poetic) contest’ (2. 16. 7). And another: ‘For Indra and Agni I set my
eloquence going: I drive it forwards like a ship on the river with my songs’
(10. 116. 9; cf. 9. 95. 2). In 10. 101. 2 the images of weaving and the ship are
juxtaposed: ‘Make your thoughts gladsome, stretch them out (as on the
loom); make a ship, to ferry them across!’
Pindar and Bacchylides play with nautical images in various ways.
Bacchylides in the opening of one poem (16) announces that the Muse has
sent him a cargo ship from Pieria, laden with songs, and in another (12) he
prays her to steer his mind like a skilled helmsman, if she has ever done so
before. Pindar resorts to this imagery especially in those passages where he
changes tack in mid ode with an injunction to himself: ‘Ease oar, plant anchor
quick to ground from prow to avoid rocks!’ (Pyth. 10. 51 f.). ‘Has some wind
thrown me off course like a boat at sea?’ (Pyth. 11. 39 f.). ‘My heart, to what
alien headland are you diverting my voyage?’ (Nem. 3. 26 f.). ‘West of Cadiz
there is no crossing: turn the ship’s rig back to Europe’s land’ (Nem. 4. 69 f.).
In a couple of other places (Pyth. 4. 3, Nem. 6. 28 f.) he desires the Muse to
direct or strengthen the songs’ο1


ρο, the following wind that helps a ship on
its way.
Ship imagery reappears in the Latin poets, but there is no guarantee that it
is independent of Greek models. It is perhaps more noteworthy that we find
traces of it in the North. One skaldic expression for poetry was skip dverga,
the Dwarfs’ ship. Egill Skallagrímsson, whom I quoted above, has the remark-
able line

hlóðk mærðar hlut munknarrar skut,

I loaded the stern of my mind-ship with a portion of praise,

where the mental ship, the mun-kno ̨rr, has its prow from the *men root
previously discussed.^48

The chariot of song

Evidence for the chariot image is limited to Graeco-Aryan, except for its
currency in the Latin poets, where the same consideration applies as in the
case of the ship.^49 In the Rigveda it occurs frequently. In several passages it is a
straightforward symbol of the poet’s craftsmanship:

(^48) CPB ii. 62. 23; Egill, Ho ̨fuðlausn 1. 4.
(^49) Cf. F. Edgerton, ‘The metaphor of the car in the Rigvedic ritual’,AJP 40 (1919), 175–93;
Durante (1958), 9–11, 13 f. ~ (1976), 129–33; Campanile (1977), 35 f.; for Greek, Nünlist
(1998), 255–64; for Latin poets, E. J. Kenney as above (n. 47).

1. Poet and Poesy 41