Indo-European Poetry and Myth

abandoned mead for the Mediterranean intoxicant, wine, and μθυ had
undergone a corresponding change of meaning.
The sea is ‘broad’, as in the Homeric ε1ρα πο ́ ντον, etc.; in Old English,
Andreas 283 ofer wı ̄dne mere; in Serbo-Croat, SCHS ii, no. 17, line 347 u more
sˇi r o k o, ‘to the broad sea’. The comparisons may seem banal, but it is typical
of traditional ornamental epithets that they express the most obvious
properties of the thing described. A more detailed Greek–English parallel
may be observed between Il. 18. 140 (et al.) θαλα ́ σση ε1ρα κο ́ λπον,

21. 125 >λ: ε1ρα κο ́ λπον, and Elene 728 sæ ̄ ̄s sı ̄dne fæðm, ‘the sea’s wide
    embrace’.
    The Homeric formula ‘black ships’ is paralleled in Russian byliny, and
    ‘sea-going ship(s)’ (ποντοπο ́ ρο) in Serbo-Croat epic.^29 Hesiod and Ibycus
    use the phrase νHε πολ3γομφοι, ‘many-dowelled ships’, and this may be
    compared with expressions used in Old English verse: naca nægelbord‘ship of
    nailed planks’ (Exeter Riddles 59. 5, cf. Genesis 1418); nægled-cnearrum
    ‘nailed ships’ (Battle of Brunanburh 53).

Various idioms

The sun had a prominent place in Indo-European poetry and myth, as we
shall see in Chapter 5, and it plays a part in a number of traditional expres-
sions. As it traverses and surveys the whole earth, the idea ‘the world from end
to end’ can be expressed by ‘as far as the sun looks about’ (AV 10. 10. 34 ya ̄vát
su ̄ ́ryo vipás ́yati) or some equivalent. So in Greek, Il. 7. 451, 458 ‘its/your fame
shall be known Jσον τ’$πικδναται (., as far as the daylight spreads’; in
Welsh, hyt yr etil heul, ‘as far as the sun wanders’.^30
The sun, heaven, and other cosmic entities are also symbols of eternity.
A Hittite curse on a conquered city condemns it to remain uninhabited ‘so
long as heaven, earth, and mankind (exist)’ (CTH 423). The great Luwian and
Phoenician bilingual inscription from Karatepe contains the prayer that
Azitiwada’s name ‘may be for ever, like the name of the sun and moon’.^31
Indian expressions of ‘for ever and ever’ include ‘so long as the sun shall be in
the sky’ (ya ̄vát su ̄ ́ryo ásad diví, AV 6. 75. 3); ‘as long as moon and sun shine’
(Rm. 7. 1464*); ‘as long as mountains stand and rivers flow’ (MBh. 5. 139. 55);
‘as long as earth endures’ (MBh. 12. 54. 28). Similarly in Greek: ‘as long as

(^29) Chadwick (1932), 169, lines 13, 24, etc.; SCHS ii, no. 17, line 368 na morsku demiju, ‘to the
sea(-going) ship’.
(^30) Culhwch and Olwen, ed. R. Bromwich and D. S. Evans (Cardiff 1992), line 158.
(^31) H. Donner–W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, 3rd edn. (Wiesbaden
1966–9), no. 26 A iv 2 f. = C v 5–7.

2. Phrase and Figure 85