The idea that the heart is ‘eaten’ by cares or by the person who suffers from
them appears in Greek and Old Norse, as well as in Sumerian and Egyptian.^40
Love’s arrow that pierces the heart is known to the Atharvaveda (3. 25. 1–3) as
well as to Greek poets and artists from the fifth century on.^41 The Hittite
king Hattusili III, writing in Akkadian to the Babylonian king Kadasˇman-
Enlil II, uses the expression ‘he chilled my heart (libbı ̄ uktes
̇
s
̇i) with the words
he wrote to me’, which corresponds to a phrase found in Hesiod and
Homer.^42 But this might have been an areal idiom, at home in Anatolia, and in
general these sporadic parallels provide no solid basis for reconstruction.
We are on firmer ground with phrases that are etymologically related. The
Homeric word μνο, although it has become somewhat specialized in the
sense of ‘fighting spirit’, ‘consciousness of strength’, is the exact counterpart
of Vedic mánas-, Avestan manah-‘mind’, ‘disposition’, and it appears in
various lexical collocations that have Indo-Iranian parallels.^43 The com-
poundsε1μεν and δυσμεν , ‘well/ill disposed’, corresponding to Vedic
sumánas- and epic durmanas-, Avestan humanah-,dusˇmanah-, preserve the
original sense of μνο. On the other hand μνο (P means ‘good courage’;
it is something that a god ‘sends’ or ‘blows’ into men or animals (Il. 17. 456
$νπνευσεν μνο (P, 20. 80, 24. 442), and so resembles the bhadrám mánah
‘bright disposition’ which is appropriate for overcoming enemies (RV 2. 26. 2, ̇
- and which a god may blow into one: 10. 20. 1 = 25. 1 bhadrám
̇
- and which a god may blow into one: 10. 20. 1 = 25. 1 bhadrám
no ápi
va ̄taya mánah
̇
‘blow at us a bright disposition’. A god may also inject μνο
πολυθαρσ (Il. 17. 156, 19. 37; Od. 13. 387) or impart μνο κα? θα ́ ρσο
(Il. 5. 2; Od. 1. 321), ‘menos and boldness’. These formulae have their cognates
indhr
̇
s
̇án mánah
̇‘bold spirit’, which is an attribute of the war-god Indra
(RV 1. 54. 2; 5. 35. 4; 8. 62. 5), and in the compound dhr
̇
s
̇anmánas- (1. 52. 12;
- 4; epithet of Indra). We recall the Greek personal names Thersimenes
and Thrasymenes, which may have been first coined at a much earlier date
than that of their historical bearers. The same elements are perhaps contained
in the Homeric adjective θρασυμμνων, if it is from *-men-mon-.^44
Andromenes too may be an old name, paralleled as it is by the Avestan
name Nərəmanah- (Yt. 5. 50, 19. 77) and the Vedic adjective nr
̇
- 4; epithet of Indra). We recall the Greek personal names Thersimenes
mán
̇as-,
‘man-spirited’, ‘having a hero’s spirit’; they can all be derived from *h 2 nr
̊
- menes-. In the Avestan epithet naire.manah-, of the same meaning, the first
(^40) See West (1978), 358; Hávamál 121. 8 sorg etr hiarta, ‘care eats the heart’.
(^41) Durante (1958), 8 = (1976), 128. It is possible that the idea is already expressed in Swedish
Bronze Age rock drawings, where an archer, perhaps female, aims an arrow at a copulating
couple, or leads an ithyphallic man ashore from a ship: de Vries (1956), i. 106 f., Abb. 2c and 3a.
(^42) CTH 172 obv. 23, ed. A. Hagenbuchner, Die Korrespondenz der Hethiter, ii (Stuttgart 1989),
282/289; Beckman (1999), 140 §4; Hes. Op. 360 with my note.
(^43) Schmitt (1967), 103–21.
(^44) R. Schmitt, ZVS 83 (1969), 227–9.
88 2. Phrase and Figure