Indo-European Poetry and Myth

| he waters the ground, earth and sky’; AV 6. 42. 1 f. There are several
examples in Homer, for instance:

Lνδρομα ́ χη,θυγα ́ τηρ μεγαλτορο Η, ετωνο,

Η, ετων,i #ναιεν 0π: Πλα ́ κωι 0λησσηι.

Andromache, daughter of great-hearted Eetion,

Eetion, who dwelt below wooded Plakos.

i μCν #μπεδον ]νιο ́ χευεν,

#μπεδον ]νιο ́ χευ’,i δ’Eρα μα ́ στιγι κλευεν.

He steered the chariot steadily on,

steered the chariot steadily on, while his twin urged with the goad.^107

Further instances can be gathered from other Indo-European poetries. From
Old Irish: fo chen Chet, | Cet mac Mágach, ‘Welcome Cet, | Cet son of Maga’.^108
From Norse: Þrymskviða 29. 8–9ef þú o ̨ðlaz vill ástir mínar, | ástir mínar, alla
hylli, ‘if you want to earn my love, | my love (and) all (my) favour’;Rígsþula

36. 2–3kom þar ór runni Rígr gangandi, | Rígr gangandi, rúnar kendi, ‘there
    came from the thicket Ríg walking, | Ríg walking, (and) taught him runes’.^109
    From Russian byliny: ‘This is your only gift; God has given you no others, |
    God has given you no others; He has not endowed you further.’^110 From
    Balkan epic: ‘From the cave he has never again emerged; | he has never
    emerged, nor has anyone seen him.’^111

Questioner’s suggestions negated in turn

A device widely used in narrative is that someone asks a question and suggests
possible answers to it, and the respondent negates them one by one before
giving the true answer. When Hector goes home and finds that his wife is not
there, he asks the servants:

Has she gone to one of her sisters-in-law or mine,

or to the temple of Athena, where the other

women of Troy propitiate the dread goddess?

And the answer comes:

(^107) Il. 6. 395 f., cf. 2. 672 f., 21. 85 f., Od. 1. 22 f.; Il. 23. 641 f., cf. 20. 371 f., 22. 127 f. The figure
also appears in Semitic poetry (Akkadian, Ugaritic, Hebrew); see West (1997), 256 f.
(^108) Scéla muicce Maic Dathó, line 197 Thurneysen.
(^109) Cf. 36. 8–9. More in Detter–Heinzel (1903), ii. 275.
(^110) Chadwick (1932), 82, lines 25 f.; cf. 88, lines 253 f., 262 f.; 120, lines 149 f., 151 f.; 164, lines
1–4.
(^111) SCHS i. 364. 169 f.; cf. 177 f., 180 f.; ii, no. 1. 2–3; no. 4. 296 f., 1202 f. Further Slavonic and
Baltic examples in Hofmann (1930), 39–42.

2. Phrase and Figure 107