Indo-European Poetry and Myth

A taboo

μηδ, Eντ, (ελου τετραμμνο %ρθ: %μεχειν.

And do not urinate upright facing the sun. (Hes. Op. 727)

The prohibition on urinating towards the sun was also a Pythagorean rule.
Pliny (HN 28. 69) attributes it to the Magi. It is paralleled in a number of
Indian texts.^78 Some of them add as separate injunctions that one must not
urinate while standing up, or while walking or on the road (also prohibited by
Hesiod, 729).

DAWN (AND NIGHT)

Dawn, like the sun, has names in many languages that continue an Indo-
European prototype. It is based on a verbal root h 2 us/h 2 eus meaning ‘glow
(red), flame’ (also seen in Latin aurum < *ausom, Old Prussian ausis, ‘gold’),
extended by a suffix-ós- or alternatively -ró-.^79 From these come Vedic us
̇

ás-
and usra ̄ ́, Avestan usˇah-, Greek q., αOω, (., aω, Latin aurora
(*auso ̄s-a ̄), Lithuanian ausˇr à, Old Church Slavonic za ustra‘in the morning’,
Welsh gwawr, and so on.
Dawn appears as a goddess in several branches of the tradition. As Us
̇

as
she is the subject of twenty-one hymns in the Rigveda, including some of the
most beautiful. As Usˇå she is honoured in one passage of the Avesta (Ga ̄h 5.
5). As Eos she plays a role in Greek poetry and myth. At Rome the personified
Aurora is no more than a reflection of Greek literature, but the old Dawn
goddess perhaps retained a position in cult under the name of Mater Matuta
(see below). In Anglo-Saxon England she lived on as Eostre: her springtime
festival gave its name to a month and to the Christian feast of Easter that
displaced it.^80 As the month and the festival have similar names in Old

(^78) AV 13. 1. 56; MBh. 12. 186. 23; 13. 107. 28, 41–3; Harivam
̇
s ́a 1. 13; Rm. 2. 69. 15; Laws of
Manu 4. 48–52. Hesiod’s phrase %ρθ: %μεχειν, ‘urinate upright’, has been compared with AV

7. 
   
   
   
   102. 1 meks
        ̇
        ya ̄ ́my u ̄rdhvás tis
        ̇
        thán, ‘I will urinate standing upright’, which contains the same
        lexical elements and similar syntax. But the conjunction of words is too natural to be claimed as
        a poetic or ritual formula.
   
   
   
   

(^79) Recent discussions: Mayrhofer (1986–2001), i. 236; M. E. Huld in Dexter–Polomé (1997),
178; K. T. Witczak, SIGL 2 (1999), 172; M. Nassivera, HS 113 (2000), 64 f.
(^80) Bede, De temporum ratione 15 Aprilis, Eosturmonath... Eosturmonath, qui nunc paschalis
mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre vocabatur et cui in illo festa celebrabant
nomen habuit; a cuius nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae obser-
vationis vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes.

5. Sun and Daughter 217