the same when it is said that ‘Su ̄ rya with his rays has driven forth the cattle’
(7. 36. 1, cf. 81. 2), though it could be read either way.
This bovine imagery is clearly very ancient. The Hittite Storm-god drives a
chariot drawn by bulls named Day and Night.^95 In the Ga ̄tha ̄s we find the
poetic expression uxsˇa ̄no ̄ asna ̨m‘bulls of days’, which apparently means ‘new
dawns’.^96 The immortal cattle of the Sun in the Odyssey, 350 cows and 350
sheep, herded by two daughters of Helios, Phaethousa and Lampetie, must
originally have represented the days and nights of the year.^97 Day and Night
are symbolized by black and white cows in the Russian riddle quoted above.
I have cited a Vedic passage in which Us
̇
as arrays herself like a dancer (RV
- 4). The verse then takes a turn that we might not consider tasteful: ‘she
uncovers her breast as a cow her udder’. In other hymns we read that ‘Dawn
and Night are as a cow good for milking: in the course of one day I measure
out my song, in different-coloured milk at that (one) udder’, that is, in light
and darkness (1. 186. 4); ‘where mother and daughter, the two milch cows,
together feed (their calf )’ (3. 55. 12);^98 ‘may the Dawns ever shine for us...
being milked of ghee’ (7. 41. 7). The archaic phrase νυκτ: qμολγ;ι‘at the
milking(-time) of night’, which in Homer seems to mean no more than ‘in
the dark of night’ (Il. 11. 173, 15. 324, al.), must once have conveyed some
more definite notion based on the idea of Night and Day as cows.
- 4). The verse then takes a turn that we might not consider tasteful: ‘she
Dawn’s loversIn Greek myth Eos is a predatory goddess, falling in love with the handsomest
young men such as Tithonos, Kleitos, Kephalos, and carrying them off. The
Rigveda, as we have seen, portrays Us
̇
as as a beautiful and uninhibited young
woman who smiles alluringly and is happy to display her bodily charms. The
Sun, who is always tagging along after her, is sometimes represented as her
lover (above, n. 89).
The lover has woken from the Dawns’ lap...
He is giving the signal to both races. (7. 9. 1)(^95) Gurney (1977), 25 f.
(^96) Y. 46. 3, cf. 4; 50. 10. Cf. Campanile (1977), 20, 25; id. (1990b), 138; R. Lazzeroni, La cultura
indoeuropea (Rome–Bari 1998), 102 f. Campanile (1990b) argues that ‘bulls’ reflects the notion
of an ox-cart carrying the sun. This would have preceded the image of the horse-drawn chariot.
(^97) Od. 12. 127–36; E. Campanile, Incontri Linguistici 11 (1986), 25–30; (1990b), 136–9; below,
pp. 370–2.
(^98) The calf is Agni the morning altar-fire (cf. 1. 95. 1, 96. 5, 146. 3), and the mother and
daughter Night and Day (despite their being called sisters in the preceding verse). For Night as
mother of Dawn cf. Aesch. Ag. 265 with Fraenkel’s note.
224 5. Sun and Daughter