Indo-European Poetry and Myth

‘Both races’ means gods and men. We can hardly fail to be reminded of the
Homeric lines:

Dawn from her bed, from beside glorious Tithonos,

sallied forth to bring light to immortals and mortals.^99

Us

̇

as is not associated with a specific mortal lover. But there seems to be a
suggestion that she might be tarrying with one in 1. 30. 20:

Who is there for you, O whose-friend Dawn,

to enjoy, (which) mortal, immortal one?

Whom are you visiting, radiant one?

If there is no Indian Tithonos, growing ever older in the house of his perpetu-
ally young consort, there is at least an awareness of the tragic contrast
between her and us. ‘Bringing old age, thou hast come, O unageing Dawn...
Unageing, thou dost make to age all else’ (TS 4. 3. 11. 5; cf. RV 1. 124. 2).

The Dawn goddess and the spring festival

Dawn is not a goddess of cult. She was hymned at the Vedic morning sacrifice
because it was that time of day, but she was not the object of the ceremony.
The Agnis
̇

t

̇

oma, the springtime festival that began the year, opened with songs
to her, and this led Alfred Hillebrandt to argue that Us
̇

as was especially a
goddess of New Year.^100 The Vedic texts themselves make it abundantly clear
that she appeared every day in the same way; they contain nothing that points
to a special association with a particular time of year.
It seems nevertheless that the Dawn goddess did have such an association
in some branches of the tradition. It is not too hard to understand how this
could come about. Many Indo-European peoples had festivities to celebrate
the beginning of spring or summer, the time when the sun began to shine
more warmly after the winter months. The sun was the focus of interest on
these occasions, and the custom of getting up at dawn or before dawn to greet
the rising sun is widely attested. In these circumstances it was natural that the
Dawn herself, appearing in the east in advance of the sun, should attract more
attention than on other days of the year.

(^99) Il. 11. 1–2=Od. 5. 1–2; compared by Kretschmer (1896), 83 n. 1. Helios too shines for
immortals and mortals (Od. 3. 2 f., 12. 385 f.); cf. RV 1. 50. 5.
(^100) Hillebrandt (1927–9), i. 28–32; von Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 204–6. Hillebrandt’s theory
was rejected by many scholars, but defended with learning by F. B. J. Kuiper, IIJ 4 (1960), 223–42,
who concludes, ‘the hymns to Us
̇
as are unaccountable as documents of religious thought, unless
we take Us
̇
as to be in the first place the Dawn of New Year’. He puts this at the winter solstice.

5. Sun and Daughter 225