Greek.^1 Certain early Latin texts such as the Saliar Hymn, however, may
represent native Italic tradition.
For the rest, the evidence that once existed is almost wholly lost. The oral
literatures of ancient Europe have perished, and only the occasional scrap can
be gleaned from inscriptions. It is no better with the later Celtic, Germanic,
Baltic, and Slavonic traditions. There are some records of their pagan gods
and mythologies, but very little information about the structures and
formulae of their hymns and prayers.
Our picture, therefore, will be largely based on the Indo-Iranian and Greek
evidence, with sporadic contributions from elsewhere. If it were not for these
latter, our conclusions would be valid only for the Graeco-Aryan level. As it is,
there are hints of wider and deeper vistas.
Calling the godIf one wishes to communicate with a distant person by telephone or e-mail,
it is first necessary to enter the number or address that will direct the message
to the recipient and catch his or her attention. So in a polytheist’s hymn or
prayer it is important at the outset to identify the deity being addressed. Often
the name appears as the first word, as in RV 1. 1. 1 Agním ı ̄l
̄
e puróhitam,‘Agni
I invoke, the house priest’; 1. 2. 1 Va ̄ ́yav a ̄ ́ ya ̄hi dars ́ata, ‘Vayu, come, beautiful
one’; Y. 16. 1 Ahurəm Mazda ̨m asˇ
̇
avanəm asˇ
̇ahe ratu ̃m yazamaide, ‘Ahura
Mazda ̄ the truthful, the judge of truth, we venerate’; Yt. 6. 1 Hvarəxsˇ
̇
ae ̄təm
aməsˇ
̇
əm rae ̄m aurvat
̃.aspəm yazamaide, ‘the Sun, the immortal splendour,
the swift-horsed, we venerate’; Hymn. Dem. 1 ∆ μητρ, (Pκομον σεμν^ν
θε:ν Eρχομ, qεδειν, ‘Of Demeter the lovely-haired, the august goddess first
I sing’; Cato, De agric. 141 Mars pater, te precor quaesoque uti sies.. ., ‘Father
Mars, I pray and request that you be.. .’.^2
In these examples the god’s name in the accusative, or an accusative
second-person pronoun accompanied by the name in the vocative, is gov-
erned by a first-person verb meaning ‘I (or we) call upon’, or ‘venerate’,
‘celebrate’, etc., and constituting a performative utterance. There are many
more examples of this pattern, with the accusative not necessarily being the
(^1) Norden (1913), 145, 157. The central part of Norden’s book (143–308) is the classic study
of stylistic features in Greek and Latin hymns and prayers in comparison with Jewish and
oriental tradition. He is not interested in the Indo-European dimension and makes no reference
to the Rigveda.
(^2) Cf. Hes. Th. 1, Hymn. Ap. 1, Hymn. Hom. 6. 1, 7. 1, etc.; Durante (1976), 162. ‘I sing of ’ or
‘let me sing of ’ is a common type of incipit also in Semitic hymns and narrative poems, see West
(1997), 170–3.
- Hymns and Spells 305