From thee the victorious singer is born, Agni,
from thee heroes who defeat the foe;^9
Vais ́va ̄nara, do thou bring us
desirable treasures, O king.
Thy birth, immortal one, all
the gods cheer together as at a baby:
by thy power they attained immortality,
Vais ́va ̄nara, when thou didst shine from thy parents.
Vais ́va ̄nara, these great ordinances of thine,
Agni, none has (ever) challenged. (RV 6. 7. 3–5)
p Ζε ,πα ́ τερ Ζε ,σ:ν μCν ο1ρανο κρα ́ το,
σ7 δ, #ργ, $π, qνθρ.πων +ρ|ι
λεωργw κα? θεμιστα ́,σο? δC θηρων
βρι τε κα? δκη μλει.
Zeus, father Zeus, thine is the power in heaven,
and thou dost oversee
men’s deeds, wicked and lawful; thy concern,
all creatures’ rights and wrongs. (Archil. fr. 177)^10A common predication of the deity is that whoever among mortals he
favours enjoys success: ‘for him whom ye two favour, Mitra and Varuna, the
rain pours the sweetness of heaven’ (RV 5. 63. 1, cf. 2. 25. 1–5; 5. 86. 1).
Asˇ
̇i da ̄θre vohu ̄m xvarəno ̄
ae ̄sˇ
̇a ̨m nara ̨m yo ̄i hacahi:
hubaoiδisˇ baoδaite nma ̄nəm,
yeŋ ́he nma ̄ne Asˇ
̇isˇ vaŋuhi
su ̄ ra pa ̄δa nidaθaite.
Fortune, giver of good majesty
to those men that thou followest:
sweet-smelling smells his house
in whose house good Fortune,
the powerful, sets down her foot. (Yt. 17. 6)(^9) This recalls Hes. Th. 94–6, ‘for from the Muses and far-shooting Apollo men are singers and
citharists on earth, and from Zeus kings’.
(^10) Cf. CTH 375 i B 5′–A 26′, 376 i 29′–56′= Lebrun (1980), 122 f., 158 f.; RV 2. 1. 1–15; 3. 10.
1 f.; 4. 11. 3–5, 30. 1–3; 5. 8; 6. 26. 2–7; 9. 86. 28–30; 10. 153. 2–5; Yt. 10. 29f. tu ̄m ... tu ̄m ... tu ̄m
..., etc.; Thgn. 373–6, Soph. Ant. 787–94, Ariphron PMG 813, Aristotle PMG 842, etc. Latin
examples may be due to Greek influence; material in Norden (1913), 149–60, 165, 172. We find
thefigure also in Lithuanian and Latvian: hymn to Pergrubius rendered in Latin by J. Maletius
(1551) in Mannhardt (1936), 294 (cf. 361), tu abigis hyemem, tu reducis amoenitatem ueris; per te
agri et horti uirent, per te nemora et sylue frondent; Jonval no. 890, ‘Viens, Dieu, aide-moi | le
matin à moudre le grain. | Tu as la force, tu as la vigueur, | tu as le bon conseil’ (tev spe ̃cin ̧is, tev
varı ̄te, tev gudrais padomin ̧sˇ); cf. no. 60.
- Hymns and Spells 311