Indo-European Poetry and Myth

‘Fortunate is he whom the Muses love’ (Hes. Th. 96 f., cf. Hymn. Dem. 486 f.).
‘When men arm themselves for battle and slaughter, there the goddess
(Hecate) comes and stands by whichever side she chooses to grant victory
with her favour and hand them glory’ (Hes. Th. 431–3).
Likewise, whoever honours the god, he rewards: ‘him that prepares a sacri-
fice thou followest for well-being’ (RV 5. 28. 2, cf. 2. 26. 3 f.; 3. 10. 3; 4. 12. 2; 5.

37. 4; 7. 90. 2); ‘whichever of the two countries is the first to worship him.. .,
    to that one turns grass-land magnate Mithra’ (Yt. 10. 9, trs. Gershevitch);
    ‘to those too who till the surly grey (i.e. fish the sea), and who pray to Hecate
    and the strong-thundering Shaker of Earth, easily the proud goddess grants a
    large catch’ (Hes. Th. 440–2).

Narrative elements

In the content too of the Greek and Vedic hymn there manifests itself a particular
feature which does not seem to find analogies in other ancient cultures. In the litera-
tures of the Near East hymnology and mythical narrative are two separate genres: the
divinity is exalted in his mode of being and in his present activities and not, usually, in
reference to events of the mythical past. Conversely the appeal to events of the past
is one of the institutional features of the Vedic hymn, as of the Greek: the praise of the
god is, so to speak, motivated historically through the more or less explicit allusion to
his deeds, his origins, his relations with other gods or with men.^11

Durante’s statement about Near Eastern hymns is a little too absolute; one
finds narrative elements, for example, in Psalms 89: 10, 99: 6–8, 105 f., 114,
135 f. But in principle he makes a sound point.
In certain hymns mythical matter is introduced with ‘I celebrate’, ‘I will tell
of ’, with the god’s deeds rather than himself focalized as the object. RV 1. 32.
1 Índrasya nú vı ̄ríya ̄n
̇

i prá vocam

̇

, | ya ̄ ́ni caka ̄ ́ra prathama ̄ ́ni vajrı ̄ ́: | áhann áhim,
ánu apás tatarda, etc., ‘Indra’s manly deeds I will now tell forth, the ones that
the thunderbolt-god did first. He smashed the Serpent, pierced a path for the
waters’, etc., cf. 1. 154. 1; 2. 15. 1 (below); 10. 39. 5; Y. 45. 1 f. at
̃

fravaxsˇy a ̄, nu ̄
gu ̄sˇo ̄du ̄m, nu ̄ sraota ̄ ... at
̃

fravaxsˇy a ̄ aŋhə ̄ usˇ mainyu ̄ paourvye ̄, | yayå spanyå
u ̄itı ̄ mravat
̃

yə ̄ m an

̇

grəm, ‘I will tell forth –– now listen ye, now hear ye... I will
tell forth the two Wills at the world’s beginning, of whom the Liberal one
speaks thus to the Hostile one’;Hymn. Aphr. 1 Μοσα ́ μοι #ννεπε #ργα
πολυχρ3σου Lφροδτη, ‘Muse, tell me of the doings of Aphrodite rich in
gold’.
Besides episodes in which a deity overcame an opponent or assisted a
mortal in need, the myth of his or her birth is a typical object of narrative

(^11) Durante (1976), 47 f. (translated).
312 8. Hymns and Spells