Indo-European Poetry and Myth

‘hear’ and ‘come’ are closely associated, just as, for instance, in RV 5. 74. 6 nu ̄ ́
s ́rutám ma, a ̄ ́ gatam, ‘now hear me, come’, and in a couple of the Avestan
passages cited above.
In the Latvian songs too gods are asked to come.

Viens, Dieu, aide toi-même

à mener à terme le lourd travail.

Tu as, Dieu, la force, la puissance,

Tu as un esprit sage.

Pe ̄rkons allait par la mer,

la pluie tombait sur la mer.

Le laboureur priait Pe ̄rkons:

‘Viens, Pe ̄rkons, en cette terre,

viens, Pe ̄rkons, en cette terre,

dans l’orge se sont flétris les germes.’^23

The appeal to the god may be lent weight by the reminder that he has
responded to similar ones in the past.^24 RV 8. 8. 6 yác cid dhí va ̄m purárs
̇

ayo |
juhu ̄ré ávase nara ̄, | a ̄ ́ ya ̄tam As ́vina ̄ ́ gatam | úpema ̄ ́m
̇

sus

̇

t

̇

utím máma, ‘as in the
past the Rishis have called upon you for help, O heroes, come, As ́vins, come
to this eulogizing of mine’, cf. 6. 35. 5; Il. 1. 453–5 ‘you heard my prayer before

... so now too fulfil this wish for me’, cf. 14. 234, 16. 236; Sappho 1. 5–25
qλλw τ3ιδ, #λθ,,αA ποτα κqτρωτα | τw #μα αOδα qRοισα πλοι | #κλυε ... #λθε
μοι κα? νυ


ν, ‘but come here, if ever at another time too you heard my voice far
off and hearkened... Come to me now too’; Soph. OT 165 f., Eur. Alc. 222–5.
An old Russian harvest prayer, recorded by an Arab writer of the early tenth
century, goes ‘O Lord, who hast provided for us before, fulfil thy bounty for
us even now’.^25

‘Come with –––– ’

Sometimes the god directly addressed is asked to come or to act together with
one or more others. The Luwian text quoted above already provides an
example. In the Rigveda the accompanying deities are put in the instrumental
case in comitative sense, in most cases reinforced with a word such as sám
‘together’,sarátham‘on the same chariot’,yuja ̄ ́‘yoked’.^26 Simple examples
are 1. 1. 5 Agnír ... devó devébhir a ̄ ́ gamat, ‘let Agni come, god with the gods’;

1. 
   
   
   
   19. 1 Marúdbhir Agna a ̄ ́ gahi, ‘come, Agni, with the Maruts’; 1. 6. 7 Índren
       ̇
   
   
   
   

a

(^23) LD 6933, 33711 = Jonval nos. 60, 447; cf. nos. 24, 577, 667, 890 (quoted above, n. 10), 1112.
(^24) Cf. Norden (1913), 151 f.; Durante (1976), 163.
(^25) Ibn Rusta in C. H. Meyer (1931), 93. 32; Vánˇa (1992), 226.
(^26) Zwolanek (as n. 4), 16–34.
320 8. Hymns and Spells