We noted in Chapter 2 the use of polar expressions, and in particular those
of the type ‘both X and non-X’, ‘both seen and unseen’, to cover every
possibility and leave no loophole. The idiom has a natural place in prayers
and incantations; examples were quoted from the Atharvaveda, the Iguvine
tablets, and Cato’s prayer. Another stylistic feature arising from the same
motive is the expression of a concept by a syzygy of two or three near-
synonyms, as if to ensure that a solid block of semantic territory is occupied
with no room for equivocation. So in the Avesta, Y. 26. 1 = 59. 18 = Yt. 13. 21
asˇa ̄una ̨m... fravasˇa y o ̄ staomi zbayemi ufyemi‘the... Fravashis of the truthful
I praise, I invoke, I sing’; 41. 1 stu ̄to ̄ garo ̄ vahmə ̄n
̇
g Ahura ̄i Mazda ̄i Asˇ
̇a ̄ica ̄
vahisˇt a ̄i dadəmahica ̄ cı ̄sˇ
̇
mahica ̄ a ̄ca ̄ [a ̄]vae ̄dayamahı ̄, ‘praises, hymns,
prayers to Ahura Mazda ̄ and best Truth we present and assign and dedicate’,
cf. 35. 5; in Cato’s prayer, precor quaesoque... uolens propitius... prohibessis
defendas auerruncesque... duonam salutem ualetudinemque... lustrandi
lustrique faciendi. This is characteristic of Latin legal as well as hieratic style.
A Nordic example is hvé ec fyrbýð, hvé ec fyrirbanna in the stanza quoted
above.
Nine as a sacral numberI have mentioned the element of repetition, which is a means of insisting on
what is being said or done and validating it as magically efficacious. Some-
times the repetition is formalized numerically, as when words have to be
uttered or an action repeated three times.
Ovid, describing the ritual of the Lemuria, speaks of formulae that had to
be spoken nine times (Fasti 5. 439, 443). The number nine, or by augmenta-
tion thrice nine, occurs often enough in Indo-European religious contexts
to suggest that it was a traditional sacral quantity. Hesiod gives τρισεινα ́
‘thriceninth’ as the correct name for the 27th day of the month. When
Oedipus purifies himself at Colonus he is instructed to lay down thrice nine
olive branches as an offering to the earth. Athenian seers prophesied that the
Peloponnesian War would last thrice nine years, and told Nicias to wait thrice
nine days following the lunar eclipse. Pythagoras is said to have spent the
same period in the Idaean Cave as an initiate.^43 Several Delphic festivals
were held every ninth year (eighth by our reckoning, but $νναετηρ was
(^43) Hes. Op. 814; Soph. OC 483; Thuc. 5. 26. 4; 7. 50. 4; Porph. Vit. Pyth. 17. More Greek
material in W. H. Roscher, Enneadische Studien (Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen
Klasse der Königlichen Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften 26: 1, 1909). See further
Hermann Diels, Sibyllinische Blätter (Berlin 1890), 40–3.
- Hymns and Spells 329