Indo-European Poetry and Myth

THE POET

In traditional Indo-European societies poetry was not a diversion to be taken
up by anyone who happened to be visited by the lyrical impulse. Knowledge
of the poetic language and technical command of the verbal arts were the
province of specialists. These specialists were of more than one kind, for they
performed a variety of functions, as priests, seers, eulogists, and so forth.
Accordingly there was, so far as we can see, no single Indo-European word for
‘poet’, but different words corresponding to the different roles that poets
played. It is difficult to reconstruct specific terms, because requirements
and designations changed over time in different societies. It is nevertheless
possible to discern elements of vocabulary that link separated peoples and
point back to the terminology of remote eras.
It is convenient to start from the Celtic world, where a remarkable con-
servatism of tradition is observable in regard to poetic institutions for well
over a thousand years from the time of the earliest records.
Classical sources, going back to Posidonius in the early first century ,
report that the continental Celts had poet-singers called Bards (bardoi),
philosopher-priests called Druids (dryidai or drouidai), and diviners called
vates. The Bards sang songs of praise or blame, accompanying themselves on
instruments resembling lyres; in particular they celebrated the brave deeds
of warriors in ‘heroic verses’. The Druids were venerated for their wisdom
and holiness, presiding over sacrifices, performing judicial functions, and
checking immoderate behaviour. According to Caesar they educated many of
the young men and made them learn a large quantity of oral verse. The Vates
foretold the future from augury and sacrifical omens.^2
All three terms reappear in insular Celtic, as Old Irish bard (Welsh bardd),
druí (Welsh derwydd), and fáith. The bard was a reciter and a composer of
lower sorts of poetry. The druí, having lost his sacerdotal functions with the
advent of Christianity, was no more than a sorcerer; his role as a learned poet
had been taken over by the fili, of whom more below. The fáith was concerned
with spells and divination (fáth).
The word bard, proto-Celtic bardos, is analysed as an old compound going
back to gwr
̇

h 2 - dhh 1 - o- and meaning ‘praise-maker’. The first element is
related to Vedic gír‘praise-song’,jaritár-‘singer’, and the verb gr
̇

‘sing, praise’,

(^2) Strabo 4. 4. 4; Diodorus 5. 31. 2–5; Athenaeus 246cd (Posidonius F 34. 4, 169. 31, 172
Theiler); Timagenes (FGrHist 88 F 2) ap. Amm. Marc. 15. 9. 8 (where the vates are replaced by
euhages following a corruption in the Greek source: ΟΥΑΤΕΙC>ΕΥΑΓΕΙC); Caesar, Bell.
Gall. 6. 13–14; Lucan 1. 447–58; Festus p. 31. 13 L.

1. Poet and Poesy 27