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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2009
1 West, M. L., Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, henceforth West 2007, v: “I write as a professional Hellenist, as much an amateur in Indo-European studies as in oriental. I have furnished myself with a working knowledge of some of the relevant languages”.
2 ‘Indo-European Metre’ Glotta 51 1973 161–187. By way of background it may be noted that when in 1860 Rudolf Westphal compared Vedic and Avestan and Ancient Greek metres and found significant similarities between them, he opened the way for further exploration of a possible link to their pre-history. Antoine Meillet's work in this field published in 1923 provided the impetus for the study of metres used in other Indo-European language groups with the aim of establishing a common source. The broader question of the survival of Indo-European poetry was first raised by Kaegi, Adolf in his Der Rigveda, Die Älteste Literatur der Inder (Leipzig, 1881)Google Scholar, 128 n. 12, cf 158 n. 82. The most important recent contributions to the study of Indo-European poetry and myth have been made by Schmitt, Rüdiger in Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1967)Google Scholar, which is also a valuable summary of what had gone before, and Watkins, Calvert, especially in his book How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (New York, Oxford, 1995)Google Scholar. West acknowledges his considerable indebtedness to the work of these scholars.
3 West, M. L., ‘The Rise of the Greek Epic’ JHS 108 (1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He had touched upon the subject also in ‘Greek Poetry 2000–700 B.C.’, Classical Quarterly 23 (1973) pp. 179–192.
4 Schmitt, Rüdiger, Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1967)Google Scholar and Schmitt, Rüdiger (ed.) Indogermanische Dichtersprache. Wege der Forschung, p. 165 (Darmstadt, 1968)Google Scholar.
5 Durante, Marcello, Richerche sulla preistoria della tradizione poetica greca (Rome, 1971, 1976)Google Scholar (from Rendiconti dell' Accademia nazionale dei Lincei xiii (1958) pp. 3–14; xv (1960), pp. 231–49; xvii (1962), pp. 25–43.
6 Campanile, Enrico, Richerche di cultura poetica indo europea (Pisa, 1977)Google Scholar, and later La riconstruzione della cultura indo europea (Pisa, 1990) et al.
7 In the preface to The East Face of Helicon (Oxford, 1997), henceforth West 1997 p. xi he notes “the beginnings of a new and welcome trend for classicists and ancient historians to study at least one oriental language” and that such study “must become a firm part of our agenda for the twenty-first century”.
8 For wholly proper reasons West disclaims the appropriateness of the title The North Face of Helicon for this book, but one cannot resist the temptation to say that two faces of Helicon, East and North by West might look like geographical overkill!
9 West 2007 p. v.
10 West coins this term to distinguish the residuum after the divergence of the Anatolian group represented by Hittite and related languages of Asia Minor. In this he follows the widely accepted groupings which are set out in Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. and Ivanov, V. V., Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans (Berlin, New York, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 A rather extreme example of this will be found on page 108 where, in discussing “the questioner's suggestions negated in turn”, he states, “I could fill several pages with examples from Hittite, from the Indian epics, from Old English and Norse, from Armenian, Russian and Serbo-Croat heroic poems, and from Lithuanian ballads, but it is sufficient to note the fact and to cite references”. At the end of the references he adds “There are several instances also in Ugaritic” and refers to West 1997 p. 198.
12 As an example of horizontal transmission West gives the sudden appearance of the doctrine of metempsychosis around the sixth century bce in both Greek and Indian sources, though it is not attested elsewhere. The possibility of a common source (Persian Empire) is raised, although nothing is found in Iranian sources to confirm this.
13 West 2007 p. 23.
14 Among frequently quoted sources, insular Celtic material begins around 600 ce, Germanic in the eighth century ce and Slavic in the twelfth century ce.
15
West 2007, p. v. Despite this disclaimer West shows
himself able to trade ‘unpronounceables’ with the
best of them; witness his treatment of the
Indo-European name for ‘earth’ on pages 173 and 174
and the reconstruction of a prototype for
Pūṣ
n/Pan on page 282.
16 West 2007, p. 24.
17 West dates the Younger Avesta as “probably between the eighth and fourth centuries bce, the Vidēvdāt being the latest part”. Most Iranian scholars these days would be inclined to place many parts of the latter work in the first centuries of the Common Era.
18 Boyce, Mary, ‘Middle Persian Literature’, in Gershevitch, I. (ed.) Handbuch der Orientalistik. Iranistik – Literatur, pp. 31–66 (Leiden, 1968)Google Scholar and ‘Parthian Writing and Literature’, in E. Yarshater (ed.) Cambridge History of Iran Volume 3, Part 2 1151–1165 (Cambridge, 1983). In the second of these articles she cautiously states, “Parthian heroic poems are thus mainly known through Persian and Arabic redactions of the lost Middle Persian Xwadāy-nāmag and notably through Firdausī's Shāh-nāma which in style probably owes something to the old Iranian epic tradition, doubtless not yet wholly lost in the Khurāsān in his day”. (1157).
19 Dumézil, Georges, Légendes sur les Nartes (Paris, 1930)Google Scholar and Le livre des héros. Légendes sur les Nartes (Paris, 1965); the latter is a translation of Narty kaddžystä (Dzaudžykau, 1946). Dumézil was a pioneer in the field and remains a principal authority on the Ossetic Nartä legends. His translations were used by Colarusso, John in Nart Sagas from the Caucasus (Princeton, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also H. W. Bailey's chapter in Hatto, A. H. (ed.) Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry (London, 1980–89), pp. i. 236–67Google Scholar.
20 Thordarson, Fridrik, ‘Ossetic’ in Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum (Wiesbaden, 1989) p. 457Google Scholar: “In contradistinction to the other Iranian languages, Ossetic has developed in entirely non-Iranian surroundings for nearly two millennia”.
21 West 2007, p. vi.
22 Here West alludes to Durante's clever suggestion that Vedic samaryám ‘meeting (of poets)’ might have a hitherto unrecognized cognate *ὅμαρoς in Greek which might explain Homeridae not as ‘sons of Homer’ but as ‘those taking part in poetic meeting’. West himself went further and proposed that the name of the poet Homer, for which there is no convincing explanation, was a back-formation from Homeridae. See West, M. L., ‘The Invention of Homer’, Classical Quarterly 49 (1999) pp. 375–382CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He does not mention two interesting parallels which belong here. The first is his own suggestion that Cinyras, the legendary king of Byblos, is in reality nothing but the mythical eponymous ancestor of the Kinyradai, the guild of temple musicians who controlled the Paphian cult; and Kinyradai is a Greek rendering of a Phoenician *benê kinnúr ‘sons of the lyre’, Semitic idiom for ‘professional lyre-players’. (West 1997) p. 73. Perhaps this is a similar back formation? See also John Franklin ‘Kinyras at Pylos’ (forthcoming – submitted to Kadmos).The second is discussed by Wilson, Peter in ‘Thamyris: the archetype of the wandering poet?’ in Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture, eds, Hunter, R. and Rutherford, I. (Cambridge, 2009) pp. 46–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He raises the possibilty that the name Thamyris might, as suggested by Durante, be retro-invented from a group of Thamyridai or Thamyradai.
23 West 2007, p. 28 in discussing Vedic kavi- etc. gives the basic meaning of the underlying root *keu as ‘see, behold’. This is not in accordance with his quoted authority which gives ‘hear’ as the primary meaning.
24 Rāmāyaṇa 2.74.21, 75.14, 89,15, 98.8–9, 17–18,25,28,42 and 106.2–18. See John Brockington, ‘Figures of Speech in the Rāmāyaṇa, JAOS 97 1977 pp. 441–442 – reprinted in Bailey, Greg and Brockington, Mary (ed.), Epic Threads (Oxford, 2000) pp. 126–127Google Scholar.
25 The Rāmāyaṇa of Vamlīki, critical ed., G. H. Bhatt and U. P. Shah, 7 vols. (Baroda, Oriental Institute, 1960–75).
26 Od.23.233–9; Mahābhārata.7.116.12.
27
This seems surprising as
ἄναξἀνδρω
ν is so common in Homer.
28 See Bailey, H. W., ‘Ossetic’ in Hatto, A. H. (ed.) Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry (London 1980–89), pp. i. 254Google Scholar. He traces xucau to an older Saka *hvaθyāva- which appears in Sogdian xwt'w and Parthian xwd'wn as a calque on the Greek aὐ τo κρἄτωρ. The word has now been found in Bactrian χoαδηo; this in turn has been borrowed into late Sogdian as xyδyw whence come Persian xidēv and English khedive. See Sims-Williams, N., ‘Ancient Afghanistan and its Invaders’ in Sims-Williams, N. (ed.) Iranian Languages and Peoples (Oxford, 2002) pp. 228–229Google Scholar.
29 This clear parallel must have struck many budding Sanskritists as it appears on the first page of the Story of Nala which, because of its simple style, is often used as an introductory piece in course books. The pattern involved is, according to West, a special case of Otto Behaghel's ‘Gesetz der Wachsenden Glieder’ (Behaghel's Law) convenient to the versifier because it gives him some room for manoeuvre in the clausulae. It would be productive, I believe, to study this phenomenon in connection with the pattern of hexametric cola of increasing length in Homer for which G. S. Kirk coined the rather inelegant term ‘rising threefolder’ since ‘augmented triads’ often naturally fall into this pattern.
30 West, M. L., ‘An Indo-European Stylistic Feature in Homer’ in Bierl, A., Schmitt, A., Willi, A. (edd.), Antike Literatur in neuer Deutung: Festschrift für Joachim Latacz anlässlich seines 70. Geburtstags (Munich-Leipzig, 2004) pp. 33–49Google Scholar.
31 Benveniste, Émile, Indo-European Language and Society (London, 1973) pp. 89–94Google Scholar.
32 The less obvious κoίρανoς has *korjos (Germanic *harja, Middle Irish cuire, Lithuanian kārias) ‘army’ as its first element.
33 Kurdalagon in the Ossetic Nartä legends seems to belong here.
34 Widely distributed sources attest to nectar and ambrosia being found in inaccessible places such as mountain peaks and being brought to the gods by birds. Circe's information on this subject (Od.12.62–5) accords in this respect with Rigvedic and Avestan descriptions of the bringing of the divine intoxicant (Soma/Haoma) to the place of libation.
35 West, M. L., Hesiod. Theogony (Oxford, 1966) p. 387Google Scholar.
36 See Elizarenkova, Tatyana J., The Language and Style of the Vedic Ṛṣis (New York, 1995) pp. 74–75Google Scholar and Boyce, Mary, A History of Zoroastrianism Vol 1 (Leiden, 1975) p. 298CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The double vocabulary has been seen as a rationalization of dialect differences: see L. H. Gray, JRAS 1927, pp. 427–441. T. Burrow, JRAS 1973, pp. 123–140, argued that the Daevic words belonged to a Proto-Indo-Iranian substrate.
37 Seen in reflexes such as Hittite dēgan, Tocharian tkaṃ/keṃ, Vedic kṣám-, Greek χθών, Latin humus, Old Irish dū, Old Church Slavonic zemlja etc. The last is used in various forms in Slavonic for the Earth Mother.
38 Earth and Heaven is the answer to the conundrum “two bulls are butting, they do not come together”.
39 West 2007, pp. 194–196.
40 Examples of this alternation are a feature of Hittite noun morphology, but are familiar from such Latin words as iter/itin(eris).
41 The ordinary Indo-Iranian word for ‘chariot’ (Vedic rátha-/Avestan raθa-) is the Indo-European word for ‘wheel’ seen in Latin rota etc.
42 The humble hot cross bun may “perpetuate the ancient solar symbol of the cross-in-circle or four-spoked wheel”. West 2007, p. 215.
43 RV 4.53.4; Homeric Hymn (To the Moon) 32.11.
44 The journey of the sun-god through the underworld in the Amduat, a New Kingdom funerary text, is cited by West (348) in a comparison he makes with an illustration on a razor found near Roskilde in Denmark and dated about 900 bce. See Hornung, Erik, Aegyptische Unterweltsbücher (2nd edn., Zurich-Munich 1984) pp. 185–188Google Scholar.
45 Notably Stesichorus Geryoneis. See Page, D. L., Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford, 1962) p. 185Google Scholar.
46 Mimnermus fr. 12. 5–11.
47 West 2007, p. 209.
48 West 1997, p. 507.
49 See E. G. Pulleyblank JRAS 1966, pp. 31–36.
50 See Wilson, Peter, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia (Cambridge, 2000) 17, p. 314- n.22Google Scholar and Wilson, Peter (ed.) The Greek Theatre and Festivals. Documentary Studies. Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents (Oxford, 2007) pp. 167–169Google Scholar. Incidentally, if the κύκλιoι χoρoί are an inheritance this is important in discussions about the dithyramb and weighs against d'Angour's ingenious theory about its original shape. See d'Angour, Armand, ‘How the Dithyramb got its Shape’, Classical Quarterly 57 2 1997, pp. 331–351CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sheldon, J. S., ‘Iranian Evidence for Pindar's “Spurious San”?’ Antichthon 37 2003, pp. 54–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
51 Carmichael, Alexander, Carmina Gadelica, vol iii (Edinburgh 1928–1959) p. 274Google Scholar.
52 RV 3.46.2 etc.
53
West 2007, p. 84 in dealing with the Vedic adjective
bhadr 
in descriptions of Dawn p. 84
connects it to the root *bhā –. This is not the
normally accepted etymology. See Frisk, Hjalmar,
Griechisches Etymologisches
Wörterbuch
(Heidelberg,
1960)Google Scholar 981 and Pokorny, Julius,
Indogermanisches Etymologisches
Wörterbuch i
(Bern,
1959) p.
10Google Scholar.
54 There is some doubt about the meaning of this. It is more likely that is uxšan- is not the word for ‘bull’ here, but is connected to the verbal root vaxš- ‘increase, grow’. It should also be noted that on page 221West cites the Avestan mythical mountain Ušidam (Yt.1.28, 31; 19,2,66) as ‘Dawn's House’. This meaning is not accepted in the recent editions of the Zamyād Yasht. See Humbach, H. and Ichaporia, P. R., Zamyād Yasht (Wiesbaden, 1998)Google Scholar and Hintze, Almut, Der Zamyād-Yašt (Wiesbaden, 1994)Google Scholar and should not used as evidence here.
55 See Ebeling, H., Lexicon Homericum (Leipzig, 1885) p. 97Google Scholar for early attempts at elucidation which often involve unconvincing emendation and etymologising and for more recent suggestions Frisk, Hjalmar, Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1960) p. 94Google Scholar. For survival of ἀμoλγóς in Modern Greek see Shipp, G. P., Modern Greek Evidence for the Ancient Greek Vocabulary (Sydney, 1979) p. 65Google Scholar.
56 West 2007, p. 233 refers to the Nartä tale of Soslan pursuing the golden hart which turns out to be Aziruxs, the daughter of the sun. West translates the name as ‘this light’. It should be ‘strong light’ according to the explanation given by Bailey, H. W., ‘Ossetic’ in Hatto, A. H. (ed.) Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry (London 1980–89)Google Scholar, i.1980–98 242: Digoron Ŭaciroxs, Iron Acyruxs from ŭac/ac ‘strong’.
57 West 2007, p. 437 is not quite correct. “An abducted wife is a major theme in each of the two Indian epics”. This is true of the Rāmāyaṇa where Sita is abducted by Rāvaṇa, but the abduction of Draupadī mentioned here is is a minor episode in the vanaparvan; earlier Draupadī is wagered and lost in the dice game by Yudhisthira, then shamed by the Kauravs who attempt to disrobe her.
58 In Homer neglect of the digamma in the name in most of its occurrences is typical and cannot be used as an argument either way.
59 This is the word for the thunderbolt of Zeus in historical times, but is quite possibly the obsolete name of a thunder god.
60 Latin quercus ‘oak’ from *perkwos shows the same retrograde assimilation as quinque ‘five’ from *penkwe. West is cautious about these attributions but he describes the link between Keraunos and *Per(k)aunos as “too great to be coincidental”. (West 2007, p. 244). For the connection between Jupiter and oak trees West quotes Servius on Virgil Eclogue I.17 ‘Quercus in tutela Iovis est’. (West 2007, p. 248).
61 The etymological connection between Perkūnas and Perún is not clear.
62 Pokorny, Julius, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch i (Bern, 1959) p. 822Google Scholar.
63 Though some doubt has been cast on it, this place name is accepted as Celtic in Sims-Williams, Patrick, Ancient Celtic Place names in Europe and Asia Minor (Oxford and Boston, 2006) p. 170Google Scholar.
64
Thor, thunder-god of Old Norse mythology shares much
with Perkunas; for example both ride in cars drawn
by goats. The original meaning of the Homeric
epithet of Zeus αἰγι 
óχoς translated as
‘aegis-bearing’ is likely to have been been
‘goat-driven’ or something similar. The formation of
the adjective precludes ‘aegis’ which, in any case,
has never been satisfactorily explained.
65 E.Benveniste and L.Renou, Vṛtra VǝrǝθraƔna. Étude de mythologie indo-iranienne. (Paris, 1934).
66 Watkins, Calvert, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (New York, Oxford, 1995) p. 298Google Scholar.
67 VǝrǝθraƔna is a neuter noun meaning ‘assault, victorious attack’ in Avestan. It could have independent value or be a back-formation from VǝrǝθraƔna which appears as a neuter noun for ‘victory’ (lit. ‘striking, repelling assault’) and as a masculine proper noun for the God of Victory. See Bartholomae, Christian, Altiranisches Wörterbuch (Strassburg, 1904, repr. Berlin, 1961)Google Scholar 1420 – 1423 and Puhvel, Jaan, Comparative Mythology (Baltimore, 1987) p. 102Google Scholar. See also West 2007, p. 260 n 70 where his statement that ‘Dahāka is related to Vedic dāsá- ‘devil’ is far from secure. cf. H. W. Bailey, ‘Iranian arya- and daha-’ Transactions of the Philological Society 1959 [pub. 1960] pp. 71–115. Bailey is surely correct to see VǝrǝθraƔna in the name of the Ossetic Nartä giant Eltagan instead of the Turkish etymologies which have been proposed. See Bailey, H. W., ‘Ossetic’ in Hatto, A. H. (ed.) Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry (London, 1980–89), pp. i. 237Google Scholar.
68 What he actually says is that VǝrǝθraƔna “presumably began as the by-name of an Iranian Indra, though he has developed into an independent figure”. West 2007, p. 246.
69 West 2007, pp. 256–257.
70 Yasna 9. 8, also Yt. 14. 40. Watkins 1995 gives cognates and variants of the phrase in Hittite, Indo-Iranian and Greek.
71 See Gershevitch, Ilya, The Avestan Hymn to Mithra (Cambridge, 1959 repr. 1967) p. 187Google Scholar and Bartholomae, Christian, Altiranisches Wörterbuch (Strassburg, 1904, repr. Berlin, 1961) p. 187Google Scholar.
72 Fox, Robin Lane in Travelling Heroes (London, 2008) pp. 298–318Google Scholar has many interesting observations to make about ‘Typhon’, in particular, comparison with the Hittite storm-god's battle against his dragon foe. He expresses his paramount indebtedness for his own volume, initially inspired by West's commentary on Theogony, to The East Face of Helicon which he describes as ‘unsurpassable.’ Travelling Heroes was published one year after Indo-European Poetry and Myth and neither author makes reference to the other's book.
73 Yt. 19. pp. 45–54.
74 Herodotus, Histories 1.131 ff.
75 West 2007, p. 269.
76 West cites Louden, B., Journal of Indo-European Studies 27 (1999) pp. 57–78Google Scholar.
77 West notes that in these inscriptions Neptunus is associated with water of all kinds, and is not used exclusively of the sea. One cannot help but recall, although West does not quote it, the famous words in Catullus's Sirmio poem (31): ‘insularum . . . quascumque in liquentibus stagnis marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus’ where the last two words are best interpreted as ‘Neptune in either capacity’, ie. either as god of seas or as god of inland waters; so Fordyce, C. J. Catullus (Oxford, 1961) pp. 167–168Google Scholar. He does, however, quote Catullus 64 in connection with the Parcae on page 381.
78 West 2007, p. 279.
79 There are other possibilities. See Frisk, Hjalmar, Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1960) pp. 561–564Google Scholar.
80 See Boyce, Mary, Textual Sources for the History of Zoroastrianism (Chicago, 1984) p. 53Google Scholar. For the replacement of Varuṇa by Ahura Mazdā in the Iranian tradition see West 2007, p. 172. See also Gershevitch, Ilya, The Avestan Hymn to Mithra (Cambridge, 1959 repr. 1967) p. 5Google Scholar where it is noted that in the Rigveda the term Asura is ‘predominantly applicable’ to Varuṇa.
81 Boyce, Mary, ‘Ābān’ in Encyclopaedia Iranica Vol I (New York, 1985) p. 58Google Scholar.
82 Humbach, Helmut, ‘Die aramäischen Nymphen von Xanthos’, Die Sprache 27 (1981) pp. 30–32Google Scholar.
83 As in English this includes the future and newly-wed bride.
84 This could have been made clearer in the context in West 2007, p. 286.
85 Grimm, Jacob, Teutonic Mythology 4 vols (London, 1883–8)Google Scholar and Mannhardt, Wilhelm, Wald- und Feldkulte 2nd edn. 2 vols (Berlin, 1905)Google Scholar.
86 Rāmāyaṇa 7. 79. 22 ff. The word is a coinage and literally means ‘How are they men?’.
87 West does not give references, but the earliest seem to be those in the Testimonia of the Epic Cycle found, for example, in Oxford Classical Text Homeri Opera vol V 59–60 and in vol 57 of the Loeb Classical Library.
88 As West points out, this folk tale has currency outside the Indo-European world. Add to authorities cited Hackman, O., Die Polyphemsage in der Volksüberlieferung (Helsinki, 1904)Google Scholar. See also Bailey, H. W., ‘Ossetic’ in Hatto, A. H. (ed.) Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry (London, 1980–89), pp. i. 256Google Scholar.
89 Homer, Od. 10. pp. 86, 120.
90 West 2007, p. 302.
91 More and more western scholars are beginning to challenge Zoroaster's authorship, but others were and continue to be influenced by the authoritative writings of Mary Boyce who in one place described it as ‘self-evident’. See Calvert Watkins 1995 p. 57 n.11.
92 West's second example of double negative formulation from Vedic is a little misleading as it does not contain a double negative, although such a meaning may be implied. He translates yásmād Índrād bṛhatáḥ kíṃ caném ṛté as “great Indra without whom nothing”; there is no na and therefore it is literally “anything without this great Indra”.
93 Norden, Eduard, Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (Berlin, 1913)Google Scholar.
94 For example Akkadian hymns with the ‘not without thee’ theme. West 2007, p. 301 n. 8.
95 West reminds us that these ‘hymns’ are the productions of epic-style composers, were certainly recited at festivals, but were not, it would seem, part of a liturgy.
96 West 1997, p. 273.
97 MBh. 8. 67.20 and Rm. 5. 51.24; 6. 78. 31.
98 West 2007, p. 326.
99 West does not include a Greek example here, but does refer later to the refrain in the binding song of the Erinyes in Aeschylus Eumenides 306 ff. Although from a late literary source the magical refrains in the Second Idyll of Theocritus are so striking and well-known that they might well be recalled here.
100 Kuhn, Adalbert, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung 13 (1864), pp. 128–135Google Scholar. This journal was founded by Kuhn.
101 West, M. L., Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (Oxford, 1971) pp. 196, 243Google Scholar.
102 See Bailey, H. W., Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books (Ratanbai Katrak Lectures), (Oxford 1943 repr. 1971)Google Scholar Chapter 4 ‘Asmān’.
103 The word Delphi itself contains the body imagery of the womb, but West does not comment on this.
104 Other adjectives are so formed from πϵτάννυμι e.g. ἀναπϵτής, διαπϵτής.
105 Lüders, Heinrich, Varuṇa (Göttingen, 1951–9) pp. 138–44, 146–151Google Scholar.
106 West 2007, p. 351.
107 Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 2.1.2.4.
108 Homer says, “the Bear which men also call the Wain”. (Iliad 18. 487) In a paper in 1962 O. Szemerényi (Scr.Min. vol i Innsbruck 1987 55 ff) suggested that Ἄρκτoς might be a hellenisation of Akkadian ereqqu ‘waggon’.
109 West 1997, 29 ff.
110 West 2007, p. 365.
111 West 2007, p. 368.
112 Aarne, Antti, Vergleichende Rätselforschungungen (Helsinki-Hamina, 1918–20) pp. i. 74–178Google Scholar.
113 RV. 1.164. 48 etc; MBh 1.3.64.
114 Od. 12. pp. 129–131.
115 West prefers Varro's etymology from pario ‘give birth’ to the usual one from parco ‘spare’. Varro gives their names as Nona, Decuma and Morta which, according to West, “may seem to express the blunt doctrine that the child is born in the ninth month or the tenth, or dead”!
116
In Homer K
ρϵς are the personifications of
fated death. In the pseudo-Hesiodic Shield
of Heracles they are represented as
female figures dragging men to death from the
battlefield and are given the names of the three
Moirai (possibly by an interpolator). Although the
task of bringing warriors from the battlefield to
Valhalla is the task of the Valkyies in Norse
mythology, they are sometimes depicted as weaving
men's destinies like the Norns.
117 Urð appears in the Edda as the name of one of the Norns representing the past. The word is from Indo European *vert- ‘turn, become’ (Pokorny, 1156–1158) and the Sanskrit past participle vṛttá- can mean ‘happened’. Old English Wyrd is a weaver of destinies and West compares the Weird Sisters in Shakespeare's Macbeth. He opines that the Eddic names might be due to Classical influence, since Plato and later writers give Lachesis the task of telling of the past, Klotho of the present and Atropos of the future. West 1997, pp. 33–34 discusses trees and groves as places of prophecy in Greece noting that a holy spring is often found in their vicinity; he finds Old Testament parallels in the Soothsayers' Oak at Schechem and the palm of Deborah at Bethel adding that “as in Greece, sacred trees and groves are often associated with a sacred spring”. See Smith, W. Robertson, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 3rd ed. (London, 1927)Google Scholar.
118 West 2007, p. 385.
119 West 1999, shows that this motif is well established in Sumerian and Akkadian and occurs in the Old Testament.
120 Saxo Grammaticus 1.8. 14 p. 30 and Gylfaginning p. 49.
121 Vd. Fragard VIII 3 16 et passim.
122 James Darmesteter, The Zend Avesta Part I The Vendidad, Sacred Books of the East (ed. F. Max Müller) vol. 4 (Oxford, 1887) p. lxxxvii. Darmesteter's translation of śabála- as ‘brown’ is not strictly accurate. It should be ‘brindled’ or ‘spotted’ as above.
123 West 2007, p. 394. The feast became known as Fravardigān. The word fravašis has been plausibly derived by Bailey from fra- and *vṛti- ‘valour’ reflecting a cult of valour in which the souls of brave heroes had power to protect the living. See Bailey, H. W., Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books (Ratanbai Katrak Lectures), (Oxford, 1943 repr. 1971) p. 109Google Scholar.
124 Boyce, Mary (with F. Grenet), A History of Zoroastrianism Vol I (Leiden, 1989) p. 123Google Scholar.
125 West 2007, p. 393 discusses the idea that death is seen in a range of cultures as ‘going to the fathers’. For the Indian tradition it can be added that the idea that the preta or departed soul is not properly reunited with the pitaras or departed ancestors for a year after death is found in Rigvedic Hymns. Similarly in the Iranian tradition, the soul of the departed leads a somewhat separate existence for thirty years, during which time the next of kin may perform rites on its behalf. After this time separate rites are not performed but the soul receives a share of those offered for All Souls at the time of the celebration of that feast. It is worth adding that the Christian Feast of All Souls also occurs close to the end of the liturgical year. The new liturgical year begins with the First Sunday of Advent which falls at the end of November or the beginning of December depending on the weekday of Christmas; in Catholic tradition November is the month of the Holy Souls. Although commemorations of souls of the dead are recorded quite early, the present feast is of too late a date to have influenced, or been influenced by, Iranian practice, although it is not inconceivable that it contains elements adapted at an early period of contact.
126 Solmsen, Felix, Indogermanische Eigennamen (Heidelberg, 1922) p. 115Google Scholar.
127 West 1997, 514 f.
128 Benveniste, Émile, Indo-European Language and Society (London, 1973)Google Scholar.
129 He calls it “the Sohrab and Rustam motif” taking the famous story in the Shāh-nāma as typical.
130 Homeric resonances in Sanskrit epic or the reverse remain an area of uncertainty.
131 West 2007, p. 493.
132 Atharvaveda 18.3.1.
133 Writing about handling the complexity of Greek mythology in its relation to the over-all Indo-European picture, Jaan Puhvel, Comparative Mythology (Baltimore, 1987) p. 143 says, “This is a task requiring thorough familiarity with both the immense store of Greek myth and the vast secondary literature as well as the external comparands, a combination rarely possible by either specialists in classical studies or generalists in mythology”. To judge by this book West is a rara avis possessing these qualifications in ample measure.