their names1. It seems sometimes very hard to surrender or, at all events, to mark as doubtful an etymology which is all right, except perhaps in one consonant, one spiritus, one shade of a vowel; but it must be done. Benfey's argument, for instance, that (p. 20) in Athana five elements of the Greek word correspond entirely or essentially and in the same order to five out of the seven elements in Âptyânâ,' ought never to be listened to. If all but one single letter agreed, the two words would not be the same; nay sometimes when all letters are the same, the two words may still be, and generally are, as distinct as Himmel and Himâlaya, Atlas and Attila. Though, for instance, every letter is the same in the two words, I at once surrendered the equation Saramâ= Helena, when it was pointed out to me that Helena had originally an initial Digamma; and I only ventured to defend the identification once more, when it had been shown on how slender evidence that initial Digamma rested, and how often a socalled Digamma had taken the place of an original s and y 2. It is only due to the strict observation of phonetic laws that Comparative Mythology has gained the respect of true scholars, whether classical or oriental. As long as we deal with facts and laws, or, if that sounds too grand a name, with rules and analogies, we are on firm ground, and hold a fortress well-nigh impregnable. Another advantage is that all warfare, within or without that fortress, can be carried on according to the strict rules of war, and 1 See, however, Corpus Poet. Bor. ii. 462. when we cross swords, we cross them with true swordsmen. Wild fighting is here out of the question, or if it should be attempted, it would only excite ridicule among the preux chevaliers. If a bold antagonist challenged the legitimacy of Dyaus=Zeus, we must meet him point by point; but if a wary critic challenges the diphthong oi in Poîßos=Bhava, we must yield at once. The diphthong oi does not point to Guna of u, not even in éтoîμos=ětvμos, but to Guna of i, and the mistake has been as readily acknowledged as when Curtius (Grundzüge, p. 484) thought in former days that foívn could be derived from úw, while it is really the same word as the Sanskrit dhenâ. The Etymological Meaning must be Physical. We have now to advance another step, and try to make good a position which at one time was most fiercely contested by all classical scholars, but must be defended at all hazards. Though the etymological analysis of names forms the only safe foundation of Comparative Mythology, it is the foundation only, and not the whole building. The etymology of a mythological name may be perfectly correct phonetically, and yet untenable for other reasons. It stands to reason that no etymology can be accepted which does not account for the original character of the god or hero to whom it belongs. It is clearly impossible, for instance, to derive Hermes from ἑρμηνεύειν 1, or Εrinnys from έριννύειν, because such derivations would account for the later chapters only, but not for the introduction to the lives of those deities. If then we hold that the original 1 Selected Essays, i. 447, and i. 622. Hh character of most Aryan gods was physical, we must also hold that no etymology of a mythological name can be acceptable which does not disclose the original physical character of the god1. Most of the etymologies suggested by later poets and philosophers, suffer from one and the same inherent defect; they are all calculated to explain the later development of a god, as it was known at the time, but not his original character. Popular etymologies too, a very rich source of modern myths and legends, are almost always vitiated by this defect 2. Learned and Popular Etymologies of the Greeks and Romans. It is difficult to find out whether Socrates and other philosophers were serious in the etymologies which they suggested of their gods and heroes, but many of their etymologies certainly leave the impression on our minds, as if their authors had never realized the difference between the plausible and the real in etymology, and as if they had never suspected that Greek names and Greek gods had passed through a long series of phases of historical growth before they became what they were in their time. When Plato quoted the old Etymology of Eros, τὸν δ ̓ ἤτοι θνητοὶ μὲν ̓́Ερωτα καλοῦσι ποτηνόν, he would have been little disturbed, I imagine, if he had been told that wings are a modern idea in Greek mythology, and that no Greek word ever loses an 1 The Nature-god,' as Welcker says, 'became enveloped in a web of mythical fables, and emerged as a divine, humanised personality.' See Miss A. Swanwick, Aeschylus, p. xxi. 2 Lersch, Sprachphilosophie der Alten, iii. 108. initial πτ'. When Apollon is derived from ἀπολλύναι, to destroy, the question seems hardly to have occurred, how the rich growth of Apollonic legends could be traced back to the one central concept of a destroying deity. Nor does it seem to have struck those ancient etymologists that a name cannot possibly have more than one source. For we find Apollon derived, not only from ἀπολλύναι (Aeschylus, Agam. 1080) but likewise from ἀπελαύνειν, to drive away, and ἀπολύειν, to relieve 2. The name of Ares is explained παρὰ τὴν ἀρὰν τὴν γενομένην βλάβην ἐκ τοῦ πολέμου· ἢ παρὰ τὸ τὴν χάραν, χάρης, καὶ ἄρης ἢ παρὰ τὸ ἀείρω ; that of Achilleus παρὰ τὸ ἄχος λύειν ἰατρὸς γὰρ ἦν. ἢ διὰ τὸ ἄχος, ὅ ἐστι λύπην, ἐπενεγκεῖν τῇ μητρὶ καὶ τοῖς Ἰλιεῦσι, ἢ διὰ τὸ μὴ θίγειν χείλεσι χιλῆς, ὅ ἐστι τροφῆς ; that of Helena παρὰ τὸ ἕλω τὸ ἑλκύω, ἢ πρὸς τὸ ἴδιον κάλλος ἕλκουσα τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, διὰ τὸ πολλοὺς ἑλεῖν τῷ κάλλει ἢ παρὰ τὸ Ἑλλάς κ.τ.λ. But while these gratuitous etymologies vanished generally as soon as they had been suggested, there are others which became popular, and entered into the very life of mythology. This need not surprise us, for even in modern languages what has been called popular etymology continues to exercise the same irresistible charm. Who does not think that God in English has something to do with good? Does not barrow, a burial mound (Ger. Berg), involuntarily call up the idea of a barrow, a wheel-barrow (Ger. Bahre)? How often have the cocoa-nut tree and the cacao tree been mixed up together, till at last cacao was actually 1 Lobeck, Aglaophamos, ii. p. 861. 2 Ὁ ἀπελαύνων καὶ ἀπολύων ἀφ ̓ ἡμῶν τὰς νόσους ; Εtym. Magn., Lersch, 1. c., iii. p. 111. spelt cocoa. When we use duck as a term of endearment, we can hardly help thinking of a duck, and when we speak of a lark, as a game, the idea of the merry lark suggests itself, whether we like it or not. I have treated this subject more fully in a chapter on 'Modern Mythology' in the second volume of my Lectures on the Science of Language1, and I need not therefore say more at present than that, as such things are done in the dry tree, we must not be surprised to meet with them in the green also. Homer delights in such offhand etymologies. In Od. XIX. 406, Autolykos suggests the name of Odysseus or Odyseus for his grandson, because he himself оλλîι γὰρ ἔγωγε οδυσσάμενος τόδ ̓ ἱκάνω. Because Hector protected Ilion, therefore his son is called Astyanax by the people, though the father himself called him Skamandrios (Il. VI. 402; XXII. 506). Aeneas is called by his name (Hymn. Aphrod. IV. 198): οὕνεκα μ' αἰνόν ἔσχ ̓ ἄχος, οἵνεκ ̓ ἄρα βρότου ἀνέρος ἔμπεσον εὐνῇ. Even prior to Homer, etymology seems to have given birth to new myths. We can hardly suppose that the legend of the two gates of the dreams, the one being made of horn, the other of ivory, sprang up by itself; for why should these two materials have been imagined as peculiarly appropriate? If, on the contrary, we suppose that Homer, or even the poets before Homer, knew of dreams which deceive (¿λepaípovraɩ) and of others which come true (ervμа крaívovσi), popular etymology may well have suggested that the gates through which the former passed were made of ivory 1 See also R. Fritzsche, Über die Anfänge des Poesie, 1885, p. 22. |