Re: [tied] Child of Water Links.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mark Odegard

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 1:19 AM

Subject: [tied] Child of Water Links.

The Journal of Indo-European Studies, v. 27, Spring/Summer 1999, has an article by Bruce Louden, "Bacchylides 17: Theseus and Indo-Iranian Apa^m Napa^t". I've mined this article to chase down most of the relevant literature available on the web.

I find this myth to be an enigma. With apparent reflexes in Greek, Latin, Avestan, Sanskrit, and possibly in Celtic and Germanic, there would seem to be enough evidence to say, yes, indeed, there is something authentically and indisputably PIE about it.

From all the reading I've done tonight (admittedly mostly a once-over as some of this is new), we actually might have a memory of elements of an older, early PIE (perhaps even pre-PIE) cosmological epic, where man is created from the waters, or by she who created the waters, or the some such.

Louden suggests that the Grandson of the Waters is a reflex of an older version of Poseidon, where the older god's heroic deeds have been transferred to one of his descendants (in the case of Theseus, his son), while the original god has undergone evolutionary changes of his own. The Avesta, the Rig Veda, Vergil and Bacchylides all have horse imagery.  Poseidon is both horse god and god of the sea: this is probably highly significant insofar as this myth goes.

Bacchylides: Ode 17.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0064&layout=&loc=17.1

Vergil, Georgic 4.
http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/georgics.4.iv.html

(search page on 'Mournful the shepherd Aristaeus stood' for the significant section).

The sound of Vergil's 4th Gorgic in Latin must be wonderful, but the English translation is almost unreadable. Those with Latin can read him in the original at the Perseus site.

I read in EIEC, 'Fire in Water', that there is notice in Livy that is also pertinent, but I don't have the exact reference. It's the bit about Neptune and Lacus Albanas (the Alban Lake).

Also compare the scene in the Odyssey where Odysseus wrestles with Proteus, and what Circe has to say about it beforehand. Proteus does not actually turn into fire, even tho' it's predicted he will. This is another possible reflex, tho' a highly literary fragment of a fragment.

Rig Veda 2:35.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv02035.htm

Also:
RV 1:118.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv01186.htm
RV 10:30.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10030.htm

The Avestan reflexes:

Ardui Sur Bano Yasht (Hymn to the Waters), from verse 45; see especially verses 51-52.

http://www.avesta.org/ka/yt19sbe.htm

There are additional Avestan links mentioned by Louden, but I am having difficulty negotiating the site: Yast 2:9, Yasna 2:5, Yasna 70:6, Yast 13:95, Yast 8:34, Yast 19.

For a Germanic reflex, Polome and Mallory in EIEC ("Fire in Water") point to a possible mythical (but not lexical) cognate in Old Norse: "soevar nidhr 'son of the Sea', a kenning ... for 'fire'."

EIEC, in the same article, mentions a Celtic possiblity: that of Nechtan and his wife Boand (she gives her name to the Boyne River). Again, I lack an online reference, but someone else might have it.

Mark.