Folklore; Manners and customs; Mythology; Religion
Here, then, are proofs enough that rue was magical outside of Cappadocia.
But this is not an argument on Mr. Brown's lines. The Cappadocians
called rue 'moly'; what language, he asks, was spoken by the
Cappadocians? Prof. Sayce (who knows so many tongues) says that 'we know
next to nothing of the language of the Cappadocians, or of the Moschi who
lived in the same locality.' But where Prof. Sayce is, the Hittites, if
we may say so respectfully, are not very far off. In this case he thinks
the Moschi (though he admits we know next to nothing about it) 'seem to
have spoken a language allied to that of the Cappadocians and Hittites.'
That is to say, it is not impossible that the language of the Moschi,
about which next to nothing is known, may have been allied to that of the
Cappadocians, about which we know next to nothing. All that we do know
in this case is, that four hundred years after Christ the dwellers in
Cappadocia employed a word 'moly,' which had been Greek for at least
twelve hundred years. But Mr. Brown goes on to quote that one of the
languages of which we know next to nothing, Hittite, was 'probably allied
to Proto-Armenian, and perhaps Lykian, and was above all not Semitic.' In
any case 'the cuneiform mode of writing was used in Cappadocia at an
early period.' As even Professor Sayce declines to give more than a
tentative reading of a Cappadocian cuneiform inscription, it seems highly
rash to seek in this direction for an interpretation of a Homeric word
'moly,' used in Cappadocia very many centuries after the tablets were
scratched. But, on the evidence of the Babylonian character of the
cuneiform writing on Cappadocian tablets, Mr. Brown establishes a
connection between the people of Accadia (who probably introduced the
cuneiform style) and the people of Cappadocia. The connection amounts to
this. Twelve hundred years after Homer, the inhabitants of Cappadocia
are said to have called rue 'moly.' At some unknown period, the
Accadians appear to have influenced the art of writing in Cappadocia.
Apparently Mr. Brown thinks it not too rash to infer that the Cappadocian
use of the word 'moly' is not derived from the Greeks, but from the
Accadians. Now in Accadian, according to Mr. Brown, mul means 'star.'
'Hence ulu or mulu = [Greek], the mysterious Homerik counter-charm to the
charms of Kirke' (p. 60). Mr. Brown's theory, therefore, is that moly
originally meant 'star.' Circe is the moon, Odysseus is the sun, and
'what _watches over_ the solar hero at night when exposed to the hostile
lunar power, but the stars?' especially the dog-star.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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