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_ = μῶλυ, the mysterious Homerik
counter-charm to the charms of Kirkê' (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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