[22] _Poetry_, in Greek ποίησις, derived from the Phœnician פאה (_phohe_), mouth, voice, language, discourse; and from יש (_ish_), a superior being, a principle being, figuratively God. This last word, spread throughout Europe, is found with certain change of vowels and of aspirates, very common in the Oriental dialects; in the Etruscan Æs, _Æsar_, in the Gallic Æs, in the Basque _As_, and in the Scandinavian _Ase_; the Copts still say _Os_, the lord, and the Greeks have preserved it in Αἶσα, the immutable Being, Destiny, and in ἄζω, I adore, and ἀξιόω, I revere. _Thrace_, in Greek θρᾴκη, derived from the Phœnician רקיע (_rakiwha_), which signifies the _ethereal space_, or, as one translates the Hebrew word which corresponds to it, the _firmament_. This word is preceded in the Dorian θρακιᾴ, by the letter θ, _th_, a kind of article which the Oriental grammarians range among the _hémantique_ letters placed at the beginning of words to modify the sense, or to render it more emphatic. _Olen_, in Greek ὤλεν, is derived from the Phœnician עולן (_whôlon_), and is applied in the greater part of the Oriental dialects to all that which is infinite, eternal, universal, whether in time or space. I ought to mention as an interesting thing and but little known by mythologists, that it is from the word אפ (_ab_ or _ap_) joined to that of _whôlon_, that one formed _ap-whôlon_, Apollon; namely, the Father universal, infinite, eternal. This is why the invention of Poetry is attributed to Olen or to Apollo. It is the same mythological personage represented by the sun. According to an ancient tradition, Olen was native of Lycia, that is to say, of the light; for this is the meaning of the Greek word λύκη. [23] Strabo has judiciously observed that in Greece all the technical words were foreign. (_Voyez_ Bailly, _Essai sur les Fables_, ch. 14, p. 136.) [24] The Getæ, in Greek Γέται, were, according to Ælius Spartianus, and according to the author of _le Monde primitif_ (t. ix., p. 49), the same peoples as the Goths. Their country called Getæ, which should be pronounced _Ghœtie_, comes from the word _Goth_, which signifies God in most of the idioms of the north of Europe. The name of the Dacians is only a softening of that of the Thracians in a different dialect.