[Footnote 19: Bloomfield, JAOS xv. p. 144.] [Footnote 20: Compare Barth (Preface): "A literature preeminently sacerdotal.... The poetry ... of a singularly refined character, ... full of ... pretensions to mysticism," etc.] [Footnote 21: _Iran und Turan_, 1889; _Vom Pontus bis zum Indus_, 1890; _Vom Aral bis zur Gang[=a]_ 1892.] [Footnote 22: Or "all-possessing" [Whitney]. The metre of the translation retains the number of feet in the original. Four [later added] stanzas are here omitted.] [Footnote 23: So P.W. possibly "by reason of [the sun's] rays"; _i.e._, the stars fear the sun as thieves fear light. For 'Heaven,' here and below, see the third chapter.] [Footnote 24: Yoked only by him; literally "self-yoked." Seven is used in the Rig Veda in the general sense of "many," as in Shakespeare's "a vile thief this seven years."] [Footnote 25: _jet[=a]ram [=a]par[=a]jitam_.] [Footnote 26: The rain, see next note.] [Footnote 27: After this stanza two interpolated stanzas are here omitted. Grassman and Ludwig give the epithet "fearless" to the gods and to Vala, respectively. But compare I.6.7, where the same word is used of Indra. For the oft-mentioned act of cleaving the cave, where the dragon Val or Vritra (the restrainer or envelopper) had coralled the kine(i.e. without metaphor, for the act of freeing the clouds and letting loose the rain), compare I.32.2, where of Indra it is said: "He slew the snake that lay upon the mountains ... like bellowing kine the waters, swiftly flowing, descended to the sea"; and verse 11: "Watched by the snake the waters stood ... the waters' covered cave he opened wide, what time he Vritra slew."] [Footnote 28: Aryan, Sanskrit _aryà, árya_, Avestan _airya_, appears to mean the loyal or the good, and may be the original national designation, just as the Medes were long called [Greek: _Arioi_]. In late Sanskrit _[=a]rya_ is simply 'noble.' The word survives, perhaps, in [Greek: _aristos_], and is found in proper names, Persian Ariobarzanes, Teutonic Ariovistus; as well as in the names of people and countries, Vedic [=A]ryas, [=I]ran, Iranian; (doubtful) Airem, Erin, Ireland. Compare Zimmer, BB. iii. p. 137; Kaegi, _Der Rig Veda_, p. 144 (Arrowsmith's translation, p. 109). In the Rig Veda there is a god Aryaman, 'the true,' who forms with Mitra and Varuna a triad (see below). Windisch questions the propriety of identifying [=I]ran with Erin, and Schrader (p. 584^2) doubts whether the Indo-Europeans as a body ever called themselves Aryans. We employ the latter name because it is short.] * * * * * CHAPTER II. PEOPLE AND LAND.