Chips from a German Workshop: Essays on mythology, traditions, and customsC. Scribner's Sons, 1869 - Comparative linguistics |
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Common terms and phrases
admit Agni ancient Arabs Aryan nations Aryan race Astyages believe Brahmans bright brother Brynhild called caste century character child Chimæra color common comparative custom dark Dasent daughter dawn derived dialects discover divine doubt earth Edda Endymion English Eros etymology Europe explain expression fables father German gods Gothic Greece Greek mythology Grimm guage heaven Herakles heroes Hesiod Hindus Homer human husband hymns Iceland idea India Indra Kephalos king Kshatriyas language Latin legends Manu meaning Miletos mind modern mother myth nature never night Norsemen originally passage poet popular priests Prokris proved Purânas Purûravas religion Rig-veda Roman root sacred Sanskrit sense Slavonic Sokrates solar Soma stories Sûdra tell Teutonic thou thought tion told traces traditions translated tribes Tylor Uhlakanyana Urvasî Vaisyas Varuna Vasishtha Veda Vedic verb Vritra Welcker words Zeus Zulus
Popular passages
Page 304 - Varuna, that thou wishest to destroy thy friend, who always praises thee? Tell me, thou unconquerable lord, and I will quickly turn to thee with praise, freed from sin. 5. Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and from those which we committed with our own bodies.
Page 54 - Heard YE that Whistle ? As her long-linked Train Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view ! Yes, ye were startled ; — and, in balance true, Weighing the mischief with the promised gain, Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you To share the passion of a just disdain.
Page 5 - In whatever language it may be written, every line, every word, is welcome, that bears the impress of the early days of mankind. In our museums we collect the rude playthings of our hero's boyhood, and we try to guess from their colossal features the thoughts of the mind which they once reflected. Many things are still unintelligible to us, and the hieroglyphic language of antiquity records but half of the mind's half-unconscious intentions. Yet more and more the image of man, in whatever clime we...
Page 136 - Mythology is only a dialect, an ancient form of language. Mythology, though chiefly concerned with nature, and here again mostly with those manifestations which bear the character of law, order, power, and wisdom impressed on them, was applicable to all things. Nothing is excluded from mythological expression; neither morals nor philosophy, neither history nor religion, have escaped the spell of that ancient sibyl. But mythology is neither philosophy, nor history, nor religion, nor ethics. It is...
Page 103 - So on the floor lay Balder dead ; and round Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears, Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove ; But in his breast stood fixt the fatal bough Of mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gave To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw — 'Gainst that alone had Balder's life no charm.
Page 304 - Wise and mighty are the works of him who stemmed asunder the wide firmaments (heaven and earth). He lifted on high the bright and glorious heaven ; he stretched out apart the starry sky and the earth.
Page 85 - the mothers weave for their bright son,' — the clouds which rise from the waters and surround the sun like a dark raiment. Herakles tries to tear it off; his fierce splendour breaks through the thickening gloom, but fiery mists embrace him, and are mingled with the parting rays of the sun, and the dying hero is seen through the scattered clouds of the sky, tearing his own body to pieces, till at last his bright form is consumed in a general conflagration...
Page 37 - It will show that all the Aryan nations had led a long life of peace before they separated, and that their language acquired individuality and nationality as each colony started in search of new homes — new generations forming new terms connected with the warlike and adventurous life of their onward migrations. Hence it is that not only Greek and Latin, but all Aryan languages have their peaceful words in common ; and hence it is that they all differ so strangely in their warlike expressions. Thus...
Page 8 - Was there a period of temporary insanity, through which the human mind had to pass, and was it a madness identically the same in the south of India and in the north of Iceland ? It is impossible to believe that a people who, in the very infancy of thought, produced men like Thales, Herakleitos, and Pythagoras, should have consisted of idle talkers but a few centuries before the time of these sages. Even if we take only that part of mythology which refers to religion, in our sense of the word, or...
Page 122 - Orpheus is the same word as the Sanskrit "_Ribhu " or " Arbhu," which, though it is best known as the name of the three .Ribhus, was used in the Veda as an epithet of Indra, and a name of the sun.