Читать книгу Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals онлайн

177 страница из 204

The version of the formula which I have given is only one out of several which have been recorded from various parts of Greece[294], and there can be no doubt that the original was a widely-esteemed incantation. I have given the most intelligible; but the mere fact that some of the others, through verbal corruption in the course of tradition, have become almost meaningless, is strong proof of the antiquity of the original. There are however two clear marks of antiquity in the version before us. The mention of Olympus as the abode of deities carries us back at once to the classical age; and the word κόλυμβος in the sense of ‘summit’ is no less suggestive of a very early date. The ancient word κόρυμβος, used in this sense by Aeschylus[295] and by Herodotus[296], is obsolete now in the spoken language. But κόλυμβος is evidently either a dialectic form of it (with the common interchange of λ and ρ) or else a corrupt form, not understood by those who continued to use it in this incantation, and assimilated, by way of assonance, to Ὄλυμπος. Further one of the other versions gives the word as κόρυβο[297], where the original ρ is retained but the μ lost before β, which now universally has the sound of the English v. A comparison of the two forms therefore establishes beyond question the fact that the somewhat rare classical word κόρυμβος, in its known meaning of ‘summit,’ was the original form. Hence the incantation, containing both a mention of Olympus as the seat of deities and an old classical word long since disused, cannot but date from very early times. Possibly therefore the belief in subordinate Fates, attached each to one human being, was known to the common-folk of the classical age.