I.D. Greeks 0021

"Having finished chapter 11, "Most ancient Indo-Europeans," in Calvert Watkins, HOW TO KILL A DRAGON, Oxford, 1995, pp. 135-151, let me see if I can communicate a factual instance of what I have been saying about memory in language.

"1. Hittite ritual and the antecedents of drama"

Watkins is talking about Greek tragedy and Homer in relation to Hittite, Luvian (a dialect of Hittite), and Old Vedic (RIG VEDA). He is disjoining the origin of Greek tragedy from the typical view that it mainly arose "in the contemporary framework of the polis religion and of active Dionysiac cult. He is supported in this effort by Albert Heinrichs. The essential point of all of this, regarding "Art of Memory," is that this is a precise description of how mnemotechnics are literally preserved in language by literary, usually poetic, formulas. These mnemonics specifically and literally will show the very fundaments of thought in the Indo-European world view. Though Watkins is leaving the main effort of proving a direct connection between the Hittites and Greek drama to a forthcoming (1995) work by Heinrichs, Watkin's

aim is much simpler. I find the evolutionist ritual model (tragedy as sacrifice) of Burkert 1966 oversimplified and overstated, as in the concluding line 'Human existence face to face with death-that is the kernel of tragoidia (pg. 121), but I do find myself in sympathy with the arguments advanced by Seaford 1984, in the introduction to his edition of the only satyr-play we have preserved more or less intact, Euripides' Cyclops, particularly his straightforward conclusion (pg, 14) that 'the unfashionable view that the performance of tragedy originated in the practice of ritual is thereby confirmed.' I would only substitute 'has its antecedents' for 'originated.' Pp. 135-6

A substantial number of rituals have been preserved in Hittite and Luvian.

The purpose is to assure the correct and flawless regular re-performance of the ritual . . . The result is we are far better informed about 2nd-millenium Anatolian ritual than about any other Indo-European culture of the period, and indeed better than Greece in the 5th century and earlier.

Watkins wants

to call to the attention of Hellenists certain manifestations within Hittite and Anatolian rituals which show clear and striking affinities to what we think of as drama . . . to the possible but unattested antecedents of Greek drama in ritual . . . the Hittite and Luvian rituals in question are more than a thousand years earlier than 5th century Athens . . . Anatolian-speaking and Greek speaking cultures were geographically contiguous and certainly in contact at this early period, and that the worship of Dionysos is attested in second-millennium Mycenean Greek documents. (136)

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They make the fountain of the Storm God. "How is the fountain made?"

It is made with copper, it is plastered with gypsum, it is

Coated with iron. The mother of the Storm God came down

For the second time, and she sat down on it. For the

Storm God she is his mother, but for the Labarna she is

His binding. The spell of the pebbles is finshed,

The quotation marks in the question . . . translate the particle =wa of direct, quoted speech . . . the question and answer is apparent, as is the hymnic, dithyrambic choral character of the benediction. The action of the Storm God's mother sitting on the fountain recalls the epithet sadadyoni- of Agni (RIG VEDA 5.43,12) and the verb phrase yonim sad- 'sit on the seat' of Agni, Mitra-Varuna, and other Vedic deities . . .

The most striking in dramatic character of the spells . . . Here an almost stichomythic riddling dialogue leads directly into a veritable hymnic chorale. The dialogue exchange is formally marked by the particle =wa of quoted speech. The text follows:

Has nu kuez uwasi suppaz=wa uwami

Nu=wa kuez suppayaz zahanittennaz=wa

Nu=wa kuez zahanittennaz DUTU-was=wa E-az

Nu=wa kuez DUTU-az esri=set=wa GIBIL-an GAB-SU GIBIL

[SAG]-ZU=wa GIBIL-an LU-tar=set=wa newan.

_____________________________

[KA x U]DHI. A-SU-wa SA UR. MAH IG[IHI. A-SU-wa h]aranas

[nu=wa h]aranili sa<kui[skizzi

_____________________________

"Open !"

"Whence comest thou?"

"From the Holy."

"From what Holy?"

"From the zahanittenna."

"From what zahanittenna?"

"From the house of the Sun-God."

"From what Sun-God?"

"His form is new, his breast is new,

his head is new, his manhood is new."

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"His teeth are those of a lion; his eyes are those of an eagle;

he sees like and eagle."

The initial imperative 'open!' provides a dramatic frame to begin the dialogue, a device that is still with us today from doorkeeper scenes to knock-knock jokes. This is its first appearance in the Indo-European speaking world . . . the dialogue part involves two speakers, and the 'Old Woman' (SALSU. GI) familiar from countless Hittite rituals. The "choral" part is separated by a paragraph line, and carries no indication of speakers or singers . . .

The chamberlain says,"Open!"

The old Woman says, "Whence come ye?"

As follows the chamberlain: "We come from the Holy Place."

As follows the Old Woman: "From what Holy Place?"

As follows the chamberlain: "From the zahanettenna."

As follows the Old Woman: "From what zahanettenna?"

As follows the chamberlain: "From the house of the Sun-God."

As follows the Old Woman: "How is he, the Sun-God?"

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"His form is new, his breast is new, his manhood is new.

His head is iron, his teeth are those of a lion, his eyes

Are those of an eagle, and he sees like an eagle. <All that of

His in the spell, moreover, is new."

The text clearly describes the performance of a ritual dialogue by the palace personnel . . .

The implication is clear: by the 17th century BC we have unambiguous evidence for the incorporation of self-contained episodes of dramatic dialogue into the performance of ritual in Hittite Anatolia. The seeds of drama are there./ In just the same way Levi 1890:301f. could point to the seeds of Indian drama already in the dialogue hymns of the Rigveda. As he noted, the number of speakers is never more than three, and frequently a collective personage, a sort of chorus, functions as a character. Thus the dialogue of Indra, Agastya, and the (spokesman for the) Maruts, Sarama and the (spokesman for the) Panis, just as we saw in Hittite the King, the chief of the bodyguards, and the (spokesman for the) men of Tissaruliya. And the different versions of the Hittite question-and-answer series, climaxing in the question 'How is the Sun-God?/What Sun-God?' which elicits the choral hymn definition of the deity, find an exact counterpart in the dialogue of the divine bitch Sarama and the Panis, RIG VEDA 10.108. I cite the first one or two padas of the first four verses:

kím icchánti saráma prédám anat

The Pani: In search of what did Sarama come here

Índrasya dutír isitá carami

Mahá icchánti panayo nidhín vah

Sarama: Sent as Indra's messenger I come

in seach of your great treasures, o Panis.

Kidrnn índrah sarame ká drsika

Yásyedám dutír ásarah parakát

The Pani: What is Indra like, o Sarama, what is his appearance,

As whose messenger you have come from afar?

nahám tám veda dábhyam dábhat sá

yásyedám dutír ásaram parakát

Sarama: I do not know him as one to be deceived; he deceives, 18

As whose messenger I have come from afar[1]

In India as well as Anatolia dramatic dialogue in ritual hymnic poetry is already fully developed and skillfully deployed by the middle of the 2nd millennium B. C. Had we such texts from Crete, Mycenae, or Athens from the same period it is not unlikely that they would exhibit the same phenomenon.

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[1] 8 The reciprocal figure is a variant of 'the slayer slain' formula defining the hero or the divinity . . . RV 8.84.9 nákir yám ghnánti hánti yáh 'whom none slay, who slays.'