BBBH : /Or- EPEA PTEKOENTA: CONVEYING REVELATIONS OF THE PAST. BY N. L, BENMOHEL, A.M., T.C.D., 1847 AUTHOR OF BYTHNER'S LYRE OF DAVID, ; ARAEESHEE MAHFIL, FROM THE HINDOOSTANEE J AND STRICTURES ON MOSHEIM'S MIDDLE AGES. ' B)r Sbfjne Cent's ! erfccnnet cure J9ie CBrben tier nsttrblic^fecit In Kusem 33itft ! It. jftJliicijler, 'Sn Kie Ututsctyen. La contention des esprits a tire la verite du fond des abimes. L'AcADEMiE FK., Sur fc Cid. DUBLIN : for \ |rintt& AT THE UNIVEESITY PRESS, BY M. H. GILL. 1860. StacR Annex INTRODUCTION. " EVERYTHING in ethnology is a balance between conflicting difficulties, and I can only hope that I have approached a full and complete exhibition of the ethnology of ancient Ger- many" (Germ. 1851, p. iv.). If the early founders of the three great and leading states, Deutschl&nd, England, and France, be not sufficiently recognised in that exhibition, it may be permitted to attempt, by way of supplement, an ap- proach to greater fulness and completion. If the learned author had been aware that Tacitus mentions the Jutes along with the Angli, he would have been more positive about the latter, and less against the former; if he had cultivated a nearer acquaintance with the Franks, he might have discovered in them the mysterious Cimbri Teutones, instead of declaring these, in 1844, to be Gauls; in 1851 "a greater mystery than " ever" last if one of the two (Germania, page) ; populations must be Gothic, the claim is the strongest for the Cimbri so is the utterly worthless the argument from word Deutsch" (ib., " a p. 135). Again, in 1857, the Teutones, population of which we find no definite trace afterwards" (Celt. Nations, to p. 142), and the Cimbri "more likely have been Kelts than Germans, and quite as likely to have been Slavonians as Kelts" " I (ib.) think that the Cimbri were Slavonians. That they had as little to do with the Cimbric Chersonese as the Teutones had with Dutch, I am sure" (ib. p. 151). Nineteen hundred and sixty years have elapsed since Teu- tones and Cimbri appear together in action; two centuries later, we read in detail the glorious deeds of the Cimbri, and that are victi finally they triumphati magis quam (Germ. 37) ; in the above quotations they appear simulati magis quam victi, but a real victory must ensue when the simulation shall be proved to consist in the fact that Cimbri is translated by Franks, whose second name Teutones radically remains the in the ninth the latter becomes the same ; thus, century, parent 2111130 of the former of Otfrid's as the same and deutsch, frenkisg ; whilst teutonic and deutsch are likewise the same, both in root and meaning, the immediate origin of the two is differently modified by time and circumstances. Dissertations, accumulated for the last three centuries on the origin of deutsch or teutsch, have their cause in justifying the orthographical choice in- cumbent on each author; the Deutsche Grammatik, 1840, thus " decides for the D : Wer den namen unsers volks mit T schreibt, siindet wider den sprachgeist" (Gr., p. 28-9). This be admitted but a sacred than the said might ; spirit more sprachgeist is seriously offended at the Excurs iiber Deutsch, which exposes its ingenious author to forty errors for the pur- of : pose mainly establishing two firstly, that the same diot, a people, which in the fourth century produces piudisko, heathenish, is the origin, whence, in the ninth, we obtain that national that the itself has an in- name ; secondly, root deut herent, though as yet mysterious, power of alluding to the German people and language. These two great sins wider den sprachgeist have been reiterated in the 2nd vol. of Deutsches Wb'rterbuch, 1860; the first, that deutsch comes from diot, a . people, thus, col. 1144, "Diet, &c., volk, gens, &c. das adj. " diutisch gehort dazu;" col. 1043, da es von diet, goth, piuda, ahd. diota wie I 3 so diot, abstammt, Gramm. , 14, gezeigt ist, bedeutet es urspriinglich gentilis, popularis, vulgaris; im gothischen heiszt piudisko WVIKUG ;" the second, that the mere root contains an occult'power of alluding to Germanic nation- " col. da aber ze diute in der redensart ality ; thus, 1038, Ze diute sagen reden (Ben. i. 327) nicht blosz deutlich sondern haufig zu deutsch heiszt, zumal im gegensatz zu der lat. kirchensprache, so wird man auf einen zusammenhang mit dem goth. piuda, ahd. diota, diot geleitet, und deuten ware so viel als dem volk, den Deutschen, verstdndlich machen." The conjecture proposed by Dr. Heinrich Leo in Jahrb. f. wissen. Kritik, 1827, limits the original deutsch to the idea of heathenish, and thus, not interfering with the cognation to which the pretended piuda might belong, remains lucid, simple, and comparatively harmless, whereas the said bipartite system, holding the verdunkelte wurzel (Gr., p. 19) re- sponsible for the power with which it invests an old Teuto (ib., p. 17, 20) to beget progeny of a family-likeness peculiarly Germanic, combines a strangely perplexed mysteriousness with those dangerous results briefly repeated in a national work, as if truly matured, after twenty years' deliberation, by a writer so universally and deservedly accredited as Jacob Grimm; but, instead of thus extinguishing a dim light of tradition by a still more obscure of reflection, we shall en- deavour to improve the former by collecting its genuine rays of incidence with those of clear reflection, and thus exhibit, through the dense clouds of a distant horizon, a certain trans- mitted dawn as the true harbinger of day, truly Lucifer, such as the poet of Paradise sees the latter emerge, Last in the train of night, Sure pledge of day. Descend, then, O Muse, who dwellest sublime in adamantine Epea Pteroenta, the work of all-encompassing Chronos, and thus inaccessible to mortal unassisted; descend to illumine these inveterate pages, dedicated to thee and Clio divine, whose interpreter thou art; vouchsafe, even here in the fore- hall of thy unerring shrine, to declare unto the nations, jahan geer, jahan afroz, those who now conquer and enlighten the world, where, and who, are they, when rude prowess is yet their greatest excellence, and proud neighbours call them barbarians ? To this and appertaining inquiries deliver due responses, in number and order the following seven : I. May the three sons of Mannus represent the triad of Angle, Saxon, and Jute, and these be identified with the three super- albian tribes mentioned by Pomponius Mela ? " Of Mannus and his, the Germania says: Manno tres filios adsignant, e quorum nominibus proximi Oceano In- gasvones, medii Hermiones, ceteri Istajvones vocentur." The " statement by Mela is the following: Super Albim Codanus, &c. In eo sunt et Teutoni ingens sinus, Cimbri ; ultra, ultimi Germanise Hermiones." Pliny applies the name Cimbri to the Angles, and the identification of the double triad with the sons of Mannus will be the following:O 1. Ingsevones. Cimbri. Angli. The meaning of Cimbri is borderers, and suits the situation of the Angles between river and sea, like the aTevoiropa fiuOpa (Iphig. 81), formed by the Euripus with the adjoining sea. From thus living errevwe, stinted, in angustia, in der Enge, we may derive the first root of Ingaevones, in agreement with Angli. 2. Istaevones. Teutoni. Saxons. Compounds of Is = teu = sac = water, and von = ton = son = dwell; also ton = ?on = low and = land occur alike teut = ton = tan = = ; similarly land low = settle. 3. Hermiones. Better often Herminones, so that on is the von of the preceding two, to which pair the Her-min is op- posed in implying elevation, although this might consist in artificial mound as well as natural mount, hill. Hermin then becomes German, identified in passages like Or-tan-i qui et German! since or = elevation = = border ; beginning (or =initium, Gr., p. 338), and tan, as just mentioned; German! is also ren- dered Tungri, contracted for Tun-ger-i, the tun being the said tan. The peninsular situation of the Jutes procured them = the name RerSgoths, compound of gota aqua, and rrS, clivus or (Gr., p. 433), else, raus, arundo (ib., p. 99), whence reed and rush. The Sanscrit dandaka means peninsula (of India) from danda, stick, rod, &c. ; Cher-son of South Russia, and Cher-son-es-us, show the Her, Ger, under consideration, and the son mentioned at Istaevones, of which the Is agrees with es in Cherson-es-us. II. Besides the above triad, there are four specified in a differ- ent tradition, who are meant by these ? Quidam. autern licentia vetustatis, plures deo ortos, plures- que gentis appellationes, Marsos, Gambrivios, Suevos, Vanda- lios adtirmant: eaque vera et antiqua nomina (Germ., 2). Of Suevi Tacitus has two; hence the quaternion will con- sist of the following five: 1. Marsi in old mar- ; originates Mar-is, Mar-ais, English ish; Terra in universum paludibus faeda (Germ., 5). 2. Gam-brivii ; Borderers of the low-lands. These are the Cimbri of Germ. 37. 3. Suevi 38 treats of these. The root sue = = ; gam border. 4. 9 et Isidi sacrificat. Suevi ; pars Suevorum They are the Visigoths of the Baltic. = 5. Vandalii; the Ostro-goths of the Danube. Van=goth water, and al = ostro = island in a river. III. How can Pliny's Germanorum genera quinque be recon- ciled with those ethnologic traditions by Tacitus ? The agree- ment will be as follows : 1. "Vindili; quorum pars Burgundiones: Varini, Carini, Guttones." the last mentioned the Bur- Vindili are Visigoths, Suevi ; Ermeland. The re- gundiones, afterwards Armalausi, now maining three correspond to Marienwerder, Courland, Esth- land, or Esthonia. 2. " Teuton! ac Chau- Ingsevones ; quorum pars Cirabri, corurn gentes." According to the above definition of Ing, and as every Angle is a Saxon, both, as also Marsi and Chauci, may come under the one term.