Indo-European linguistics and classical philology
V. P. Kazanskiene. A Tie between the Micro- and Macrocosmos: On the Etymology of Homeric βρότος (pp. 340–347)
Author
V. P. Kazanskiene (Saint Petersburg State University)
Keywords\n βρότον αἱματόεντα, Homer, etymology, isosemantic models, excretions of the human body, stagnant waters in Proto-Indo- European
Pages\n 340–347
Summary\n
Analysis of the four occurrences of the Homeric formula λούσασθαι (λούσῃ, λούσειαν, νίζοντες) ἄπο βρότον αἱματόεντα in the Iliad (Il. 7, 425; 14, 7; 18, 345; 23, 41) shows that it is used only in passages concerned with death on the battlefield. The word βρότος does not have a strong IE etymology, and the translation of the expression of βρότον αἱματόεντα as ‘clotted blood’ does not render adequately the sense of the noun. The paper argues that βρότος is connected with the PIE root *mer- used to designate slowly flowing or stagnant waters (or fluids). The semantic development from ‘stagnant waters or fluids’ to ‘blood oozing from the wound, gore’ is explained through the metaphoric association between nature and the human body (a similar isosemantic model is to be found in Baltic, Slavic and German languages). It is suggested that the reconstructed root *mer- is a cognate, not a homonym, of the well known PIE root *mer- ‘to die’.
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