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DAYBKEAK. TWILIGHT. 747
Engl. break (as well as rush, blush) of day. Span. f
el alva
rompe. 0. Sp. apriessa cantan los gallos, e quieren quebrar
albores/ Cid 235. (
ya quiebran los albores, e vinie la mariana
460. trocida es la noche, ya quiebran los albores 3558. 0. Fr.
Faube crievej Een. 1186. f
3
ja estoit 1 aube crevee 1175. tantosfc
con Faube se creva 16057. Prov. can lalba fo crevada, Ferabr.
3977. This romper, quebrar, crevar (Lat. crepare) is the quiver
ing and quaking of the air that precedes sunrise, accompanied
by a perceptible chill j and crepusculum contains the same idea.
The Spaniard says also f el alva se rie, laughs ; and the Arab
the morning sneezes 3
(see Suppl.). 1
But here the notion of Twilight, and the oldest words by which
it is expressed, have to be examined more minutely.
The very first glimmer of dawn, or strictly that which precedes
it, the latter end of night, is expressed by the Goth, uhtvo
(evvvxov), Mk. 1, 35, OHG. ulita, or as N. spells it uohta, OS.
uhta, AS. uhte (most freq. on uhtan/ Csedm. 20, 26. 289, 31.
294, 2. Cod. exon. 443, 24. 459, 17. 460, 14. on uhtan mid
gerdeege/ Beow. 251), ON. otto, (Biorn says, from 3 to 6 a.m.).
The root has never been explained ; probably the Swiss Uchtland
and Westphalian Uchte may be named from nhta. Closely
Beow. 251.
bordering on it is the AS. cerdceg (primum tempus),
2623. 5880; ON. drdagi (conf. ardegis, mane) ; an OHGr. ertac or
ertago is unknown to me. Next comes the notion of diluculum,
ON. dagsbrun, dagsbiarmi, dagsbirta, from brun = ora, rnargo, as
if supercilium, and biarnii, birta = lux: but OHGr. tagarod, tagarot
(Graff 2, 486-7) ; AS. dcsgred, C^dm. 289, 27. 294, 4; MLG.
dagerat, En. 1408 ; M. Nethl. dagheraet (Huyd. op. St. 2, 496) :
a compound whose last syllable is not distinctly traceable to rob
(ruber), but is perhaps allied to the rodur, raftull (coelum) on
p. 699. The gender also wavers between masc. and fern. 2 We
catch glimpses of a mythic personality behind, for N. in Cap.
102 translates Leucothea (the white bright goddess, a Perahta)
by der tagerod and carries out the personification :
f
ube der
1 Kiickert s Hariri 1, 375. In the Novelas of Maria de Zayas 1, 3 is a song
oeginning : si se rie el alva, elsewhere she has quando el alva muestra su alegre
risa ; conf. p. 502 on laughter that shakes one. The Ital. fare ridere una botta
is an expressive phrase for shaking a cask so that it runs over.
2 Yet conf. OHG. morgan-rot, -roto, and -rota (Graff 2, 486) ; MHG. iifgender
morgenrot (is it morgen rot?), Walth. 4, 6 ; but daz morgenrot, Trist. 8285. 9462.