Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

WOELD-TEEE. 799
Hereupon is founded a rebuke of man s levity, who in the ut
most stress of danger cannot withstand the temptation of a small
enjoyment. Well, this fable not only was early and extensively
circulated by Hebrew, Latin and Greek translations of the entire
book/ but also found its way into other channels. John
Damascenus (circ. 740) inserted it in his Bap\da/j, KOI Ia>acra(/>,
which soon became universally known through a Latin repro
duction. 3 On the model of it our Rudolf composed his Barlaam
and Josaphat, where the illustration is to be found, p. 116-7;
in a detached form, Strieker (Ls. 1, 253). No doubt a parable
so popular might also reach Scandinavia very early in the Mid.
Ages, if only the similarity itself were stronger, so as to justify
the inference of an immediate connexion between the two myths.
To me the faint resemblance of the two seems just the main
point ; a close one has never existed. The ON. fable is far more
significant and profound; that from the East is a fragment,
probably distorted, of a whole now lost to us. Even the main
idea of the world- tree is all but wanting to it ; the only startling
thing is the agreement in sundry accessories, the trickling honey
(conf. p. 793 n.), the gnawed root, the four species of animals.
But if there be any truth in these concords of the Eddie myth
with old Eastern tenets, as well as with the way the Christians
tried to add portions of their heathen faith to the doctrine of the
Cross; then I take a further step. It seems to me that the
notion, so deeply rooted in Teutonic antiquity, of the Irminsid,
that altissima, universalis columna, quasi sustinens omnia (p.
115-7), is likewise nearly allied to the world-tree Yggdrasil.
this extended its roots and boughs in three directions (standa a
]?ria vega), so did three or four great highways
2
As
branch out from
the Irminsul (pp. 356. 361) ; and the farther we explore, the
richer in results will the connexion of these heathen ideas prove.
The pillars of Hercules (p. 364), of Bavo in Hainault, and the
Thor and Roland pillars (p. 394) may have had no other purpose
than to mark out from them as centre the celestial and terrestrial
direction of the regions of the world ; and the sacred Yggdrasil
1 Also in the East, conf. Jelaleddin s Divan in Hammer s Pers. redek. p. 183.
2 First publ. in Boissonade s Anecd. Graeca, torn. 4, Paris 1882, pp. 1365.
3 Hist, duorum Christi militum (Opera, Basil. 1575. pp. 815902) ; also printed
separately, Antv. s.a. (the illustration at p. 107) ; another version in tfurius 7, 58
seq., the parable at p. 889.