TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

30 WORSHIP.
think, vita. From it is derived veita (Goth, vaitjan ?) ; veita heifir,
honorem peragere ; veita tiolr, sacra peragere ; veitsla, epulum,
Goth, vaitislo ? l
The Goth. Hda preces, lidjan precari, rogare, orare, are used
both in a secular and a spiritual sense. The same with OHG.
peta sm&pittan; but from peta is derived a petdn adorare, construed
with ace. of the person whom: O.i. 17, 62. ii. 14, 63. nidar-
fallan joh mill beton, 0. ii. 4,86-9. 97. iii. 11,25. T. 46, 2. 60,
1. petota inan, Diut. 1, 513 b . But
beton can also express a spiri
tual orare, T. 34, 1, 2, 3. Mo-man cultores, 0. II. 14, 68. In
MHG. I find beten always followed by the prep, an (see Suppl.) :
beten an diu abgot, Barl. 72, 4. an ein bilde beten, ibid. 98, 15.
so muoz si iemer me nach gote sin min anebet, she must after God
be my (object of) adoration, Ben. 146. Our bitten ask, beten pray,
anbeten adore, are distinct from one another, as bitte request is from
gebet prayer. The OS. beddn is not followed by ace., but by prep.
te : bedon te miimn barma, Hel. 33, 7. 8 ; and this of itself would
suggest what I conjectured in my Gramm. 2, 25, that bidjan origin
ally contained the physical notion of jacere, prosterni, which again
is the only explanation of Goth, badi K\W&IOV a bed, and also of
the old badu, AS. beado rr canles, strages. 2 The AS. New Test,
translates adorare by ge-edft-medan, i.e., to humble oneself. The
MHG. flehen, when it signifies supplicare, governs the dat. : gote
flehen, Aegid. 30. den goten vlehen, Parz. 21, 6. Wh. 126, 30.
Tiirl. Wh. 71 a
but in the sense of demulcere, solari, the ace., Parz.
;
3
119, 23. 421, 25. Nib. 499, 8 (see Suppl.). It is the Goth frldihan,
fovere, con solari. An OHG. flehon vovere I only know from N.
cap. 8, Bth. 178, and he spells it flehon: ten (ace. quern) wir flehoton.
We say zu gott flehenj but gott anflehen . The Goth.
aihtron irpocrev-^eadai, Trpoo-aireiv expresses begging rather than
asking or praying. The OHG. diccan, OS., thiggian,
is both
precari and impetrare, while AS. fricgan, ON., Mggja, is invariably
1
Bopp, Comp. grain, p. 128, identifies inveita with the Zend nivaedhayemi
invoco.
2 What was the physical meaning of the Slav, moliti rogare, molitise orare,
Boh. modliti se, Pol. modlid si^ ] The Sloven, moliti still means porrigcTc,
conf. Lith. meldziu rogo, inf. melsti, and malda oratio. Pruss. madia, conf.
Goth. ma]?ljan loqui, ma]?leins loquela, which is next door to oratio.
3 Iw. 3315 vlegete got ; but in the oldest MS. vlehete gote.