II

The epithets bestowed upon Athena for her manifold qualities and functions were easily understood, with the exception of one that has been, and is to this day, a riddle to ancient and modern etymologists This unintelligible epithet is met with in the oldest poets. Homer calls Athena Dioz qug'athr cudisth Tritogeneia (daughter of Zeus, terrible Tritogenea) – Hesiod (Theogony 895) gives her the same epithet, which recurs in the Orphic hymns. (xxxi, 3.) Athens had a war dance in honour of the goddess called Tritogeneia.

The early Greek poets were wont to incorporate with their verses, words and entire sentences that were, traditional and bore a sacred meaning. Clemens Alexandrinus tells us that “Homer had taken much from the Thracian poets, and embodied it in his work.” Van Lennep does not accuse Hesiod of plagiarism when he finds him reproducing Homer, but observes, that probably both poets follow a common and earlier version. It is for the same reason that Æschylus is so rich in old legends and archaic forms of language.

When tradition had crystallized a story, the poet was bound to reproduce it faithfully. Herodotus (vii., 6) informs us that Onomacritus vats banished by Flipparchus for having made an interpolation in a passage from Musæus, a sacred poet. In Iceland, not so very long hack, it was held a grave offence to public morality to modify a saga or “ to recount it untruthfully.”

If in Homer and in Hesiod so inexplicable and singular an epithet as Tritogeneia recurs persistently, the inference is that the word is not an indifferent one, employed solely for the sake of the verse, but that it belonged to a popular tradition, and dad an importantand intelligible meaning. That the significance of this did not escape the Greeks, is proved by the contradictory explanations given to the word Tritogeneia.

The word Tritogeneia, if we apply the ordinary rules of etymology to it, is simple enough; it signifies thrice-born, at first sight a meaningless epithet. There are many words in the Greek language constructed in a similar way: tritosporos, of the third generation; tritostates, placed in the third rank; tritonenis, third day of the month, etc., and tritogeneia, triad, ternary number of the Pythagorean doctrine. But those who ignored the primitive meaning of the epithet given to Athena could not admit the absurdity of the ordinary etymology: some affirmed that it was derived from Tritonis, a. Bœotian river, because Athena was said to have been born on its banks; others derived it from an ancient Œolic, Cretan, or Bœotian word, tritw, head, because she had sprung from the head of Zeus in Olympus. Homer, Hesiod, and Æschylus, though they call Athena the daughter of Zeus, make no mention of the manner of her birth. The tradition which makes her jump out of the head of Zeus, split open by Hephæstios, seems to be posterior to Homer. Later on, the poets, improving on the original story, said that she stood in a war chariot on springing from the head of the father of gods and men. But Hesiod tells the story in a different way. Here is a literal translation of the passage: “And Zeus, King of Gods, made Metis first his wife ... When she was about to give birth to Athena, owl-eyed goddess, having by deceit beguiled her mind with flattering words, he hid her within his own belly.” In fact his pregnancy manifested itself in the ordinary way and not in the swelling of the head or thigh as in the case of Dionysius. Thus, when Homer and Hesiod use the won Tritogeneia, it cannot mean, sprung from the head. Diodorus Siculus, not satisfied with the etymological explanation, gives a meteorological one. “The Egyptians called the air Athena, whom they believed to be the daughter of Zeus and always a virgin, because the air is incorruptible and reaches the summit of the universe, for Athena had issued from the head of Zeus. She is also called Tritogeneia, from the three changes experienced by nature in the three seasons of the year – spring, summer, and winter. She bears the name of glaucopis, not because her eyes are blue, as certain among the Greeks believed, but because the immensity of the atmosphere has a blueish tint. (i, 12) The reading of the Vedas has not helped the modern mythologist to anything particularly new.

Let us see if it be possible to recover the lost meaning of Tritogeneia, ter-renata, thrice-born.