called Olen.[1] Now these are again two symbolic names perfectly adapted to the idea that one had of this divine science: it was descended from Thrace, that is to say, from the Ethereal Space; it was Olen who had invented it, that is to say, the Universal Being.[2] To understand these three etymologies which can be regarded as the fundamental points of the history of poetry, it is necessary to remember, first, that the Phœnicians, at the epoch when they covered not only Greece but the coasts of the rest of Europe with their colonies, brought there their language, and gave their names to the countries of which they had taken possession; secondly, that these names drawn almost always from objects symbolic of their cult, constituted for these countries a sort of sacred geography, which Greece above all others, was faithful in preserving.[3] It was thus (for there is nothing,
- ↑ Bailly, Essai sur les Fables, ch. 14. Pausanias, l. ix., p. 302.
- ↑ Poetry, in Greek ποίησις derived from the Phœnician פאח (phohe), mouth, voice, language, discourse; and from יש (ish), a superior being, a principle being, figuratively God. This last word, spread throughout Europe, is found with certain change of vowels and of aspirates, very common in the Oriental dialects; in the Etruscan Æs, Æsar, in the Gallic Æs, in the Basque As, and in the Scandinavian Ase; the Copts still say Os, the lord, and the Greeks have preserved it in Αῖσα, the immutable Being, Destiny, and in ἄζω, I adore, and ἀξιόω, I revere. Thrace, in Greek θρᾴκη, derived from the Phœnician רקיע (rakiwha), which signifies the ethereal space, or, as one translates the Hebrew word which corresponds to it, the firmament. This word is preceded in the Dorian θρακιᾴ, by the letter θ, th, a kind of article which the Oriental grammarians range among the hémantique letters placed at the beginning of words to modify the sense, or to render it more emphatic. Olen, in Greek ὄλεν, is derived from the Phœnician עולנ (whôlon), and is applied in the greater part of the Oriental dialects to all that which is infinite, eternal, universal, whether in time or space. I ought to mention as an interesting thing and but little known by mythologists, that it is from the word אבּ (ab or ap) joined to that of whôlon, that one formed ap-whôlon, Apollon: namely, the Father universal, infinite, eternal. This is why the invention of Poetry is attributed to Olen or to Apollo. It is the same mythological personage represented by the sun. According to an ancient tradition, Olen was native of Lycia, that is to say, of the light; for this is the meaning of the Greek word λύκη.
- ↑ Strabo has judiciously observed that in Greece all the technical words were foreign. (Voyez Bailly, Essai sur les Fables, ch. 14, p. 136.)
