words so ending, whatever be their meaning; as hetra, whether signifying "join," "horse," or "tribute;" petra, "behold;" tra, "season." Another more obvious sense, "sacred," "divine," may be justified by the Greek text of the tablet of Canopus, where nutra is translated ἱερὸς, as applied to the sacred animals. But this meaning, though a certain one, occurs but seldom in the Egyptian texts, and when it so occurs is, after all, only a derived meaning, as is in fact the case with the Greek ἱερὸς, the first sense of which is "strong," "vigorous."[1] The notion expressed by nutar as a noun, and nutra as an adjective and verb, must be sought in the Coptic nomti, which in the translation of the Bible corresponds to the Greek words δύναμις, ἰσχύς, ἰσχυρὸς, ἰσχυρόω, "power," "force," "strong," "fortify," "protect."[2]
The reason why the identification of the old form nutar with the more recent nomti as well as nuti has
- ↑ Ἱερός corresponds to the Sanskrit ish-ira-s, vigorous, from ish, juice, strength. See Curtius, Zeitschr. für vergleichende Sprachforsehung, III. 154, and his "Griechische Etymologie," p. 372. Plutarch (Mor. 981 D) mentions this original physical sense of the word as maintained by certain persons, and the ὀστοῦν ἱερον, "os sacrum," is given as an example. Ἱερὰ νόσος, also called μεγάλη, is another striking instance. In the Homeric poems, this physical sense gives the true force to such expressions as Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον, ἱερὴν πόλιν Ἠετίωνος, ἱερῷ ἔνι δίφρῳ, ἱερὸν Ἀλκινόοιο, ἱερὴ ἲς Τηλεμάχοιο.
- ↑ The Alexandrians invented the barbarous word δυναμόω, which can always be used as a translation of the verb nutra.
