Zend Avesta Part 03

Author(s): L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford

Page 46

INTRODUCTIONEESE LIERA DI xliii
τNIVE: ΣΤΥ And should the acknowledged difficulty of the chalacter continue to be a reason for avoiding ett efforts to make it out?
In the endeavour to divide our Avesta texts into originals and gloss, we are greatly aided by the metre. Interpolated words and phrases are often obvious at a glance, and we should never suspend our efforts to discover all the traces of metre which exist in the Avesta, as a necessary step to the restoration of the documents to their first form; but we should avoid exaggeration, and a carelessly dogmatic procedure in insisting upon reducing lines to an exact, or to a supposed exact, number of syllables? I regard it as unwise to suppose that the metrical lines of the Avesta, or indeed of any very ancient poetical matter, have been composed with every line filed into exact proportions. The ancient poets would have brought out the measures in many a place by accent and a sandhi which are no longer known to us. The Vedic Hymns may, to a great extent, form an exception, but who would not say that where uniform evenness is at hand, an effort to improve the metre has often corrupted the text. Priests or reciters of intelligence would here and there round off an awkward strophe, as year after year they felt the unevenness of numbers. Metre must inevitably bring a perfecting corruption at times, as a deficiency in the metre must also prove a marring corruption. Cases should be carefully discriminated. The expression of passionate feeling, for instance, would he likely to cause
One of the most powerful tributes ever paid to the Pahlavi translators was Haug's conversion to them. Before studying them he lost no opportunity to stignatise their deficiencies; later, however, he followed them in many an important place, and sometimes with little reserve.
As writers of the opposed extremes seem honestly convinced of the radical error of each other's views, it is obvious that association and interest have much to do with decisions. A scholar should put himself fully under the influence first of one school and then of the other. The necessity for well-balanced studies is extremely great.
• It is only lately that the variation from eleven to twelve syllables in the lines of Trishtup has been applied to the Gathic metres, nor has the possibility of a shifting caesura been acceded to till lately.
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