er, and others.]

[Footnote 16: ZDMG., vi. 77: "Ein alter gemeinsam arischer
[indo-iranic], ja vielleicht gemeinsam indo-germanischer
oberster Gott, Varuna-Ormuzd-Uranos."]

[Footnote 17: In his _Science of Language_, Mueller speaks of
the early poets who "strove in their childish way to pierce
beyond the limits of this finite world." Approvingly cited,
SBE. xxxii. p. 243 (1891).]

[Footnote 18: The over view may be seen in Mueller's _Lecture
on the Vedas_ (Chips, I. p. 9): "A collection made for its
own sake, and not for the sake of any sacrificial
performance." For Pischel's view compare _Vedische Studien_,
I. Preface.]

[Footnote 19: Bloomfield, JAOS xv. p. 144.]

[Footnote 20: Compare Barth (Preface): "A literature
preeminently sacerdotal.... The poetry ... of a singularly
refined character, ... full of ... pretensions to
mysticism," etc.]

[Footnote 21: _Iran und Turan_, 1889; _Vom Pontus bis zum
Indus_, 1890; _Vom Aral bis zur Gang[=a]_ 1892.]

[Footnote 22: Or "all-possessing" [Whitney]. The metre of
the translation retains the number of feet in the original.
Four [later added] stanzas are here omitted.]

[Footnote 23: So P.W. possibly "by reason of [the sun's]
rays"; _i.e._, the stars fear the sun as thieves fear light.
For 'Heaven,' here and below, see the third chapter.]

[Footnote 24: Yoked only by him; literally "self-yoked."
Seven is used in the Rig Veda in the general sense of
"many," as in Shakespeare's "a vile thief this seven
years."]

[Footnote 25: _jet[=a]ram [=a]par[=a]jitam_.]

[Footnote 26: The rain, see next note.]

[Footnote 27: After this stanza two interpolated stanzas are
here omitted. Grassman and Ludwig give the epithet
"fearless" to the gods and to Vala, respectively. But
compare I.6.7, where the same word is used of Indra. For the
oft-mentioned act of cleaving the cave, where the dragon Val
or Vritra (the restrainer or envelopper) had coralled the
kine(i.e. without metaphor, for the act of freeing the
clouds and letting loose the rain), compare I.32.2, where of
Indra it is said: "He slew the snake that lay upon the
mountains ... like bellowing kine the waters, swiftly
flowing, descended to the sea"; and verse 11: "Watched by
the snake the waters stood ... the w