Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

The owl of Athena

797

more heads, which are biting deep into his shoulders, and by a large
crab, which is nipping his legs, Herakles has run a long sword
through two of the snaky necks, wounded a third, and grasped
a fourth by the throttle. Even so he would be in imminent danger,
were it not for the presence of Iolaos, who, attacking the Hydra
from the opposite side, reaps three of its heads with a single pull of
his toothed sickle. To right and left, marked off from each other
Dy a flying bird, stand the chariots of Iolaos and Herakles, four-
horsed and two-horsed respectively. In the former a young
charioteer, Lapythos by name, holds his goad and reins in readiness
for flight, while he turns his head to watch the combat. In the
latter Athena had escorted Herakles. She has now dismounted and
stands close at his back, inviting him with a gesture of her left hand
t° refresh his strength with a draught from the cup that she holds
ln her right. On the reins of the chariot is perched her owl; on the
£°ad, a woman-headed bird, beside which is inscribed the word
'feus, M. Mayer1 took this to be a variant form ofphoyx or pdyx, an
echoic name for ' gull.' The woman-headed bird would then be an
altera ego of Athena Aithyia. But my friend the late Dr P. Giles
jnforrned me years ago that Mayer's explanation is phonetically
^possible: the assumed interchange of an initial labial with an
lrutial digamma depends on the mistaken view that digamma was
P'onounced like our letter f. Dr Giles himself suggested that wous
j^'ght be a local onomatopoeic name for ' owl,' comparing the
station of an owl's hoot, which in a poem by Thomas Nash2
_Ppears as to-witta-woo ! and in another by Shakespeare3 as
u~<vhit! tuwhoo^ ! I gladly accept this suggestion, especially as the

0Cjut ^' ^ayer 'n Hermes 1892 xxvii. 481—4S7, citing Aristot. hist. an. 9. 18. 617 a 9
1 lesych. ttlcv^- ttolos opvts. 6 'A/jt<7T0TeA?;s ev rui irtpl fa'wp, el. mag. p. 699, 10 f.
fta\j^C* a^ a^vtaL> aL K\rj$ei(Tai ^ouyyes. Trapa tt\v ^ot]v nai r-qv Ivyrjv, concludes that
f0Ho^a^tne Corinthian form of jSoi^-yf, <pwv£, ttwv$. Harrison Proleg. Gr. Rel? p. 303 f.

that°s k°ssbacn °P- cit. p. 14 leaves the word (MY03) unexplained, but ib. n. 1 adds

2 Utlemund proposed a connexion with the root /Sau- of paufw.

3 " T- palgrave The Golden Treasury London [882 p. t Spring 4, 8, 12.
t ™-P- 17 Winter 8, .7.

(Sch n°matoP°eic names for 'owl' are common in the Indo-Kuropaean languages
p. tQ, er Reallex? ii. 2I6i>, citing J. Winteler Naturlaute und Sprache Aarau 1892
iiuas- a'Sanskrit u/uha-, Latin ulucus, ulula, Old High German iiwila, Lithuanian
^am' A/"16"'1" Greek ^^as> 05£°> Latin pu°o- CP- Hesych. tvtw- i) -y\aO£,

quae <t e"' ^ ME- eSon dedi? MA. tu, tu istic, inquam. PE. vin adferri noctuam. |
ut tu' usque dica( tjbi?

figured ' ^Eazley in t,le Ant, Joum. Arch. 1927 xxxi. 348 no. 8 fig. 1 publishes a red-
just \3J""^""'a on sale 'n Paris, which shows an owl with the letters KYYY scratched
0w its beak (fig. 598 from a photograph kindly supplied by Mr C. D. Bicknell).