But continually she is showing us
affinity where we imagined there was isolation. What school-boy of
us has not rummaged his Greek dictionary in vain for a satisfactory
account of that old name for the Peloponnese, the Apian Land? and
within the limits of Greek itself there is none. But the Scythian
name for earth 'apia,' watery, water-issued, meaning first isle and
then land--this name, which we find in 'avia,' ScandinAVIA, and in
'ey' for AldernEY, not only explains the Apian Land of Sophocles for
us, but points the way to a whole world of relationships of which we
knew nothing. The Scythians themselves again,--obscure, far-
separated Mongolian people as they used to appear to us,--when we
find that they are essentially Teutonic and Indo-European, their very
name the same word as the common Latin word 'scutum,' the SHIELDED
people, what a surprise they give us! And then, before we have
recovered from this surprise we learn that the name of their father
and god, Targitavus, carries us I know not how much further into
familiar company. This divinity, Shining with the targe, the Greek
Hercules, the Sun, contains in the second half of his name, tavus,
'shining,' a wonderful cement to hold times and nations together.
Tavus, 'shining,' from 'tava'--in Sanscrit, as well as Scythian, 'to
burn' or 'shine,'--is Divus, dies, Zeus, [Greek], Deva, and I know not
how much more; and Taviti, the bright and burnt, fire, the place of
fire, the hearth, the centre of the family, becomes the family
itself, just as our word family, the Latin familia, is from thymele,
the sacred centre of fire.
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