This is a prayer of the Athenians, “rain, rain, kind Jupiter! upon the tilled grounds and pastures of the Athenians.” We should either not pray at all, or pray with such simplicity, and such kind affections of free citizens toward our fellows.
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations V, 7).[1]
In Hellenic mythology, Zeus is the King of the Gods and the god of the sky, weather, law and order, destiny, fate and kingship.
In the Homeric Hymn 23 to Kronides, Homer describes Zeus as “... Kronides, Most High… chiefest among the gods and greatest, all-seeing, the lord of all, the fulfiller who whispers words of wisdom to Themis as she sits leaning towards him.” [2] And, addressing Zeus in Fragment 177, Archilochus says: “Oh Zeus, father Zeus, Yours is the Kingdom of Heaven, and you watch men's deeds, the crafty and the right, and You are who cares for beasts' transgression and justice.” [3]
Zeus is more than this, though - more than just the Hellenic King of the Gods. He is connected to a chain of language after language after language, a recursive figure in the annals of time.
The word Zeus is thought to have come from the Proto-Indo-European *dewos- or *dyéws (oblique stem *diw-), meaning sky/heaven. This word also refers to the sky god, *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr ( “father light”) or simply *Dyēus. [4][5] Some authors gloss this word, *Dyēus, as “day sky” or “day-sky god”, assuming (based on Indo-European mythology) that Proto-Indo-European distinguished terms for the night sky and its associated deity. [6]
The Proto-Indo-European word *dewos- in turn comes from the root *dyeu- "to shine” or “sky, heaven” joined with the root nominal suffix *-s.
Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a vivid and apparent Indo-European etymology.
The vividness of this etymology stems from the vividness of the connections between the word Zeus and the names of his counterparts. In Sanskrit there is a counterpart to Zeus, another sky deity, who is known by similar sounding terms: Dyaus and Dyauspitr ("sky father"). [7] More identical formulas referring to him can be found among other subsequent Indo-European languages, and in the myths of the Vedic Indo-Aryans, Latins, Phrygians, Messapians, Thracians, Illyrians, Albanians and Hittites. [3][4] Thanks to this plethora of evidence, the Proto-Indo-European sky god, *Dyēus or *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr is arguably the most securely reconstructed deity of the Indo-European pantheon.
Ah, dear reader, if after my long and rambling treaty on the topic of Zeus you are still present, I commend you sincerely. Now I shall reveal to you where I am going with this. The purpose of this text is, really, to show you the premise of my website and of my persona.
My name is Maryam. I am fourteen years old as of writing this text, and am a private school student taking 10th and 11th grade subjects. I am the pinnacle of the self-important teenager who likes nothing more than to find connections between abstract concepts to demonstrate her brilliance.
My life motto is that everything seems interesting if you study it for long enough, and everything seems related if you study it alongside another topic for long enough. My favourite quote belongs to Richard P. Feynman, which I discovered in the text The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. It is on the difference between the scientist and the artist:
“...I see much more about the flower than [the artist] sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds.”
I love the awe that comes from close study, the awe that is so beautifully outlined by Feynman here. I love to take things apart and learn of them, just as I am feebly attempting to take myself apart as of now. Promptly, I shall cease this and move on to taking apart the purpose of this website.
This website is an entirely self indulgent place for me to enclose my winding thoughts. I plan, perhaps, to display my academic notes here, alongside my literary works and works of translation. Much of my writing will be, unsurprisingly, on the topics of philosophy and linguistics. I suppose that is all that must be said on this matter.
I sincerely hope you have not found my manner of speech too pompous and self-important, and that you have found some pleasure as you read through my words. I further hope that this pleasure is sustained as you read through the rest of my corpus.
Adieu, dear reader - a word that, too, is thought to come from the root, *dyeu-!
Au revoir!
[1] trans. Moor & Hutcheson.
[2] trans. Evelyn-White: Ζῆνα θεῶν τὸν ἄριστον ἀείσομαι ἠδὲ μέγιστον εὐρύοπα, κρείοντα, τελεσφόρον, ὅστε Θέμιστι ἐγκλιδὸν ἑζομένῃ πυκινοὺς ὀάρους ὀαρίζει.
[3] trans. Ellopos.net: ὦ Ζεῦ͵ πάτερ Ζεῦ͵ σὸν μὲν οὐρανοῦ κράτος͵ σὺ δ΄ ἔργ΄ ἐπ΄ ἀνθρώπων ὁρᾶις λεωργὰ καὶ θεμιστά͵ σοὶ δὲ θηρίων ὕβρις τε καὶ δίκη μέλει.
[4] West, Martin L. (2007). Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-928075-9.
[5] Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (2006). The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-929668-2.
[6] Calin, Didier (2017), “sky (/skies)”, in Dictionary of Indo-European Poetic and Religious Themes(Linguistique; 3), Les Cent Chemins, page 205: “DAY SKY GOD - as opposed to the Night Sky God”; cf. s.v. “Night Sky god”, pp. 165–167.
[7] द्यौस्, द्यौष्पितृ
Note that uncited claims were found on https://www.etymonline.com/ or are my own hypotheses.