Griffith's Manner on RV.61.5-9

[Michael Witzel]

You seem to mean RV 10.61 dealing with the divine (!)  incest of Heaven and
his daughter, Usas. That was too 'indecent' for a Victorian mind to be
translated into anything but Latin. (cf. the Kamasutra chapters in Latin)
Doesn't O'Flaherty have that Suukta?

MW>



>Griffith transltated RV.61.5-9 in Latin and passed over it to his appendix.
>Moreover the stanza 5-8 in Latin, but 9 in English again. He added that the
>whole passage is difficult, obscure, unintelligible... .
>A professor make a joke that the stanza is too obscene to translate, but
>seriouslly, was it a usual manner to do this in his days?
>Any antiquus can guess or read his mind?
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Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
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