Sunday, August 30, 2015
An Example of Epipompē in Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585), "Les Daimons," lines 309-316 (tr. Malcolm Quainton and Elizabeth Vinestock):
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O Eternal Lord in whom alone resides my faith, for the glory of thy name, by thy grace grant me, grant me this: that I may never encounter in my way these panic terrors, but, O Lord, send these Larvae, these Daemons, these Lares and Lemures far away from Christendom into the lands of the Turks, or upon the heads of those who dare to speak ill of the songs that I set to the music of my new lyre.Richard Wünsch (1869-1915) first used the terms apopompē (ἀποπομπή) and epipompē (ἐπιπομπή) to describe two different ways of banishing evil. See his "Zur Geisterbannung im Altertum," Festschrift zur Jahrhundertfeier der Universität zu Breslau = Mitteilungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde 13/14 (1911) 9-32. Wünsch used apopompē to mean simply driving away evil, epipompē to mean driving away evil onto someone or something else or to some other specific location. In these lines by Ronsard we see an example of epipompē.
Ô Seigneur Eternel en qui seul gist ma foy,
Pour l'honneur de ton nom, de grace donne moy,
Donne moy que jamais je ne trouve en ma voye
Ces paniques terreurs: mais ô Seigneur envoye
Loin de la Chrestienté dans le pays des Turcs
Ces Larves ces Daimons ces Lares et Lemurs,
Ou sur le chef de ceux qui oseront mesdire
Des chansons que j'accorde à ma nouvelle lyre.
