§ 8. Inferences derivable from the words SVER, Cver, and THUR or THAUR. In comparing an unknown with a known language, we derive much help from the collocation of the same or similar words, especially in short sentences. Thus when we find such collocations as the following: phleres zek-sansl crer (Vermiglioli, p. 36), E = ti a R we can hardly avoid supposing that ever and sver are slightly different forms of the same word. Now in Icelandic we find the verb thverra = minui, disparere and the adjective thverr tranversus with its adverb thverz = transversim (vid. Edd. fo Sæmund. Vol. II. Spec. Gloss. pp. 859, 860). In the cognate languages we find the same change in this word as in the cver and sver of the Etruscans: for while the Icelandic thverr, Engl. thwart, Dan. tver, Germ. zwerch, exhibit the dental more or less assibilated as in sver, the German quer and English queer give us a guttural instead of a sibilant as in cver. The appearance of cver or sver in sepulchral inscriptions (for we have sver in one beginning with eca suthi, Vermiglioli, p. 73), would lead us to suppose that this word or these words must refer to death or prostration, and this is a meaning included in the Icelandic word, whether or not connected with var, "male," "parum." The forms of thverra, when passive, arc ek thverr, thvarr, thorinn; when active, ek thverra, thverda: and thurr, thurt, thyrrinn, signify "aridus," "siccus," like the German durr. Without stopping to ask whether these latter forms are derived in any way from the verb thuerr, which is quite possible, it is worthy of remark that in those sepulchral inscriptions, in which the word cver or sver does not occur, we have in corresponding places the word thaure, thurasi (Vermigl. p. 64), thuras, thaura, thuruni (Inscr. Per. 11. 6, 20, 41). And in one old epitaph (Lanzi, Saggio, II. p. 97, no. 12) we find: mi suthi L. Felthuri thura, where the position of the last word almost leads us to render it: "I am the lamentation for L. Felthurius deceased.” The inferences derivable from the appearance of these forms is that connected words significant of decay, prostration, and death, and liable to the same modification, probably existed both in Old Norse and in Etruscan. The amount of probability depends upon the cumulative effect of the other evidence1. § 9. Striking coincidence between Etruscan and Old Norse in the use of the auxiliary verb Lata. Whatever may be thought of the verbal resemblances between the Old Norse and the language of the Etruscan fragments, it must be admitted by all sound philologers that we have an indisputable proof of the affinity of these idioms in the grammatical identity which I communicated to the British Association2. Every reader of the Runic inscriptions must have noticed the constant occurrence of the auxiliary or causative verb lata = [ facere in causa esse, of which the Eddas give us the forms ek læt, let, latinn. Thus we find: Lithsmother lit hakva stein aufti Julibirn fath, i. e. "Lithsmother let engrave a stone after (in memory of) his father Julibirn." Thorstin lit gera merki stir Suin fathur sin, i. e. "Thorstin let carve marks in memory of his father Sweyn." Ulfktil uk Ku uk Uni thir litu raisa stin iftir Ulf fathur sin, i. e. "Ulfktil and Ku and Uni, they let raise a stone in memory of their father Ulf" (vide Dieterich, Runen-Sprach-Schatz, p. 372). Now we have here, as part of a constantly-recurring phraseology, an auxiliary verb, signifying “to let” or “cause" followed by an infinitive in -a. On reading the first line of the longest Etruscan inscription, that of Perugia, we seem to stumble at once upon this identical phraseology, for we find: eu lat tanna La Rezul amev achr lautn Velthinas. If we had no other reason for supposing that there was some connexion between the Scandinavians and Etruscans, we could not avoid being struck by this apparent identity of construction. As, however, we have every reason to expect resemblances between the two languages, it becomes a matter of importance to inquire whether the grammatical identity can be established, and this amounts to the proof that lat and tanna are both verbs. 1 I may mention in passing that suer actually occurs in Runic inscriptions in the sense "father-in-law;" thus: iftir Kuthrikr suer sin (Dieterich, Runen-Sprsch. p. 265); but that I do not regard this as more than an accidental coincidence with the expressions under consideration. 2 Report, 1851, p. 158. Of course there is no primâ facie reason to conclude that tanna is a verb. On the contrary, Niebuhr (Kleine Schriften, II. p. 40) thinks that thana is a noun signifying "a lady," and that Tanaquil is only a diminutive of it; and Passeri, whom he quotes, suggests that Thana is a title of honour, nearly equivalent in meaning, though not of course in origin, to the modern Italian Donna (from domina). Fortunately, however, about the time when this comparison between the Runic and Etruscan phraseology first occurred to me, Mr J. H. Porteus Oakes returned from a tour in Italy, and presented to the Museum at Bury St Edmund's a small patera or saucer, which he had obtained at Chiusi, and which exhibits the following legend: stem tenilaeth nfatia. This at once furnished me with the means of proving that lat tanna in the Perugian Inscription were two verbs, the latter being an infinitive and the former an auxiliary on which it depends. For it is obvious that tenilaeth is the third person of a transitive verb, the nominative being Nfatia, probably the name of a woman (cf. Caphatial = Cafatia natus in Dennis's bilingual inscription, II. p. 475), and the accusative being stem for istam, Umbr. est- (cf. mi with e-mi, &c.). The verb tenilaeth manifestly belongs to the same class of forms as the agglutinate or weak-perfects in Gothic, which are formed by the affix of the causative da, as soki-da, "I did seek” (Gabelentz u. Löbe, Goth. Gramm. § 127). We have this Gothic formation in the Latin ven-do, pen-do, &c.; and I have discussed in a subsequent chapter the remarkable causatives in -so, -sivi, as arces-so, capes-so, quæ-so, &c. It is clear then that lat tanna represents as separate words what tenilaeth exhibits in an agglutinate form. In the latter case the auxiliary is in the present tense, which in Gothic is formed in th; and lat is a strong perfect. There is no difficulty about the meaning of tanna, teni, which are clearly identical with the Icelandic thenia = tendere, O. H. G. danjan, denjan, A. S. dhenjan, N. H. G. dehnen, Gr. Teivw, Tavów, Sanscr. tan-, and therefore signify "to offer," like the Latin porrigo or porricio. If this is the true explanation of the root when it occurs as a verb, we may reasonably apply the same interpretation to its use as a noun. In this use it appears under all the different forms Thana, Thania, Thasna, Tania, Tannia, Dana, and Tha (Müller, Etrusk. II. 303, 315). From the collocation it is clear that the = word is equivalent to phleres, or rather it signifies "an offering” generally, without the implication of a vow or prayer. Thus, while we have in the only urn with an inscription among the Etruscan specimens in the rooms adjoining the Egyptian collection in the British Museum: thana celia cumniza, we find on one of Lanzi's (Saggio, II. 506. no. 15): mi thana Arntha, which is quite analogous to mi phleres or mi suthi. It is worthy of remark that ten-do, which is an agglutinate form like tenilata, is synonymous with porrigo; thus we have in Cicero (de Oratore, I. 40. § 184): "præsidium clientibus atque opem amicis et prope cunctis civibus lucem ingenii et consilii sui porrigentem atque tendentem;" and we may compare such phrases as duplices tendens ad sidera palmas with porrigit exta manus, and the like. Even the Umbrian has pur-tin-sus por-rexeris (Eug. Tab. I. b, 33). In ritual phraseology therefore the Latin language comes sufficiently near the language of this patera, and stem tenilaeth Nfatia bears as close a resemblance to istam tendit (vel porrigit) Nefatia, as we have any right to expect. The Perugian inscription, however, is even nearer to the Runic than this patera legend is to the Latin; and the evidence furnished by the two, taken together, seems to be quite conclusive in proof of the affinity between the Etruscan and Old Norse languages. As lautn and lautnescle occur together on another Etruscan sepulchre, there can be no objection to connect them with the Icelandic laut lacuna, locus depressus et defossus; and eu from is is strictly analogous to the Latin ceu from ce, cis; accordingly, comparing amev with the Icelandic ama = ango, the beginning of the Perugian Inscription will be rendered as naturally and easily as one of the Runes: "Here Lartius the son of Ræsia let offer or give a field of mourning as or for the grave of Velthina." To return to the patera, its companion, now in the possession of Mr Beckford Bevan, bears a legend which is also capable of translation by the help of the Old Norse. The words are: flenim thekinthl thmtflaneth. It is obvious that we have here the name of a man, a transitive verb, and the accusative of the object, which is an open patera or saucer. therefore in Icelandic flenna hiatus, chasma, we may explain flenim by an immediate reference to the proper meaning of patera from pateo: cf. patulus; and as in Icelandic tham = egelida obscuritas aeris; tef= morari; and lana = mutuum = = As dare, credere, commodare, Engl. "lend," the compound verb tham-tef-lan-eth will mean "he lendeth for a dark dwelling," and the whole inscription will run thus: Thekinthul dat pateram ad commorandum in tenebris. Verbs compounded of nouns and verbs are not uncommon in Icelandic; thus we have halshoggra, "to behead," brennimerkja, "to brand," &c. It only remains to remark, that as the Gothic auxiliary do is found in Latin, so the Norse lata must be recognised in a fainter form in some Latin verbs in -lo, as well as in the Sclavonic formations in -l, and in the Old Norse diminutives or frequentatives in -la, such as rug-la, "to turn upside down," from rugga, "to remove," tog-la, "to let chew," or "chew over again," from tyggja, &c. § 10. The great Perugian Inscription critically examinedits Runic affinities. The facility with which the philologist dissects the Etruscan words which have been transmitted to us, either with an interpretation, or in such collocation as to render their meaning nearly certain, and the striking and unmistakable coincidences between the most difficult fragments and the remains of the Old Norse language, might well occasion some surprise to those who are told that there exists a large collection of Etruscan inscriptions which cannot be satisfactorily explained. One cause of the unprofitableness of Tuscan inscriptions is to be attributed to the fact, that these inscriptions, being mostly of a sepulchral or dedicatorial character, are generally made up of proper names and conventional expressions. Consequently they contribute very little to our knowledge of the Tuscan syntax, and furnish us with very few forms of inflexion. So far as I have heard, we have no historical or legal inscriptions. Those which I have inspected for myself are only monumental epitaphs and the dedications of offerings. These observations might be justified by an examination of all the inscriptions which have been hitherto published. It will be sufficient, however, in this place to show how much or how little can be done by an analysis of the great inscription which was discovered in the neighbourhood of Perugia in the year 1822. This inscription is engraved on two sides of a block of |