Λ λ lambda (λάμβδα); labda (λάβδα); lal (λάλ) loosen pronounce: “L”
The letter Λ means loosen, liberate, loose, release, express.
The shape of Λ is an upward pointing arrow, as if to suggest freedom from gravity; gravity-defying.
Libertos (λίβερτος) means liberty.
Lagaio (λαγαίω) means to release. Laggazo (λαγγάζω) means to slacken.
Lath- (λαθ-) is a prefix meaning escape. Lathos (λάθος) means to escape from detection.
Laparos (λᾰπᾰρός) means to be slack or loose.
Leipo (λείπω) means to leave, quit, to be left, left behind, left without. Leipsis (λεῖψις) means an omission, lack, or loss.
Lophao (λωφάω) means to give over, take rest from, cease to do, lighten, or relieve, as in “loafing off.”
Luaios (Λῠαῖος) means “Loosener” or “Deliverer,” an epithet of the Great Mother as one who looses, delivers one from. Luteer (λύτήρ) means deliverer.
Luee (λύη) means dissolution or separation.
Lus- (λῦσ-) is a prefix meaning end of, deliver from, relaxing.
Lusis (λύσις) means loosing or releasing.
Luteira (λύτειρα) means one must open.
Lutron (λύτρον) is the price of release, ransom, a sum paid; atonement.
Luo (λύω) means to unbind, unfasten, loose, slacken, open, unyoke, unharness, release, dissolve, undo, break, atone for, make up for.
It is interesting to note that Lutetia was the original name for the Île de la Cité in Paris, the first Roman settlement in Paris and the site of the Cathedral of Notre Dame (Our Lady). The Emperor Julian settled in Lutetia subsequent to his initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries.
“Many historians claim that it was during this stay in Athens that Julian (the Apostate (361-363 CE) was initiated by an Eleusinian hierophant into the ancient mysteries of Eleusis . . .
“(Subsequently) Julian’s main seat in Gaul was in Lutetia.”
(Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire: 324 CE – 1453 CE (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952) 70.)
http://books.google.com/books?id=RtM0qClcIX4C&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=lutetia+eleusis&source=bl&ots=pEnuLc8Bv3&sig=YIlbXOvOllH-gSk2ar1fH_5uOEs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_TyuUIOuOYOm9ATynoHABg&ved=0CEwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=lutetia%20eleusis&f=false
Julian in his Oration to the Mother of the Gods [and Goddesses] said, “She is the mistress of all life, and the cause of all generation . . .”
(Emperor Julian. “To the Mother of the Gods [and Goddesses]” Two Orations of the Emperor Julian, translated by Thomas Taylor (Kessinger Publishing Rare Reprints) 115
http://books.google.com/books?id=p3hqRjutxdMC&source=gbs_similarbooks
Notre Dame was built on the site of the Basilica of St. Etienne. Note that Eteephilos (Έτηφίλος) is an epithet of the Roman emperor Hadrian as a devotee of the immortal Goddess Persephone.
Some theorize that the earliest settlers of Lutetia (Paris) were Trojans displaced by the fall of Troy.
(Raoul de Presles. “Description de Paris sous Charles V. 1371.” In: Le
Roux de Lincy and L. M. Tisserand. Paris et ses Historiens aux XIVe et
XVe Siècles. Documents et Écrits Originaux. Paris. 1867:103-104.)
Consistent with this theory, Paris is a Trojan prince depicted in Homer’s Iliad. Also, the Champs-Élysées, a major Paris road passing through the Arc d’ Triumph and the Élysée Palace, the official residence of the President of the French Republic, are named for Elysian, the blessed paradise in the afterlife.
LIKMAO: WINNOW THE CHAFF
The harvest of grain is prepared by threshing (beating/pounding/grinding) to release the grain or seeds from the plant and winnowing (tossing the grain into the air) to remove the chaff (husks), dirt, etc. from the grain.
A laktis (λάκτις) is a pestle, a grinding instrument, literally “loosen arising core.”
A likmas (λικμάς) or liknon (λίκνον) is a winnowing basket, a broad basket in which corn/grain is placed after threshing. The corn/grain is then thrown against the wind so as to winnow the heavier grain from the lightweight chaff. The grain falls to the ground ready for collection and the chaff is blown away by the wind.
Likmao (λικμάω) means to part the grain from the chaff, to winnow.
Likmaios (λικμαῖος) means presiding over winnowing (an epithet of the immortal Goddess Demeter).
Liknotephei (λικνοστεφεῖ) means to carry the sacred liknon (λίκνον) (winnowing basket) in procession.
Louka (λοῦκα) is a food made of wheat-meal.
Hesiod, Homer, and Virgil describe the sacred winnowing process.
“. . . winnow Demeter’s holy grain, when strong Orion (the constellation) first appears, on a smooth threshing-floor in an airy place.”
(Hesiod, Works & Days (597-599), translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1914. Reprinted in English by Dodo Press dodopress.co.uk, 2011) 14.)
“ . . . as the wind carrieth chaff about the sacred threshing-floors of men (sic) that are winnowing, when fair-haired Demeter amid the driving blasts of wind separates the grain from the chaff . . .”
(Homer, Iliad 5.500, translated by A.T. Murray, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.) http://www.archive.org/stream/iliadmurray01homeuoft/iliadmurray01homeuoft_djvu.txt
“ . . . while the floor groans
Heavily as the corn is threshed, and while
The empty chaff is tossed to the rising Zephyr (Wind).”
(Virgil. “The Georgics (134-136),” The Eclogues and the Georgics, translated by R. C. Trevelyan (Cambridge: University Press, 1944) 82.)
http://books.google.com/books?id=qbM8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=virgil+georgics+when+the+floor+groans+heavily+as+the+corn+is+threshed,+and&source=bl&ots=tzIeDjfgKi&sig=RSEwNGXCZuY1wPre2o3vdfU4FZM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hogSUdaqFOTG0QHlvYDoCw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=snippet&q=zephyr%20&f=false
Winnowing is still practiced in agricultural societies around the world, as it was in ancient Egypt.
Winnowing grain
http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=2420610
Winnowing grain.
http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/bmp/index.php/post-productive-phase/cleaning
Winnowing grain.
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Andreas-Schild/3224
Winnowing grain.
http://americangallery.wordpress.com/category/johnson-eastman/
Winnowing grain.
http://shemgroup.org/daisy.htm
Winnowing grain.
http://www.hardrainproject.com/hrpl.php?n=687
Winnowing grain. A scene from the tomb of Nakht at Thebes (18th Dynasty). http://ww w.ancientegyptmagazine.com/permesut41.htm
Winnowing grain.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/nakht2.htm
LOOSEN CONTENTS
Lakao (λᾰκάω) means to burst asunder.
Lakeema (λάκημα) is a fragment broken off.
Lakizo (λᾰκίζω) means to tear, rend, or split.
Lepo (λέπω) means to strip off rind or bark. Lepos (λέπος) and lepuros (λεπύρός) are the husk, peel, bark, or rind. Lemma (λέμμα) means that which is peeled off, the rind or husk.
Lepizo (λεπίζω) means to peel off the husk, skin, or bark.
Leekeo (ληκέω) means to crack, crackle, or burst asunder.
LOOSEN IMPURITIES
Lebees (λέβης) is a basin of purifying water, pan for washing, or bath.
Lou- (λου-) is a prefix meaning washing, bathing. Louo (λούω) means to bathe.
Lousis (λοῦσις) means washing or bathing.
Luma (λῦμα) means the water used in washing.
LOOSE-MINDED/LOOSE-ACTING
Labros (λάβρος) means to be furious, boisterous, violent, or impetuous.
Laidros (λαιδρος) means to be bold or impudent. (Laertes is a bold, impulsive character who serves as a foil to the paralyzed-by-thought Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet.)
Leesmon (λήσμων) means to be unmindful.
Lelieemai (λελίημαι) means to strive eagerly or to be rushing.
Leereia (ληρεία) means to be foolish or silly.
LOOSE TONGUES
Labreia (λαβρεία) means to talk rashly or to brag.
Lakazo (λᾰκάζω) means to shout or howl.
Lakeros (λᾰκερός) means to be talkative.
Lal (λάλ) is one of the names for the letter Λ. Words beginning with λάλ convey the idea of bringing forth thoughts at a rapid pace. Lalos (λάλος) means to be talkative, babbling, loquacious. Laleo (λᾰλέω) means to prattle. A lalaks (λάλαξ) is a babbler.
Lasthee (λάσθη) means to mock, insult.
In a twist on the notion of “loose tongues,” lichmazo (λιχμάζω) means to lick. Leicho (λείχω) means to lick or lick up. Lapto (λάπτω) and lapsis (λάψις) mean to lap with the tongue or lick.
LOGOS, EXPRESS THOUGHTS SELECTIVELY
Log- (λόγ-) literally means “loosen entity generative,” that is, release something creative/productive.
Logas (λογάς, λογάδην) means to be picked or chosen.
Logch- (λογχ-) is a prefix meaning something with a point.
Logos (λόγος) reflects many meanings, generally suggesting the expressed main or essential part of a matter, as in:
-rule, principle, law, formula
-statement of a theory, argument
-thinking, reasoning
-idea, thought
-divine utterance, “oracle”
-proverb, maxim, saying
-continuous statement, narrative
-word, expression, phrase
-sentence, complete statement
-discussion, debate, deliberation, assertion
-thing talked of, event
-common talk, report, rumor.
The prefix log- (λογ-) often pertains to incidences of speaking. Speaking was the main way to express or release one’s thoughts through words prior to the advent of the printing press and mass literacy.
Logao (λογάω) means to be fond of talking.
Logeia (λογεία) means speaking-place, stage, platform; mouth.
Logikos (λογϊκός) means of or for speaking, speech suited for prose; possessed of reason, intellectual, dialectical, argumentative, the basis for the word logic.
Logion (λόγιον) means something worth mentioning; noble, or famous; also, an “oracle,” especially one preserved from antiquity; learned, erudite, skilled in words, eloquent; reason, argument.
Logistikos (λογιστικός) means to be skilled or practiced in calculating or in practical arithmetic; to be endued with reason, to be rational, logical.
Logodees (λογώδης) means verbal.
LEXICON, LECTURE, AND LIBRARY
Lego (λέγω) means to recount, tell over, say, speak.
Lekteos (λεκτέος) means to be said or spoken, the basis for the word lecture.
Leksis (λέξις) means speech, words, the basis for the word lexicon.
A librarios (λιβράριος) is one who writes down words, a scribe, the basis for the word library.
LYRICAL
Playing a musical instrument is another means of expression; of releasing what is within.
Lur- (λῠρ-) is a prefix meaning lyre/lura (λύρα), literally “loosen pure outflow.” A lyre is a stringed instrument that dates to ancient antiquity, the basis for the word lyrical. The immortal God Apollo was frequently depicted playing a lyre.
Apollo with Lyre. http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K5.1.html
The J Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, USA, Malibu 85.AE.101, Lucanian Red Figure, Volute krater, Attributed to the PKP Group, probably the Palermo Painter. Detail of Apollon playing the lyre, from a scene depicting a company of Gods and Goddesses. Apollon is crowned with a wreath of laurel.
In Orphic Hymn 33. To Apollo (27-32), Orpheus says:
“ . . . Tis thine all Nature’s music to inspire,
With various-sounding, harmonising lyre;
Now the last string thou tun’st to sweet accord,
Divinely warbling now the highest chord;
Th’ immortal golden lyre, now touch’d by thee,
Responsive yields a Dorian melody . . .”
(Orpheus. The Hymns of Orpheus (circa 200 BCE), translated by Thomas Taylor, introductory preface by Manly P. Hall (London: Printed for the Author, 1792. Reprinted Los Angeles, CA: The Philosophical Research Society, 1981) 162-163.)
Lura (λύρα) also refers to lyric poetry and the constellation Lyra, visible from the northern hemisphere from spring through autumn.
Loteo (λωτέω) means to play the flute. Loteo (λωτέω) also means to bloom.
Lasko (λάσκω) means ring, rattle, crash.
LIGHT
Light shines forth, seemingly miraculously, from solid objects when they burn.
A lampadeia (λαμπᾰδεία) is a torch-light procession.
Lampas (λαμπας) and lampee (λάμπη) mean a torch or lamp.
Lampo (λάμπω) means to give light or to shine, the basis for the word lamp.
Lampros (λαμπρός) means to be bright or radiant.
Lampsis (λάμψις) means shining.
Loumenarion (λουμενάριον) means a window, that which allows light to flow through.
Lugee (λύγη) means twilight, the transitional time that loosens night or day.
Luchn- (λυχν-) is a prefix meaning lamp. A luchnos (λύχνος) is a portable light or lamp.
RELEASE LIGHT, WHITENESS
Lucretius credits Mater Matuta (the Great Mother) with bringing about the light of day:
“At a fixed time Matuta sends abroad the rosy dawn through the coasts of heaven, and spreads the light . . . from the high mountains of Ida scattered fires are seen as the light rises, and then they gather as if into a single ball, and make up the orb.
“Nor again ought this to be a cause of wonder herein, that these seeds of fire can stream together at so fixed a time . . . For we see many events which come to pass at a fixed time in all things. Trees blossom at a fixed time, and at a fixed time lose their flower . . . thunder, snow, rains, clouds, winds come to pass at seasons of the year more or less fixed.
“For since the first-beginnings of causes were ever thus . . . one thing after another they come round even now in the fixed order.”
(Lucretius (circa 50 BCE). Religion in Archaic and Republican Rome and Italy 5, 656-79, translated by Bailey, edited by Edward Bispham and Christopher John Smith (UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2000) 147).
http://books.google.com/books?id=kZY__iHXOjQC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=At+a+fixed+time+Matuta+sends+abroad+the+rosy+dawn+through+the+coasts+of+heaven,+and+spreads+the+light&source=bl&ots=8MiRUazfi6&sig=TJMNJhI7MecdWK3sbcD5b1Vj0rQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gUbuT-jtB8bl6QGSks2YAw&ved=0CEoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=At%20a%20fixed%20time%20Matuta%20sends%20abroad%20the%20rosy%20dawn%20through%20the%20coasts%20of%20heaven%2C%20and%20spreads%20the%20light&f=false
Leukos (λευκός) means light, bright, clear, or white. Leusso (λεύσσω) means to look or gaze upon, to see.
Leuk- (λευκ-) is a prefix meaning white. Leukon (λευκόν) means white. Leukatheo (λευκᾰθέω) means to be white, colorless. Leukaino (λευκαίνω) means to make white.
Leukathea (Λευκἃθέα) is Leucothea, the immortal white Goddess believed to come to the aid of sailors in distress.
“While he (Ulysses) was being tossed about by the waves, Leucothea, who we call Mater Matuta, who lives forever in the sea, gave him her girdle to bind around his chest, to buoy him up. When he had done this, he swam to safety.”
(Gaius Julius Hyginus (circa 150 CE). “Fables,” The Myths of Hyginus, translated by Mary Grant (Lawrence: University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies, no. 34, University of Kansas Press, 1960) 125. http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html
Etruscan, Mater Matuta, seated holding a child and flanked by winged animals (lions?) with human face, circa 475 BCE. National Archaeological Museum of Florence, Italy.
Orphic Hymn 73. To Leucothea (9-16) appeals on behalf of sailors:
“. . . When rushing billows with tempestuous ire
O’erwhelm the mariner in ruin dire,
Thou hear’st, with pity touch’d, his suppliant pray’r,
Resolv’d his life to succour and to spare.
Be ever present, Goddess! in distress,
Waft ships along with prosperous success:
Thy mystics thro’ the stormy sea defend,
And safe conduct them to their destined end."
(Orpheus. The Hymns of Orpheus (circa 200 BCE), translated by Thomas Taylor, introductory preface by Manly P. Hall (London: Printed for the Author, 1792. Reprinted Los Angeles, CA: The Philosophical Research Society, 1981) 204.)
Leukoinos (λευκόϊνος) is the snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, a white flower that blooms very early in Spring.
LOOSEN MEMORY
Latho (λάθω) means to escape notice, without being observed; make one forget, forget.
Lanthano (λανθάνω) means to make one forget.
Leethaios (λήθαιος) means to cause forgetfulness or to be of or from Lethe/Leethee (Λήθη).
Leethargeo (ληθαργέω) means drowsiness, lethargy.
Leethee (λήθη) means forgetting or forgetful.
Leestis (λῆστις) means to forget.
Leethee (Λήθη) is Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in the afterlife. If the souls of the departed drink from the waters of Lethe, they forget all their experiences of life and come back to the world reborn. If they go past Lethe, however, and drink from the waters of Mnemosyne, “memory,” they recall all their experiences of life and go on to live in the joyful realm of the Elysian Fields.
An inscription on a gold tablet buried with a woman in a grave in Italy dated circa 400 BCE describes the path to Elysian:
“When you are about to die
down to the well-built house of Hades,
There is a spring at the right side,
And standing by it a white cypress.
Descending to it, the souls of the dead refresh themselves.
Do not even go near this spring!
Ahead you will find from the Lake of Memory,
Cold water pouring forth; there are guards before it.
They will ask you, with astute wisdom,
What you are seeking in the darkness of murky Hades.
Say, “I am a child of Earth and starry Sky,
I am parched with thirst and am dying;
But quickly grant me
Cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink.”
And they will announce you to the Chthonian King,
And they will grant you to drink from the Lake of Memory.
And you, too, having drunk, will go along the sacred road on which other
Glorious initiates and bacchoi travel.”
From the cist-grave of a woman, around 400 BCE, grave tablet, Museo Archeologico di Vibo. The rectangular gold tablet, folded several times, was found lying on the upper chest of the skeleton and was perhaps attached to the neck by a tiny string.
(Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (London and New York: Routledge, 2007) 5.)
Note that the word for left is laios (λαιός), with αιός=αιων=lifetime, life, so that “laios” means “loosen life.” The instruction on the grave tablet is to ignore the river on the right in order to avoid reincarnation.
Virgil, Seneca, and Pausanias describe the role of Lethe in religious rituals and in the afterlife.
"And Lethe River drifting past the tranquil places.
Hereabouts were flitting a multitude [of the deceased] without number . . .
Aeneas, moved by the sudden sight, asked in his ignorance
What it might mean, what was that river over there
And all that crowd of people swarming along its banks.
Then his father, Anchises said:--
‘They are the souls who are destined for
Reincarnation; and now at Lethe's stream they are drinking
The waters that quench man's troubles, the deep draught of
oblivion. . .
. . . and they come in crowds to the river of Lethe,
So that, you see, with memory washed out they may revisit
The earth above and begin to wish to be born again.”
(Virgil. Aeneid 6. 705-715, 749-750 ff, translated by C. Day Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952, reissued 2008) 180-181.) http://www.amazon.com/dp/0199537488/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
“All these, after they have passed away a thousand years, are summoned by the divine one in great array, to the Lethmean river. In this way they become forgetful of their former earth-life, and revisit the vaulted realms of the world, again to return into bodies.”
(Virgil, translated by Thomas Taylor. The Eleusinan and Bacchic Mysteries: A Dissertation (New York: J.W. Bouton, 8 West 28th Street, 1891; reprinted by BiblioLife) 125.)
Seneca, Hercules Furens 679 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy circa 50 CE.) :
"Within the abyss [of the afterlife], Lethe, measureless in sweep, glides smoothly on with placid stream, and takes away our cares . . .”
(Seneca (circa 50 CE). “Hercules Furens 679 ff,” Tragedies, translated by Frank Justus Miller, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1917.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html
“. . .he [the suppliant] must drink water called the water of Forgetfulness, that he may forget all that he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Memory, which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent.”
(Pausanias (circa 150 CE). Description of Greece. translated by W.H.S. Jones and H.A. Omerod (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1918) 9.39.8.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9B.html
Orphic Hymn 76. To Mnemosyne (7-12), the immortal Goddess of memory, describes Mnemosyne’s role in breaking “Lethe’s fetters:”
“ . . . ‘Tis thine, to waken from lethargic rest
All thoughts deposited within the breast;
And nought neglecting, vigorous to excite
The mental eye from dark oblivion’s night.
Come, blessed power, thy mystic’s mem’ry wake
To holy rites, and Lethe’s fetters break.”
(Orpheus. The Hymns of Orpheus (circa 200 BCE), translated by Thomas Taylor, introductory preface by Manly P. Hall (London: Printed for the Author, 1792. Reprinted Los Angeles, CA: The Philosophical Research Society, 1981) 215.)
NARCOTICS: LILY, LOTUS
The role of memory and forgetfulness in religious ceremonies may have been aided by the use of herbs. Two flowers beginning with the letter Λ are credited with narcotic properties: the lily/narcissus and the lotus.
Leirion (λείριον) means the lily/narcissus, also known as the Madonna lily, Lilium candidum, polyanthus narcissus, autumn narcissus, Narcissus serotinus, narcissus, and daffodil. The lily/narcissus/daffodil has narcotic properties.
In the Odyssey, Homer describes sailors becoming forgetful when they eat the fruit of the lotus (λωτός):
“And whosoever of them ate of the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no longer any wish to bring back word or to return, but there they were fain to abide among the Lotus-eaters, feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of their homeward way.”
Homer. Odyssey 9.82, translated by A. T. Murray, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1919.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerOdyssey9.html
The lotus (λωτός, λώτῐνον) is a name applied to various plants and trees that provide fodder or fruit, including:
- clover, trefoil, Trifolium fragiferum
- fellbloom, Lotus corniculatus
- fenugreek, Trigonella Foenum-graecum
- melilot
- Medicago arborea
- Nile water-lily, Egyptian lotus
- nettle-tree.
Libuon (λίβυον) means wild lotus.
WINE LOOSENS INHIBITIONS
Lakpateo (λακπᾶτέω) and laktizo (λακτίζω) mean to trample on grapes to loosen the juice from the skin.
Leenos (ληνός) means wine-vat. Leenaios (ληναῖος) means belonging to the wine-press.
A leenis (ληνίς) is a Bacchante, one who practices the wine rites of the immortal God of wine, Bacchos/Dionysos. Leenai (Λῆναι) means Bacchanals, those who celebrate Bacchanal rites. Leenaizo (Ληνᾰΐζω) are Bacchanal rites.
A scene of Bacchic revelry is depicted on The Great Dish of the Mildenhall treasure, circa 350 CE.
Mildenhall treasure, The Great Dish, circa 350 CE
http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Mildenhall_Treasure?qsrc=3044
The Mildenhall Treasure, “The Great Dish,” found in eastern England in 1942 CE, circa 350 CE, The British Museum.
“The face in the centre represents Oceanus, with dolphins in his hair and a beard formed of seaweed fronds. The inner circle, bordered by scallop shells, consists of sea-nymphs, a sea-horse, a triton, a sea-stag and a ketos, a dragon-like sea-monster. The wide outer frieze features Bacchus holding a bunch of grapes and a thyrsus and resting a foot on his panther. He presides over a celebration of music, dancing, and drinking.”
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/t/the_mildenhall_treasure.aspx
A verse in Nonnos’ Dionysiaca describes Dionysos’ discovery of wine and seems to describe the scene on the Mildenhall platter:
“[292] . . . once upon a time fruitful Olympian ichor fell down from heaven and produced the potion of Bacchic wine, when the fruit of its vintage grew among the rocks selfgrown, untended. It was not yet named grapevine; but among the bushes, wild and luxuriant with many-twining parsleyclusters, a plant grew which had in it good winestuff to make wine, being full to bursting with its burden of dewy juice . . .
[326] When Bacchos saw the grapes with a bellyful of red juice, he bethought him of an oracle which prophetic Rhea had spoken long ago. He dug into the rock, he hollowed out a pit in the stone with the sharp prongs of his earth-burrowing pick, he smoothed the sides of the deepening hole and made an excavation like a winepress; then he made his sharp thyrsus into the cunning shape of the later sickle with curved edge, and reaped the newgrown grapes.
[337] A band of Satyrs was with him: one stooped to gather the clusters, one received them into an empty vessel as they were cut, one pulled off the masses of green leaves from the bibulous fruit and threw away the rubbish.
Another without thyrsus or sharpened steel crouched bending forwards and spying for grapes, and put out his right hand towards the branches to pluck the fruit at the ends of the tangled vine, then Bacchos spread the fruitage in the pit he had dug, first heaping the grapes in the middle of the excavation, then arranging them in layers side by side like cornheaps on the threshingfloor, spread out the whole length of the hole.
When he had got all into the hollowed place and filled it up to the brim, he trod the grapes with dancing steps. The Satyrs also, shaking their hair madly in the wind, learnt from Dionysos how to do the like. They pulled tight the dappled skins of fawns over the shoulder, they shouted the song of Bacchos sounding tongue with tongue, crushing the fruit with many a skip of the foot, crying ‘Euoi!’
The wine spurted up in the grape-filled hollow, the runlets were empurpled; pressed by the alternating tread the fruit bubbled out red juice with white foam. They scooped it up with oxhorns, instead of cups which had not yet been seen, so that ever after the cup of mixed wine took this divine name of Winehorn.
[363] And one went bubbling the mind-charming drops of Bacchos as he turned his wobbling feet in zigzag jerks, crossing right over left in confusion as he wetted his hairy cheeks with Bacchos’s drops. Another skipt up struck with a tippler’s madness when he heard the horrid boom of the beaten drumskin. One again who had drunk too deeply of care-dispelling wine purpled his dark beard with the rosy liquor . . .
[394] After the revels over his sweet fruit, Dionysos proudly entered the cave of Cybeleïd Goddess Rhea, waving bunches of grapes in his flower-loving hand, and taught Maionia (Lydia/Western Anatolia/modern Turkey) the vigil of his feast.”
(Nonnos. Diomysiaca 12. 292-394, translated by W. H. D. Rouse, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1940.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/NonnusDionysiaca12.html
EXPRESS DESIRE
Lo (λῶ) means wish, desire. Leio (λείω) is the original form of the word.
Leema ((λῆμα) means will, desire, purpose, courage.
Lilaiomai (λῐλαίομαι) means to long to be or do, to long or desire earnestly.
Litee (λῐτή) means prayer or entreaty.
Litos (λῐτός) means suppliant.
UNLEASH HUNGER
Lein (λείν) means gluttony, the unleashing of hunger.
Lichnos (λίχνος) means to be gluttonous.
UNLEASH WEAPONS
Laas (λᾱας) are stones, especially stones thrown by warriors. Other words for stone include leuo (λεύω) and lithos (λίθος).
A lagkia (λαγκία) is a lance, spear, or javelin.
Lithas (λῐθάς) means a shower of stones.
Leusimos (λεύσιμος) means stoning.
Leusteer (λευστηρ) means one who stones, death by stoning.
LOOSE COLONIES
A laarchees (λᾱάρχης) is a commander of a division of native machimoi (μάχιμοι) (fighting men) settled in cleruchies (κληρουχία). Cleruchies were colonies politically dependent on Athens; the cleruchs formed military garrisons.
DESTRUCTION
Lepra (λέπρα) means leprosy, a disease that causes flesh sores and a loss of sensation.
Loigios (λοιγιος) means to be pestilent or deadly. Loigos (λοιγός) means ruin or havoc pertaining to death by plague; it also means the destruction of ships.
Loidoreo (λοιδορέω) means to abuse, revile, or rebuke.
Loim- (λοιμ-) is a prefix meaning pestilent or destructive. Loimos (λοιμός) means plague.
Lumeo (λῦμέω) means to grieve, vex, distress, or cause pain. Lumeon (λῦμεών) means a destroyer or corrupter.
Lupros (λυπρός) means distressful, wretched, poor.
WEAKEST LINK
Lagaros (λᾰγᾰρος) means loose, thin, narrow, porous, hollow, sunken, slack, least defensible.
An entity is only as fortified as its weakest point of access. In a human or animal body the hollow on each side below the ribs and above the hips, the flanks, are the lagon (λᾰγών). These areas are loose in that they do not contain bones. In a military formation the flanks can be vulnerable to attack.
Laimo (λαιμο-) is a prefix meaning throat. The throat or neck is the laimos (λαιμός), a major point of vulnerability. It is of interest to note that λ=loosen and αιμο=blood, so that λαιμός translates as “loosen blood.” Liphaimeo (λῐφαιμέω) means to lack blood.
Laura (λαύρα) means access to or from via an alley, lane, or passage.
Lepto- (λεπτό-) is a prefix meaning small, thin, fine, feeble, slender, or delicate.
Leptunsis (λέπτυνσις) means attenuation, a gradual loss, to make thin.
LOOSE PART
A labee (λᾰβή) is the handle or haft of a knife, sword, or cup.
Labee (λᾰβή) is also the word for a boxing or wrestling grip/hold; opportunities for refutation; an attack of fever; the eye of a needle; forceps, tweezers, tongs, and clamps. Labee (λᾰβή), in a broad sense, is a way to grab (or release) something.
Lazomai (λάζομαι) means to seize, grasp, or attack. Note that azomai (ἃζομαι) means to stand in awe of or in fear of, so lazomai (λάζομαι) translates as “loosen fear/awe,” a necessary first step in an attack.
Leepsis (λῆψις) means taking hold, seizing, catching.
A lepas (λέπας) is a scaur, an isolated or protruding rock in the sea.
The lobos (λόβός) refers to the lobe, a loose portion of the ear, liver, or lung.
Lophos (λόφος) is the back of the neck; of a horse, its withers; the crest of a hill or ridge; the crest of a helmet; or the crest or tuft on the head of birds. Lophao (λοφάω) means to have a crest or mane. Similarly, loma (λῶμα) means hem or fringe.
LOOSEN FLOW
Ladreo (λαδρέω) means flow strongly.
A lailaps (λαῖλαψ) is a furious storm, hurricane, or whirlwind sweeping upwards.
Lasana (λάσᾰνα) means night-stool/chamber-pot/commode/toilet.
Lataks (λάταξ) are the remaining drops of wine in the bottom of the cup thrown into a basin with a splash.
Leibdeen (λείβδην) means to pour, pour forth, make a libation of wine, a running or dripping liquid.
Libas (λῐβάς) means anything that drips or trickles, a spring, font, stream, libation (drink-offering to a deity).
Lipsouria (λιψουρία) means the desire to make water (urinate).
Loibee (λοιβη) means pouring, libation, or drink-offering in honor of a deity.
Louma (λοῦμα) means stream.
BIRTH-LOOSENING
Lecho (λεχώ) means a woman in childbed or one who has just given birth. Lechoias (λεχωϊάς) means of or belonging to childbed.
A lechos (λέχος) is a couch or bed on which one reclines/relaxes/sleeps. Lechomai (λέχομαι) means to lie down.
Locheia (λοχεία) means child-birth or the childbed. Lochao (λοχάω) means to lie in wait. Lochos (λόχος) is a place for lying in wait.
Leeto (Λητώ) is Leto, the mother of the twin immortals Apollo and Artemis.
Leeda (Λήδα) is Leda, mother of the twins Kastor and Pollux (the stars of the constellation Dioskoroi, originally twin goats).
LUST-LOOSENING
Lagneia (λαγνεία) is the act of coition, sexual intercourse.
Lakkopedon (λακκόπεδον) is the scrotum; lakko (λακκό) means tank, cistern; pedon (πεδον) means earth, ground.
Lamuria (λᾰμῦρία) means wantonness.
Leiktees (λείκτης) means cunnilingus, oral stimulation of the female genitals.
Lektron (λέκτρον) means marriage-bed.
Leeko (ληκώ) means penis.
Liros (λϊρός) means to be bold, shameless, or lewd.
Lombros (λομβρός) is the name of an indecent dance.
LIBIDO: THE HARE
Lagos (λᾰγώς) is the hare, a symbol of fertility and of libido because it breeds prolifically.
Lagoos (λᾰγῶος) means of the hare, the hare’s flesh. A leveret, rabbit, or hare is a lagion (λάγιον). A leveret/lagideus (λᾰγῐδεύς) is a young hare, especially one less than one year old. Another word for hare is leporis (λέπορις).
A hare is traditionally the gift of a lover. Philostratus the Elder describes a scene of the Erotes, the immortal Gods of love, trying to catch a hare as a gift for Aphrodite, the immortal Goddess of love:
“For you know, I imagine, what is said of the hare, that it possesses the gift of Aphrodite [i.e. libido] to an unusual degree. At any rate it is said of the female that while she suckles the young she has borne, she bears another litter to share the same milk; forthwith she conceives again, nor is there any time at all when she is not carrying young.”
(Philostratus the Elder (circa 250 CE), “Imagines 1.6,” Elder Philostratus, Younger Philostratus, Callistratus, translated by Arthur Fairbanks, Loeb Classical Library Volume 256 (London: William Heinemann, 1931.))
The Erotes, Eros, Himerus & Pothos, British Museum, London, United Kingdom, London E440, Beazley Archive Number: 202628, Attic Red Figure Stamnos. Name vase of the Siren Painter, circa 500 - 480 BCE.
Eros, Pothos & Himeros, the three Erotes (love Gods) wing their way over the sea bearing gifts: a hare, a sash, and a branch. This is a drawing of the vase rather than a photographic representation. http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Erotes.html
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, New York City, USA, RISD 1986.158, Apulian Red Figure, Gnathian, Squat lekythos, circa 340 BCE.
Hermaphroditos is depicted as a winged Eros (love God) in the form of a young woman (breasts, thighs, and hair-style) with male genitalia. S/He chases a hare, an animal which for the Greeks symbolized sexual desire. http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K30.1.html
LOSS
Leipo (λείπω) means to leave, quit, to be left, left behind, left without. Leipsis (λεῖψις) means an omission, lack, or loss.
Limo- (λῑμο-) is a prefix meaning hunger, famine. Limos (λῑμος) means hunger or famine. Limaino (λῑμαίνω) means to suffer from famine.
Liperneo (λῐπερνέω) means poor.
Lipo- (λῐπό-) is a prefix meaning without.
Litos (λῖτός) means something simple, inexpensive, or frugal.
Laganophakee (λᾰγᾰνοφᾰκῆ) is a lentil pudding or cake. Lentils are considered fasting food, food consumed during fasting periods.
“The meal, prepared the day before, is quite simple, usually consisting of lentils boiled in plain water, vinegar, and oregano, and served with olives, scallions, and halva, all considered fasting food.” http://www.greek-recipe.com
“Lentil soup is a perennial favorite as well as a Lenten dish consumed during fasting periods.” http://greekfood.about.com
“LIBERATE” GOODS
In a warrior society, a significant source of wealth is derived from “liberating” or looting treasure, etc. from defeated foes.
Laa (λάα=λέια) and laphura (λάφῦρα) mean booty, spoils taken in war.
Lambano (λαμβάνω) means to take, take hold of, grasp, seize, take by violence, carry off, apprehend.
Lao (λάω) means to seize.
Leeidios (ληϊδιος) means that which is taken as booty. Leeis (ληΐς) means booty, plunder, or spoil.
Leesteia (ληστεία) means robbery or piracy.
ONE’S LOT
Laggano (λαγχάνω) means to obtain as one’s portion.
Laksis (λάξις) means that which is assigned by lot.
Lachee (λάχη) means lot or share.
Lachesis (Λάχεσις) is one of the three Fates, the dispenser of lots, the immortal Goddess of distribution who determines a mortal’s lot in life.
"By fate are we driven; yield ye to fate. No anxious cares can change the threads of its inevitable spindle. Whate’er we mortals bear, whate’er we do, comes from on high; and Lachesis maintains the decrees of her distaff which by no hand may be reversed.”
(Seneca (circa 50 CE). “Oedipus 980 ff,” Tragedies, translated by Frank Justus Miller, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1917.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html
Lachos (λάχος) is an allotted portion or share.
Leeksis (λῆξις) means determination or appointment by lot. Leeksis (λῆξις) also means the cessation of a river; death, decease; end, and extremity.
Leepteos (ληπτέος) means to take, accept, choose.
VEGETABLES/GRASSLAND
Lachan- (λᾰχᾰν-) is a prefix meaning vegetables. Lachanon (λάχᾰνον) means garden herbs.
Leimaks (λεῖμαξ) means meadow, a field of grassland used for pasturing animals.
Leimon (λειμών) is any moist, grassy place such as a meadow.
THE WOLF=THAT WHICH TAKES/LIBERATES/STEALS
The prefix luk- (λύκ-), literally “loosen pure core,“ is associated with the wolf (λύκος), an animal known for attacking domestic livestock.
Besides meaning “wolf,” lukos (λύκος) also means a bird and a spider that hunt; a hook; a noose; a lozenge to treat dysentery; and a fish associated with wild rage. Lukos (λύκος) means:
- a kind of daw (black and grey Eurasian bird noted for thievery)
- a kind of spider that hunts prey
- anything shaped like a hook (jagged bit for hard-mouthed horses, knocker or hook on a door, flesh-hook)
- the flower of the iris
- a kind of noose
- a pastille used in dysentery/diarrhea
- a fish, kallionumos (καλλιωνυμος).
“The presence of a very large gall-bladder in Kallionymos was so well known that this fish was commonly referred to in passages descriptive of excessive anger.” http://www.archive.org/stream/aristotlesresear00lone/aristotlesresear00lone_djvu.txt
The prefix luk- (λύκ-) also pertains to viper’s herb, Echium italicum, lukapsos (λύκαψος). The leaves of Echium Italicum/lukapsos (λύκαψος) in wine “facilitate delivery.”
(Theophilus Redwood, Samuel Frederick Gray. “Echium,” Gray’s Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia (London: Longman and Company, 1848) 391.)
http://books.google.com/books?id=0_TI4kLEHAkC&pg=PA391&lpg=PA391&dq=viper’s+herb,+Echium+italicum&source=bl&ots=U9O-ZuwE3w&sig=O8VTYAvw8ApUPs5Mzz8i_o51d2Q&hl=en&ei=OhfBToyvJef40gGZ3onsBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=viper’s%20herb%2C%20Echium%20italicum&f=false
The prefix luk- (λύκ-) also pertains to:
- the year/month/day, lukabas (λῠκάβας)
- dyer’s buckthorn, Rhamnus petiolaris, lukion (λύκιον), a plant that yields a yellow and a green dye.
According to Gray’s Supplement (p. 243), Rhamnus/lukion (λύκιον) is a diuretic, laxative, and purgative.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0_TI4kLEHAkC&pg=PA391&lpg=PA391&dq=viper’s+herb,+Echium+italicum&source=bl&ots=U9O-ZuwE3w&sig=O8VTYAvw8ApUPs5Mzz8i_o51d2Q&hl=en&ei=OhfBToyvJef40gGZ3onsBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBw#v=snippet&q=Rhamnus&f=false
The Lukeion (Λύκειον) is the Lyceum, a gymnasium at Athens named for the nearby temple of Apollo Lukeios (Λύκειος).
Lukeios, the Lyceum, may refer to the wolf; to “loosening energy/fat;” or may refer to the region of Anatolia called Lukios (Lycian) (Λύκιος, Λῠκαῖος) on the southern coast of Anatolia/Asia Minor/Phrygia/modern Turkey. Diodorus of Sicily and Virgil associate Apollo with Lycia (Lukios):
“Apollo has been called Delian and Lycian and Pythian.” (Diodorus Siculus (of Sicily). Library of History 5.77.7)
“Apollo quits Lycia, his winter home, and the streams of Xanthus, to visit his mother’s Delos, and renews the dance.” (Virgil, Aeneid 4. 145, translation H.R. Fairclough.)
Lycia is located on the southern coast of Anatolia/Asia Minor/Phrygia (Turkey). It was a highly desirable region that was invaded/ attacked by the Athenians and others, a source of “loot.”
http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/east_med.htm
“The history of Lycia is a story of fierce struggles against those who sought to invade and dominate it, as it was a very desirable region. It appears that Greek efforts to colonize Lycia during the first millennium BCE were largely unsuccessful even though there were several Athenian expeditions.” http://www.lycianturkey.com/lycian_history.htm
Luko (λῠκω) is an epithet of the moon. Lukee (λύκη) is morning twilight. Lukophos (λῠκοφως) is both morning and evening twilight. These types of lights are grey, like the wolf, and transitional: “liberating” night and day.
The diversity of meaning surrounding the prefix luk- (λύκ-) suggests that it should not necessarily be narrowly interpreted as “wolf,” and perhaps refers more broadly to “that which liberates (steals).”
LION/LEOPARD/LYNX
Ancient Goddesses are frequently depicted as lion tamers. While the bull and the lion are both associated with the immortal Goddesses Isis and Hathor in Egypt, the lion is particularly associated with Goddesses in ancient regions east of Egypt (the Sinai peninsula, Jordan), as well as Sumer (Iraq), and Phrygia (Turkey). Ancient artworks throughout the Mediterranean depict a lion-headed Goddess (Bastet), a Goddess standing on lions, a Goddess seated on a thrown flanked by lions, and the Magna Mater (Great Mother) driving a chariot pulled by lions.
Lis (λίς) or leon (λέων) mean lion, literally “loosen divine-power” or “loosen essence brings-forth prevailing.” Leaina (λέαινα) means a lioness, which is also the term for women dedicated to the immortal God Mithras, the bull-slayer. Leonto- (λεοντο-) is a prefix meaning lion. Female lions are the primary hunters.
Lions are frequently referred to as “bull-slaying.”
Female deities tame the “bull-slaying lion” in ancient Phrygian (Turkey), Sumerian (Iraq), Syrian, Phoenician, and Egyptian art dated as early as 5900 BCE.
Seated Goddess on a Throne Flanked by Female Lions, Catal Huyuk, circa 5900 BCE. http://www.westcler.org/gh/curlessmatt/arthistory/2a/seatgoddesscatalhuyuk.jpg
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ features hymns addressed to the immortal Goddess Ninegala (Inana), referred to in one hymn as the “lioness of heaven:”
A hymn to Inana as Ninegala (Inana D): c.4.07.4
“Great light, heavenly lioness, always speaking words of assent!
Inana, great light, lioness of heaven, who always speaks words of assent!
Ninegala! As you rise in the morning sky like a flame visible from afar, and at your bright appearance in the evening sky, the shepherd entrusts (?) the flocks of Sumer to you. Celestial sign, …… glory of heaven! All the countries are building a house for you as for the risen sun; a shining (?) torch is assigned to you, the light of the Land.”
Temple hymn sources identify Ninhursag (NIN.URSAG) (“Lady of the Mountain”) as the “true and great lady of heaven” and kings of Sumer were “nourished by Ninhursag's milk.” Inana/Ninhursag is typically depicted with wings, wearing a tiered dress, often with bow cases at her shoulders, and not infrequently carries a mace or baton, sometimes standing on or seated above a lion. The depiction, below, dates to circa 2200 BCE.
Black-stone cylinder seal. Akkadian, circa 2334-2154 BCE.
S. Beaulieu, after Wolkstein & Kramer 1983:92.
Inana on Her Throne, circa 2000-1600 BCE. Akkad period. Nephrite. Cylinder seal. Mesopotamia. She is seated above a lion.
The Goddess Astarte is depicted standing on a lion, circa 1500 BCE:
Gold pendant depicting the immortal Goddess Astarte standing on a lion. Ugarit, (the modern Ras Shamra on the coast of Syria.) circa 1500 BCE. Museum: Musée du Louvre
The immortal Goddess Qudshu is also depicted standing on a lion, circa 1250 BCE:
The Egyptian immortal Goddess Qudshu, standing on a lion. From Deir el-Medina, Thebes, Egypt, circa 1250 BCE. British Museum. Height: 75 cm
http://www.britishmuseum.org/images/k89014_m.jpg
A winged Babylonian Goddess is depicted standing on a lion, circa 1800 BCE:
Old Babylonian, A Goddess standing on a lion, from southern Iraq, British Museum. Height: 49.5 cm 1800-1750 BCE.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/t/queen_of_the_night_relief.aspx
Ancient coins of Orthosia, Phoenicia (West Bank) feature the head of Tyche (Fortune) and, on the obverse side, Tyche (Fortune) driving a chariot drawn by winged lions.
Phoenicia, Orthosia. 24/23 BCE). Turreted head of Tyche right / Tyche in a chariot pulled by winged lions. http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/phoenicia/orthosia/t.html
A fragment of pottery features the immortal Goddess Rhea-Kybele riding on the back of a lion, circa 450 BCE:
The Goddess Rhea-Kybele rides side-saddle on the back of a lion.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Boston 10.187, Attic Red Figure Kylix fragment, circa 450 BCE. http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T7.1.html
A Thracian coin depicts Kybele riding on a lion, circa 245 CE:
Thracian Coin depicting Kybele riding a lion, circa 245 CE.
T0231: THRACE. Bizya. Philip I, A.D. 244-249. AE 33 (21.13 g).
THRACE. Bizya. Philip I, A.D. 244-249. AE 33 (21.13 g) ( mm, gm). Diademed and radiate bust right. Rev: Kybele riding lion right. Jurukova 122 (1 example recorded). VF/F
http://www.ancient-coins.com/itemdetail.asp?&item=7519
In Ovid’s Fasti: April 4 Megalensia Ludi Comitialis, Ovid describes a conversation regarding the Spring festival in celebration of the Mother of the Gods and Goddesses:
“And the Idaean Mother’s feast begins . . .
‘Why do fierce lions strangely
Submit their manes to her arcing yoke?’
. . . ‘It’s thought she tamed their wildness.
Her own chariot testifies to this.’”
Ovid. Fasti (4. 183, 215-221), translated by Anthony J. Boyle (London and New York, et. al.: Penguin Books, 2000.)
The immortal Goddess Kybele is depicted in a chariot drawn by lions at the Palacio de Communicaciones in Madrid, Spain.
The Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid, Spain, the Cibeles Fountain. http://www.bestourism.com/img/items/big/933/Plaza-de-Cibeles_Plaza-de-Cibeles-view-by-night_3534.jpg
Orphic Hymn 26. To The Mother of the Gods [and Goddesses] (1-10) describes her as enthroned on a car drawn by bull-destroying lions:
“Mother of Gods [and Goddesses], great nurse of all, draw near,
Divinely honor'd, and regard my pray'r:
Thron'd on a car, by lions drawn along,
By bull-destroying lions, swift and strong,
Thou sway'st the sceptre of the pole divine,
And the world's middle seat, much-fam'd, is thine.
Hence earth is thine, and needy mortals share
Their constant food, from thy protecting care:
From thee at first both Gods [and Goddesses] and men (sic) arose;
From thee, the sea and ev'ry river flows . . . ”
The appearance of the constellation Leo (July-August) immediately precedes the constellation Virgo (August-September) in the summer sky, which may explain the many images of a female deity depicted as standing on a lion, riding a lion, or in a chariot drawn by lions.
Card 20. Leo Major and Leo Minor, from Urania’s Mirror or a View of the Heavens. http://www.ianridpath.com/atlases/urania.htm
Card 21. Virgo, From Urania’s Mirror or a View of the Heavens. http://www.ianridpath.com/atlases/urania.htm
Leopardos (λεόπαρδος) means leopard.
A lugks (λύγξ), lynx, is a wild cat and the name of a Northern springtime constellation.
Card 8. Lynx Constellation. From Urania’s Mirror or a View of the Heavens. http://www.ianridpath.com/atlases/urania.htm
LEFTOVER
Leimma (λεῖμμα) means remnant, residue, or what is leftover. Leipsanon (λείψᾰνον) means a remnant or a piece left.
Loipos (λοιπός) means something remaining over, left over; for the future, for the rest; further, then.
Loistheeios (λοισθήϊος) means for the last, the prize for the last race, last prize, last (but not least?).
LIPID/OIL/FAT
Larinos (λᾱρῑνος) means fat.
Lipaino (λῐπαίνω) means to oil, anoint.
Lipao (λῐπάω) means to be sleek, the basis for the word lipid, an organic compound that is greasy/fatty.
BENT
Loksias (Λοξίας) means oblique and refers to the ecliptic orbit of the sun, the path that the sun appears to follow through the sky during the year.
Loksikos (λοξικός) means oblique or ecliptic. Loksos (λοξός) means something slanting, crosswise, ecliptic, or ambiguous.
Lopdaina (λορδαίνω) means to be bent backward so as to be convex in front. Lopdo (λορδόω) means to bend oneself supinely so as to throw back the head.
Lugizo (λύγίζω) means to bend or twist as one does with a withe (a flexible tough supple twig such as a willow used to bind things together).
Lugos (λύγος) means withy and also refers to the Vitex agnus castus or chaste-tree, so named because it is believed to play a role in helping to dampen libido.
LINEN
Linon (λίνον) means linen or anything made of flax.
Lin- (λῐν-) is a prefix meaning linen or flax. Lino (λῐνό-) is a prefix meaning linseed, linen. Linarion (λῐνάριον) means thread. The flax fiber is obtained from the stalk of the plant.
The flax or linen flower. http://www.swicofil.com/products/003flax.html
Lita (λῖτα) means linen cloth. Lention (λέντιον) means cloth, napkin, or towel.
TEXTURE
Lasion (λάσιον) means to be rough or shaggy. Lasios (λάσῐος) means something shaggy, woolly, hairy, or bushy.
Leio- (λειό-) is a prefix meaning smooth. Leios (λεῖος) means smooth to the touch. Leuros (λευρός) means smooth, level, even, or polished.
Lis, lissos, or leazo (λίς, λισσός, λεάζω) mean smooth. Lispos (λίσπος) means to be smooth or polished.
COMMON PEOPLE
Lao- (λαο-) is a prefix meaning of the people. Laos (λᾱός) means people or multitude, the basis for the word laity.
Laikos (λἃϊκός) means someone of or from the people, unofficial, common, a layperson.
Leeiton (λήϊτον) means town-hall, council-chamber; public priestess.
Laodees (λᾱωδης) and leodees (λεώδης) mean popular or common. Lagetos (λᾱγέτος) means leader of the people.
Laggon (λαγγών) means trader or merchant.
PLACES
Many Mediterannean locales begin with the letter Λ λ.
Lakon (Λάκων) means Laconian. Lakedaimoniazo (Λᾰκεδαιμονιάζω) means Lacedaemon, the capital of Laconia in the southern Peloponnese.
Lakkos (λάκκος) means a pond, cistern, or pit for storing wine or oil.
Larisa (Λάρῖσα) is the name of many old Greek cities. Laros (λᾱρος) means pleasant: pleasant to the taste, to the smell, to the eye. Liaros (λῐᾰρός) means warm, gentle, balmy, or a warm, soft wind.
Latinee (Λᾰτίνη) refers to anything from Latium/Ausoniee (Αύσονίη), central Italy.
Latreia (λατρεία) means hired labor, service, duties.
Lebua (Λεβύα= Λῐβύη) means both the city of Libya and Africa in general; it generally refers to the west bank of the Nile. Libikos (λῐβικός) means western.
Lesbos (Λεσβος) is an island renowned for its poets and musicians.
“They [Lesbians] have the reputation of being exceedingly skilled in the art of music.” Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 7
Leschee (λέσχη) means a resting place, couch, lounging, funeral bier or tomb, public building or hall, lounge, or meeting-place, and the gossip that occurred there.
Leemnos (Λῆμνος) is an island sacred to Hephaistos, the immortal God of volcanoes and metalworking. Leemnos (Λῆμνος) translates literally “loose center,” a fitting description for a volcano.
Leemao (λημάω) means bleary, misty, literally “loose central middle/meta arising.” To be full of rheum, a secretion of rheum in the eyes is leemodees (λημώδης).
Libanos (Λίβᾰνος) is Lebanon, the home of the frankincense tree, Boswellia Carterii, Libanos (λίβᾰνος) means frankincense.
Liguria (Λίγυς) is a coastal mountainous area now part of northwest Italy. According to Herodotus (7.165) and Diodorus of Sicily (11.1, 21.3), the Ligurians served as mercenaries in the Carthaginian and Sicilian armies. According to William Smith (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography), the Greeks never established their power far inland in this region and “the mountain tribes of the Ligurians were left in the enjoyment of undisturbed independence.”
Ligus (λῐγύς) means a clear, sweet, shrill sound. Liga (λίγᾰ) means in a loud, clear tone. A thick smoke mixed with flame, a murky fire is a lignus (λιγνύς).
Liguria is the northern coast of the Ligurian sea.
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/Ligurian%20Sea?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=Ligurian%20Sea&sa=Search#922
Locrian/Lokros (Λοκρός) is a region north of the Peloponnese.
The region of Locris is shown in yellow north of the Pelopponese. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Map_athenian_empire_431_BC-en.svg
Lydia/Ludia (Λῦδία) is a region of Phrygia (modern Turkey) that includes the city of Ephesus, home to the Temple of Artemis.
Image at: www.godsgeography.com/ asia/turkey/turkey1.htm
OTHER
Laburinthos (λᾰβύρινθος) means labyrinth, a large building consisting of numerous halls connected by intricate and tortuous passages. Such buildings are noted in antiquity in Egypt, Crete, Rome, and Miletus. Labyrinth also means tortuous questions or arguments.
Lagkee (λάγκη) means lanx, a plate or platter, dish. According to Webster’s, lanx is the substantive syllable in the word balance=bi-lanx/two-dish.
Lanx, circa 350 CE. The scene shows the God Apollo at the entrance to a shrine, holding a bow, his lyre at his feet. Artemis enters from the left, holding a bow. Athena stands with her hand raised to indicate conversation. Two other female figures complete the scene, one holding a staff and the other seated.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/t/the_corbridge_lanx.aspx
Lagunos (λάγῦνος) is a container for transporting liquids, a flask, flagon, or pitcher.
Laipseeros (λαιψηρός) means to be light, nimble, or swift.
Lekanee (λεκάνη) or lekos (λέκος) is a dish, pot, or pan.
Lopas (λοπάς) is a flat dish or plate. Lopad- (λοπᾰδ-) is prefix meaning dish.
Lekithos (λέκῐθος) means the yoke of an egg, literally “loosen essence core.”
Lemphos (λέμφος) means putrescent (rotting) carcasses.
Leos (λέως) means entirely or wholly.
Leet- (λητ) is a prefix meaning to serve the public.
Lian (λίαν) means very or exceedingly.
Limn- (λιμν-) is a prefix meaning pool, lake, marsh, or irrigation. Limeen (λῐμήν) is a harbor, haven, retreat, or refuge.
Litra (λίτρα) means a silver coin of Sicily: 12 ounces; 1 measure of capacity, the basis for the word liter.
Lips (λίψ) means the SW wind, the South; also, the position of a star on the Western horizon at sunrise or sunset.
Lopee (λῶπη) is a covering, robe, or mantle.
The letter Λ means loosen, liberate, loose, release, express.
The shape of Λ is an upward pointing arrow, as if to suggest freedom from gravity; gravity-defying.
Libertos (λίβερτος) means liberty.
Lagaio (λαγαίω) means to release. Laggazo (λαγγάζω) means to slacken.
Lath- (λαθ-) is a prefix meaning escape. Lathos (λάθος) means to escape from detection.
Laparos (λᾰπᾰρός) means to be slack or loose.
Leipo (λείπω) means to leave, quit, to be left, left behind, left without. Leipsis (λεῖψις) means an omission, lack, or loss.
Lophao (λωφάω) means to give over, take rest from, cease to do, lighten, or relieve, as in “loafing off.”
Luaios (Λῠαῖος) means “Loosener” or “Deliverer,” an epithet of the Great Mother as one who looses, delivers one from. Luteer (λύτήρ) means deliverer.
Luee (λύη) means dissolution or separation.
Lus- (λῦσ-) is a prefix meaning end of, deliver from, relaxing.
Lusis (λύσις) means loosing or releasing.
Luteira (λύτειρα) means one must open.
Lutron (λύτρον) is the price of release, ransom, a sum paid; atonement.
Luo (λύω) means to unbind, unfasten, loose, slacken, open, unyoke, unharness, release, dissolve, undo, break, atone for, make up for.
It is interesting to note that Lutetia was the original name for the Île de la Cité in Paris, the first Roman settlement in Paris and the site of the Cathedral of Notre Dame (Our Lady). The Emperor Julian settled in Lutetia subsequent to his initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries.
“Many historians claim that it was during this stay in Athens that Julian (the Apostate (361-363 CE) was initiated by an Eleusinian hierophant into the ancient mysteries of Eleusis . . .
“(Subsequently) Julian’s main seat in Gaul was in Lutetia.”
(Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire: 324 CE – 1453 CE (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952) 70.)
http://books.google.com/books?id=RtM0qClcIX4C&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=lutetia+eleusis&source=bl&ots=pEnuLc8Bv3&sig=YIlbXOvOllH-gSk2ar1fH_5uOEs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_TyuUIOuOYOm9ATynoHABg&ved=0CEwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=lutetia%20eleusis&f=false
Julian in his Oration to the Mother of the Gods [and Goddesses] said, “She is the mistress of all life, and the cause of all generation . . .”
(Emperor Julian. “To the Mother of the Gods [and Goddesses]” Two Orations of the Emperor Julian, translated by Thomas Taylor (Kessinger Publishing Rare Reprints) 115
http://books.google.com/books?id=p3hqRjutxdMC&source=gbs_similarbooks
Notre Dame was built on the site of the Basilica of St. Etienne. Note that Eteephilos (Έτηφίλος) is an epithet of the Roman emperor Hadrian as a devotee of the immortal Goddess Persephone.
Some theorize that the earliest settlers of Lutetia (Paris) were Trojans displaced by the fall of Troy.
(Raoul de Presles. “Description de Paris sous Charles V. 1371.” In: Le
Roux de Lincy and L. M. Tisserand. Paris et ses Historiens aux XIVe et
XVe Siècles. Documents et Écrits Originaux. Paris. 1867:103-104.)
Consistent with this theory, Paris is a Trojan prince depicted in Homer’s Iliad. Also, the Champs-Élysées, a major Paris road passing through the Arc d’ Triumph and the Élysée Palace, the official residence of the President of the French Republic, are named for Elysian, the blessed paradise in the afterlife.
LIKMAO: WINNOW THE CHAFF
The harvest of grain is prepared by threshing (beating/pounding/grinding) to release the grain or seeds from the plant and winnowing (tossing the grain into the air) to remove the chaff (husks), dirt, etc. from the grain.
A laktis (λάκτις) is a pestle, a grinding instrument, literally “loosen arising core.”
A likmas (λικμάς) or liknon (λίκνον) is a winnowing basket, a broad basket in which corn/grain is placed after threshing. The corn/grain is then thrown against the wind so as to winnow the heavier grain from the lightweight chaff. The grain falls to the ground ready for collection and the chaff is blown away by the wind.
Likmao (λικμάω) means to part the grain from the chaff, to winnow.
Likmaios (λικμαῖος) means presiding over winnowing (an epithet of the immortal Goddess Demeter).
Liknotephei (λικνοστεφεῖ) means to carry the sacred liknon (λίκνον) (winnowing basket) in procession.
Louka (λοῦκα) is a food made of wheat-meal.
Hesiod, Homer, and Virgil describe the sacred winnowing process.
“. . . winnow Demeter’s holy grain, when strong Orion (the constellation) first appears, on a smooth threshing-floor in an airy place.”
(Hesiod, Works & Days (597-599), translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1914. Reprinted in English by Dodo Press dodopress.co.uk, 2011) 14.)
“ . . . as the wind carrieth chaff about the sacred threshing-floors of men (sic) that are winnowing, when fair-haired Demeter amid the driving blasts of wind separates the grain from the chaff . . .”
(Homer, Iliad 5.500, translated by A.T. Murray, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.) http://www.archive.org/stream/iliadmurray01homeuoft/iliadmurray01homeuoft_djvu.txt
“ . . . while the floor groans
Heavily as the corn is threshed, and while
The empty chaff is tossed to the rising Zephyr (Wind).”
(Virgil. “The Georgics (134-136),” The Eclogues and the Georgics, translated by R. C. Trevelyan (Cambridge: University Press, 1944) 82.)
http://books.google.com/books?id=qbM8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=virgil+georgics+when+the+floor+groans+heavily+as+the+corn+is+threshed,+and&source=bl&ots=tzIeDjfgKi&sig=RSEwNGXCZuY1wPre2o3vdfU4FZM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hogSUdaqFOTG0QHlvYDoCw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=snippet&q=zephyr%20&f=false
Winnowing is still practiced in agricultural societies around the world, as it was in ancient Egypt.
Winnowing grain
http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=2420610
Winnowing grain.
http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/bmp/index.php/post-productive-phase/cleaning
Winnowing grain.
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Andreas-Schild/3224
Winnowing grain.
http://americangallery.wordpress.com/category/johnson-eastman/
Winnowing grain.
http://shemgroup.org/daisy.htm
Winnowing grain.
http://www.hardrainproject.com/hrpl.php?n=687
Winnowing grain. A scene from the tomb of Nakht at Thebes (18th Dynasty). http://ww w.ancientegyptmagazine.com/permesut41.htm
Winnowing grain.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/nakht2.htm
LOOSEN CONTENTS
Lakao (λᾰκάω) means to burst asunder.
Lakeema (λάκημα) is a fragment broken off.
Lakizo (λᾰκίζω) means to tear, rend, or split.
Lepo (λέπω) means to strip off rind or bark. Lepos (λέπος) and lepuros (λεπύρός) are the husk, peel, bark, or rind. Lemma (λέμμα) means that which is peeled off, the rind or husk.
Lepizo (λεπίζω) means to peel off the husk, skin, or bark.
Leekeo (ληκέω) means to crack, crackle, or burst asunder.
LOOSEN IMPURITIES
Lebees (λέβης) is a basin of purifying water, pan for washing, or bath.
Lou- (λου-) is a prefix meaning washing, bathing. Louo (λούω) means to bathe.
Lousis (λοῦσις) means washing or bathing.
Luma (λῦμα) means the water used in washing.
LOOSE-MINDED/LOOSE-ACTING
Labros (λάβρος) means to be furious, boisterous, violent, or impetuous.
Laidros (λαιδρος) means to be bold or impudent. (Laertes is a bold, impulsive character who serves as a foil to the paralyzed-by-thought Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet.)
Leesmon (λήσμων) means to be unmindful.
Lelieemai (λελίημαι) means to strive eagerly or to be rushing.
Leereia (ληρεία) means to be foolish or silly.
LOOSE TONGUES
Labreia (λαβρεία) means to talk rashly or to brag.
Lakazo (λᾰκάζω) means to shout or howl.
Lakeros (λᾰκερός) means to be talkative.
Lal (λάλ) is one of the names for the letter Λ. Words beginning with λάλ convey the idea of bringing forth thoughts at a rapid pace. Lalos (λάλος) means to be talkative, babbling, loquacious. Laleo (λᾰλέω) means to prattle. A lalaks (λάλαξ) is a babbler.
Lasthee (λάσθη) means to mock, insult.
In a twist on the notion of “loose tongues,” lichmazo (λιχμάζω) means to lick. Leicho (λείχω) means to lick or lick up. Lapto (λάπτω) and lapsis (λάψις) mean to lap with the tongue or lick.
LOGOS, EXPRESS THOUGHTS SELECTIVELY
Log- (λόγ-) literally means “loosen entity generative,” that is, release something creative/productive.
Logas (λογάς, λογάδην) means to be picked or chosen.
Logch- (λογχ-) is a prefix meaning something with a point.
Logos (λόγος) reflects many meanings, generally suggesting the expressed main or essential part of a matter, as in:
-rule, principle, law, formula
-statement of a theory, argument
-thinking, reasoning
-idea, thought
-divine utterance, “oracle”
-proverb, maxim, saying
-continuous statement, narrative
-word, expression, phrase
-sentence, complete statement
-discussion, debate, deliberation, assertion
-thing talked of, event
-common talk, report, rumor.
The prefix log- (λογ-) often pertains to incidences of speaking. Speaking was the main way to express or release one’s thoughts through words prior to the advent of the printing press and mass literacy.
Logao (λογάω) means to be fond of talking.
Logeia (λογεία) means speaking-place, stage, platform; mouth.
Logikos (λογϊκός) means of or for speaking, speech suited for prose; possessed of reason, intellectual, dialectical, argumentative, the basis for the word logic.
Logion (λόγιον) means something worth mentioning; noble, or famous; also, an “oracle,” especially one preserved from antiquity; learned, erudite, skilled in words, eloquent; reason, argument.
Logistikos (λογιστικός) means to be skilled or practiced in calculating or in practical arithmetic; to be endued with reason, to be rational, logical.
Logodees (λογώδης) means verbal.
LEXICON, LECTURE, AND LIBRARY
Lego (λέγω) means to recount, tell over, say, speak.
Lekteos (λεκτέος) means to be said or spoken, the basis for the word lecture.
Leksis (λέξις) means speech, words, the basis for the word lexicon.
A librarios (λιβράριος) is one who writes down words, a scribe, the basis for the word library.
LYRICAL
Playing a musical instrument is another means of expression; of releasing what is within.
Lur- (λῠρ-) is a prefix meaning lyre/lura (λύρα), literally “loosen pure outflow.” A lyre is a stringed instrument that dates to ancient antiquity, the basis for the word lyrical. The immortal God Apollo was frequently depicted playing a lyre.
Apollo with Lyre. http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K5.1.html
The J Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, USA, Malibu 85.AE.101, Lucanian Red Figure, Volute krater, Attributed to the PKP Group, probably the Palermo Painter. Detail of Apollon playing the lyre, from a scene depicting a company of Gods and Goddesses. Apollon is crowned with a wreath of laurel.
In Orphic Hymn 33. To Apollo (27-32), Orpheus says:
“ . . . Tis thine all Nature’s music to inspire,
With various-sounding, harmonising lyre;
Now the last string thou tun’st to sweet accord,
Divinely warbling now the highest chord;
Th’ immortal golden lyre, now touch’d by thee,
Responsive yields a Dorian melody . . .”
(Orpheus. The Hymns of Orpheus (circa 200 BCE), translated by Thomas Taylor, introductory preface by Manly P. Hall (London: Printed for the Author, 1792. Reprinted Los Angeles, CA: The Philosophical Research Society, 1981) 162-163.)
Lura (λύρα) also refers to lyric poetry and the constellation Lyra, visible from the northern hemisphere from spring through autumn.
Loteo (λωτέω) means to play the flute. Loteo (λωτέω) also means to bloom.
Lasko (λάσκω) means ring, rattle, crash.
LIGHT
Light shines forth, seemingly miraculously, from solid objects when they burn.
A lampadeia (λαμπᾰδεία) is a torch-light procession.
Lampas (λαμπας) and lampee (λάμπη) mean a torch or lamp.
Lampo (λάμπω) means to give light or to shine, the basis for the word lamp.
Lampros (λαμπρός) means to be bright or radiant.
Lampsis (λάμψις) means shining.
Loumenarion (λουμενάριον) means a window, that which allows light to flow through.
Lugee (λύγη) means twilight, the transitional time that loosens night or day.
Luchn- (λυχν-) is a prefix meaning lamp. A luchnos (λύχνος) is a portable light or lamp.
RELEASE LIGHT, WHITENESS
Lucretius credits Mater Matuta (the Great Mother) with bringing about the light of day:
“At a fixed time Matuta sends abroad the rosy dawn through the coasts of heaven, and spreads the light . . . from the high mountains of Ida scattered fires are seen as the light rises, and then they gather as if into a single ball, and make up the orb.
“Nor again ought this to be a cause of wonder herein, that these seeds of fire can stream together at so fixed a time . . . For we see many events which come to pass at a fixed time in all things. Trees blossom at a fixed time, and at a fixed time lose their flower . . . thunder, snow, rains, clouds, winds come to pass at seasons of the year more or less fixed.
“For since the first-beginnings of causes were ever thus . . . one thing after another they come round even now in the fixed order.”
(Lucretius (circa 50 BCE). Religion in Archaic and Republican Rome and Italy 5, 656-79, translated by Bailey, edited by Edward Bispham and Christopher John Smith (UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2000) 147).
http://books.google.com/books?id=kZY__iHXOjQC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=At+a+fixed+time+Matuta+sends+abroad+the+rosy+dawn+through+the+coasts+of+heaven,+and+spreads+the+light&source=bl&ots=8MiRUazfi6&sig=TJMNJhI7MecdWK3sbcD5b1Vj0rQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gUbuT-jtB8bl6QGSks2YAw&ved=0CEoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=At%20a%20fixed%20time%20Matuta%20sends%20abroad%20the%20rosy%20dawn%20through%20the%20coasts%20of%20heaven%2C%20and%20spreads%20the%20light&f=false
Leukos (λευκός) means light, bright, clear, or white. Leusso (λεύσσω) means to look or gaze upon, to see.
Leuk- (λευκ-) is a prefix meaning white. Leukon (λευκόν) means white. Leukatheo (λευκᾰθέω) means to be white, colorless. Leukaino (λευκαίνω) means to make white.
Leukathea (Λευκἃθέα) is Leucothea, the immortal white Goddess believed to come to the aid of sailors in distress.
“While he (Ulysses) was being tossed about by the waves, Leucothea, who we call Mater Matuta, who lives forever in the sea, gave him her girdle to bind around his chest, to buoy him up. When he had done this, he swam to safety.”
(Gaius Julius Hyginus (circa 150 CE). “Fables,” The Myths of Hyginus, translated by Mary Grant (Lawrence: University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies, no. 34, University of Kansas Press, 1960) 125. http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html
Etruscan, Mater Matuta, seated holding a child and flanked by winged animals (lions?) with human face, circa 475 BCE. National Archaeological Museum of Florence, Italy.
Orphic Hymn 73. To Leucothea (9-16) appeals on behalf of sailors:
“. . . When rushing billows with tempestuous ire
O’erwhelm the mariner in ruin dire,
Thou hear’st, with pity touch’d, his suppliant pray’r,
Resolv’d his life to succour and to spare.
Be ever present, Goddess! in distress,
Waft ships along with prosperous success:
Thy mystics thro’ the stormy sea defend,
And safe conduct them to their destined end."
(Orpheus. The Hymns of Orpheus (circa 200 BCE), translated by Thomas Taylor, introductory preface by Manly P. Hall (London: Printed for the Author, 1792. Reprinted Los Angeles, CA: The Philosophical Research Society, 1981) 204.)
Leukoinos (λευκόϊνος) is the snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, a white flower that blooms very early in Spring.
LOOSEN MEMORY
Latho (λάθω) means to escape notice, without being observed; make one forget, forget.
Lanthano (λανθάνω) means to make one forget.
Leethaios (λήθαιος) means to cause forgetfulness or to be of or from Lethe/Leethee (Λήθη).
Leethargeo (ληθαργέω) means drowsiness, lethargy.
Leethee (λήθη) means forgetting or forgetful.
Leestis (λῆστις) means to forget.
Leethee (Λήθη) is Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in the afterlife. If the souls of the departed drink from the waters of Lethe, they forget all their experiences of life and come back to the world reborn. If they go past Lethe, however, and drink from the waters of Mnemosyne, “memory,” they recall all their experiences of life and go on to live in the joyful realm of the Elysian Fields.
An inscription on a gold tablet buried with a woman in a grave in Italy dated circa 400 BCE describes the path to Elysian:
“When you are about to die
down to the well-built house of Hades,
There is a spring at the right side,
And standing by it a white cypress.
Descending to it, the souls of the dead refresh themselves.
Do not even go near this spring!
Ahead you will find from the Lake of Memory,
Cold water pouring forth; there are guards before it.
They will ask you, with astute wisdom,
What you are seeking in the darkness of murky Hades.
Say, “I am a child of Earth and starry Sky,
I am parched with thirst and am dying;
But quickly grant me
Cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink.”
And they will announce you to the Chthonian King,
And they will grant you to drink from the Lake of Memory.
And you, too, having drunk, will go along the sacred road on which other
Glorious initiates and bacchoi travel.”
From the cist-grave of a woman, around 400 BCE, grave tablet, Museo Archeologico di Vibo. The rectangular gold tablet, folded several times, was found lying on the upper chest of the skeleton and was perhaps attached to the neck by a tiny string.
(Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (London and New York: Routledge, 2007) 5.)
Note that the word for left is laios (λαιός), with αιός=αιων=lifetime, life, so that “laios” means “loosen life.” The instruction on the grave tablet is to ignore the river on the right in order to avoid reincarnation.
Virgil, Seneca, and Pausanias describe the role of Lethe in religious rituals and in the afterlife.
"And Lethe River drifting past the tranquil places.
Hereabouts were flitting a multitude [of the deceased] without number . . .
Aeneas, moved by the sudden sight, asked in his ignorance
What it might mean, what was that river over there
And all that crowd of people swarming along its banks.
Then his father, Anchises said:--
‘They are the souls who are destined for
Reincarnation; and now at Lethe's stream they are drinking
The waters that quench man's troubles, the deep draught of
oblivion. . .
. . . and they come in crowds to the river of Lethe,
So that, you see, with memory washed out they may revisit
The earth above and begin to wish to be born again.”
(Virgil. Aeneid 6. 705-715, 749-750 ff, translated by C. Day Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952, reissued 2008) 180-181.) http://www.amazon.com/dp/0199537488/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
“All these, after they have passed away a thousand years, are summoned by the divine one in great array, to the Lethmean river. In this way they become forgetful of their former earth-life, and revisit the vaulted realms of the world, again to return into bodies.”
(Virgil, translated by Thomas Taylor. The Eleusinan and Bacchic Mysteries: A Dissertation (New York: J.W. Bouton, 8 West 28th Street, 1891; reprinted by BiblioLife) 125.)
Seneca, Hercules Furens 679 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy circa 50 CE.) :
"Within the abyss [of the afterlife], Lethe, measureless in sweep, glides smoothly on with placid stream, and takes away our cares . . .”
(Seneca (circa 50 CE). “Hercules Furens 679 ff,” Tragedies, translated by Frank Justus Miller, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1917.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html
“. . .he [the suppliant] must drink water called the water of Forgetfulness, that he may forget all that he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Memory, which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent.”
(Pausanias (circa 150 CE). Description of Greece. translated by W.H.S. Jones and H.A. Omerod (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1918) 9.39.8.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9B.html
Orphic Hymn 76. To Mnemosyne (7-12), the immortal Goddess of memory, describes Mnemosyne’s role in breaking “Lethe’s fetters:”
“ . . . ‘Tis thine, to waken from lethargic rest
All thoughts deposited within the breast;
And nought neglecting, vigorous to excite
The mental eye from dark oblivion’s night.
Come, blessed power, thy mystic’s mem’ry wake
To holy rites, and Lethe’s fetters break.”
(Orpheus. The Hymns of Orpheus (circa 200 BCE), translated by Thomas Taylor, introductory preface by Manly P. Hall (London: Printed for the Author, 1792. Reprinted Los Angeles, CA: The Philosophical Research Society, 1981) 215.)
NARCOTICS: LILY, LOTUS
The role of memory and forgetfulness in religious ceremonies may have been aided by the use of herbs. Two flowers beginning with the letter Λ are credited with narcotic properties: the lily/narcissus and the lotus.
Leirion (λείριον) means the lily/narcissus, also known as the Madonna lily, Lilium candidum, polyanthus narcissus, autumn narcissus, Narcissus serotinus, narcissus, and daffodil. The lily/narcissus/daffodil has narcotic properties.
In the Odyssey, Homer describes sailors becoming forgetful when they eat the fruit of the lotus (λωτός):
“And whosoever of them ate of the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no longer any wish to bring back word or to return, but there they were fain to abide among the Lotus-eaters, feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of their homeward way.”
Homer. Odyssey 9.82, translated by A. T. Murray, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1919.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerOdyssey9.html
The lotus (λωτός, λώτῐνον) is a name applied to various plants and trees that provide fodder or fruit, including:
- clover, trefoil, Trifolium fragiferum
- fellbloom, Lotus corniculatus
- fenugreek, Trigonella Foenum-graecum
- melilot
- Medicago arborea
- Nile water-lily, Egyptian lotus
- nettle-tree.
Libuon (λίβυον) means wild lotus.
WINE LOOSENS INHIBITIONS
Lakpateo (λακπᾶτέω) and laktizo (λακτίζω) mean to trample on grapes to loosen the juice from the skin.
Leenos (ληνός) means wine-vat. Leenaios (ληναῖος) means belonging to the wine-press.
A leenis (ληνίς) is a Bacchante, one who practices the wine rites of the immortal God of wine, Bacchos/Dionysos. Leenai (Λῆναι) means Bacchanals, those who celebrate Bacchanal rites. Leenaizo (Ληνᾰΐζω) are Bacchanal rites.
A scene of Bacchic revelry is depicted on The Great Dish of the Mildenhall treasure, circa 350 CE.
Mildenhall treasure, The Great Dish, circa 350 CE
http://uk.ask.com/wiki/Mildenhall_Treasure?qsrc=3044
The Mildenhall Treasure, “The Great Dish,” found in eastern England in 1942 CE, circa 350 CE, The British Museum.
“The face in the centre represents Oceanus, with dolphins in his hair and a beard formed of seaweed fronds. The inner circle, bordered by scallop shells, consists of sea-nymphs, a sea-horse, a triton, a sea-stag and a ketos, a dragon-like sea-monster. The wide outer frieze features Bacchus holding a bunch of grapes and a thyrsus and resting a foot on his panther. He presides over a celebration of music, dancing, and drinking.”
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/t/the_mildenhall_treasure.aspx
A verse in Nonnos’ Dionysiaca describes Dionysos’ discovery of wine and seems to describe the scene on the Mildenhall platter:
“[292] . . . once upon a time fruitful Olympian ichor fell down from heaven and produced the potion of Bacchic wine, when the fruit of its vintage grew among the rocks selfgrown, untended. It was not yet named grapevine; but among the bushes, wild and luxuriant with many-twining parsleyclusters, a plant grew which had in it good winestuff to make wine, being full to bursting with its burden of dewy juice . . .
[326] When Bacchos saw the grapes with a bellyful of red juice, he bethought him of an oracle which prophetic Rhea had spoken long ago. He dug into the rock, he hollowed out a pit in the stone with the sharp prongs of his earth-burrowing pick, he smoothed the sides of the deepening hole and made an excavation like a winepress; then he made his sharp thyrsus into the cunning shape of the later sickle with curved edge, and reaped the newgrown grapes.
[337] A band of Satyrs was with him: one stooped to gather the clusters, one received them into an empty vessel as they were cut, one pulled off the masses of green leaves from the bibulous fruit and threw away the rubbish.
Another without thyrsus or sharpened steel crouched bending forwards and spying for grapes, and put out his right hand towards the branches to pluck the fruit at the ends of the tangled vine, then Bacchos spread the fruitage in the pit he had dug, first heaping the grapes in the middle of the excavation, then arranging them in layers side by side like cornheaps on the threshingfloor, spread out the whole length of the hole.
When he had got all into the hollowed place and filled it up to the brim, he trod the grapes with dancing steps. The Satyrs also, shaking their hair madly in the wind, learnt from Dionysos how to do the like. They pulled tight the dappled skins of fawns over the shoulder, they shouted the song of Bacchos sounding tongue with tongue, crushing the fruit with many a skip of the foot, crying ‘Euoi!’
The wine spurted up in the grape-filled hollow, the runlets were empurpled; pressed by the alternating tread the fruit bubbled out red juice with white foam. They scooped it up with oxhorns, instead of cups which had not yet been seen, so that ever after the cup of mixed wine took this divine name of Winehorn.
[363] And one went bubbling the mind-charming drops of Bacchos as he turned his wobbling feet in zigzag jerks, crossing right over left in confusion as he wetted his hairy cheeks with Bacchos’s drops. Another skipt up struck with a tippler’s madness when he heard the horrid boom of the beaten drumskin. One again who had drunk too deeply of care-dispelling wine purpled his dark beard with the rosy liquor . . .
[394] After the revels over his sweet fruit, Dionysos proudly entered the cave of Cybeleïd Goddess Rhea, waving bunches of grapes in his flower-loving hand, and taught Maionia (Lydia/Western Anatolia/modern Turkey) the vigil of his feast.”
(Nonnos. Diomysiaca 12. 292-394, translated by W. H. D. Rouse, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1940.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/NonnusDionysiaca12.html
EXPRESS DESIRE
Lo (λῶ) means wish, desire. Leio (λείω) is the original form of the word.
Leema ((λῆμα) means will, desire, purpose, courage.
Lilaiomai (λῐλαίομαι) means to long to be or do, to long or desire earnestly.
Litee (λῐτή) means prayer or entreaty.
Litos (λῐτός) means suppliant.
UNLEASH HUNGER
Lein (λείν) means gluttony, the unleashing of hunger.
Lichnos (λίχνος) means to be gluttonous.
UNLEASH WEAPONS
Laas (λᾱας) are stones, especially stones thrown by warriors. Other words for stone include leuo (λεύω) and lithos (λίθος).
A lagkia (λαγκία) is a lance, spear, or javelin.
Lithas (λῐθάς) means a shower of stones.
Leusimos (λεύσιμος) means stoning.
Leusteer (λευστηρ) means one who stones, death by stoning.
LOOSE COLONIES
A laarchees (λᾱάρχης) is a commander of a division of native machimoi (μάχιμοι) (fighting men) settled in cleruchies (κληρουχία). Cleruchies were colonies politically dependent on Athens; the cleruchs formed military garrisons.
DESTRUCTION
Lepra (λέπρα) means leprosy, a disease that causes flesh sores and a loss of sensation.
Loigios (λοιγιος) means to be pestilent or deadly. Loigos (λοιγός) means ruin or havoc pertaining to death by plague; it also means the destruction of ships.
Loidoreo (λοιδορέω) means to abuse, revile, or rebuke.
Loim- (λοιμ-) is a prefix meaning pestilent or destructive. Loimos (λοιμός) means plague.
Lumeo (λῦμέω) means to grieve, vex, distress, or cause pain. Lumeon (λῦμεών) means a destroyer or corrupter.
Lupros (λυπρός) means distressful, wretched, poor.
WEAKEST LINK
Lagaros (λᾰγᾰρος) means loose, thin, narrow, porous, hollow, sunken, slack, least defensible.
An entity is only as fortified as its weakest point of access. In a human or animal body the hollow on each side below the ribs and above the hips, the flanks, are the lagon (λᾰγών). These areas are loose in that they do not contain bones. In a military formation the flanks can be vulnerable to attack.
Laimo (λαιμο-) is a prefix meaning throat. The throat or neck is the laimos (λαιμός), a major point of vulnerability. It is of interest to note that λ=loosen and αιμο=blood, so that λαιμός translates as “loosen blood.” Liphaimeo (λῐφαιμέω) means to lack blood.
Laura (λαύρα) means access to or from via an alley, lane, or passage.
Lepto- (λεπτό-) is a prefix meaning small, thin, fine, feeble, slender, or delicate.
Leptunsis (λέπτυνσις) means attenuation, a gradual loss, to make thin.
LOOSE PART
A labee (λᾰβή) is the handle or haft of a knife, sword, or cup.
Labee (λᾰβή) is also the word for a boxing or wrestling grip/hold; opportunities for refutation; an attack of fever; the eye of a needle; forceps, tweezers, tongs, and clamps. Labee (λᾰβή), in a broad sense, is a way to grab (or release) something.
Lazomai (λάζομαι) means to seize, grasp, or attack. Note that azomai (ἃζομαι) means to stand in awe of or in fear of, so lazomai (λάζομαι) translates as “loosen fear/awe,” a necessary first step in an attack.
Leepsis (λῆψις) means taking hold, seizing, catching.
A lepas (λέπας) is a scaur, an isolated or protruding rock in the sea.
The lobos (λόβός) refers to the lobe, a loose portion of the ear, liver, or lung.
Lophos (λόφος) is the back of the neck; of a horse, its withers; the crest of a hill or ridge; the crest of a helmet; or the crest or tuft on the head of birds. Lophao (λοφάω) means to have a crest or mane. Similarly, loma (λῶμα) means hem or fringe.
LOOSEN FLOW
Ladreo (λαδρέω) means flow strongly.
A lailaps (λαῖλαψ) is a furious storm, hurricane, or whirlwind sweeping upwards.
Lasana (λάσᾰνα) means night-stool/chamber-pot/commode/toilet.
Lataks (λάταξ) are the remaining drops of wine in the bottom of the cup thrown into a basin with a splash.
Leibdeen (λείβδην) means to pour, pour forth, make a libation of wine, a running or dripping liquid.
Libas (λῐβάς) means anything that drips or trickles, a spring, font, stream, libation (drink-offering to a deity).
Lipsouria (λιψουρία) means the desire to make water (urinate).
Loibee (λοιβη) means pouring, libation, or drink-offering in honor of a deity.
Louma (λοῦμα) means stream.
BIRTH-LOOSENING
Lecho (λεχώ) means a woman in childbed or one who has just given birth. Lechoias (λεχωϊάς) means of or belonging to childbed.
A lechos (λέχος) is a couch or bed on which one reclines/relaxes/sleeps. Lechomai (λέχομαι) means to lie down.
Locheia (λοχεία) means child-birth or the childbed. Lochao (λοχάω) means to lie in wait. Lochos (λόχος) is a place for lying in wait.
Leeto (Λητώ) is Leto, the mother of the twin immortals Apollo and Artemis.
Leeda (Λήδα) is Leda, mother of the twins Kastor and Pollux (the stars of the constellation Dioskoroi, originally twin goats).
LUST-LOOSENING
Lagneia (λαγνεία) is the act of coition, sexual intercourse.
Lakkopedon (λακκόπεδον) is the scrotum; lakko (λακκό) means tank, cistern; pedon (πεδον) means earth, ground.
Lamuria (λᾰμῦρία) means wantonness.
Leiktees (λείκτης) means cunnilingus, oral stimulation of the female genitals.
Lektron (λέκτρον) means marriage-bed.
Leeko (ληκώ) means penis.
Liros (λϊρός) means to be bold, shameless, or lewd.
Lombros (λομβρός) is the name of an indecent dance.
LIBIDO: THE HARE
Lagos (λᾰγώς) is the hare, a symbol of fertility and of libido because it breeds prolifically.
Lagoos (λᾰγῶος) means of the hare, the hare’s flesh. A leveret, rabbit, or hare is a lagion (λάγιον). A leveret/lagideus (λᾰγῐδεύς) is a young hare, especially one less than one year old. Another word for hare is leporis (λέπορις).
A hare is traditionally the gift of a lover. Philostratus the Elder describes a scene of the Erotes, the immortal Gods of love, trying to catch a hare as a gift for Aphrodite, the immortal Goddess of love:
“For you know, I imagine, what is said of the hare, that it possesses the gift of Aphrodite [i.e. libido] to an unusual degree. At any rate it is said of the female that while she suckles the young she has borne, she bears another litter to share the same milk; forthwith she conceives again, nor is there any time at all when she is not carrying young.”
(Philostratus the Elder (circa 250 CE), “Imagines 1.6,” Elder Philostratus, Younger Philostratus, Callistratus, translated by Arthur Fairbanks, Loeb Classical Library Volume 256 (London: William Heinemann, 1931.))
The Erotes, Eros, Himerus & Pothos, British Museum, London, United Kingdom, London E440, Beazley Archive Number: 202628, Attic Red Figure Stamnos. Name vase of the Siren Painter, circa 500 - 480 BCE.
Eros, Pothos & Himeros, the three Erotes (love Gods) wing their way over the sea bearing gifts: a hare, a sash, and a branch. This is a drawing of the vase rather than a photographic representation. http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Erotes.html
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, New York City, USA, RISD 1986.158, Apulian Red Figure, Gnathian, Squat lekythos, circa 340 BCE.
Hermaphroditos is depicted as a winged Eros (love God) in the form of a young woman (breasts, thighs, and hair-style) with male genitalia. S/He chases a hare, an animal which for the Greeks symbolized sexual desire. http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K30.1.html
LOSS
Leipo (λείπω) means to leave, quit, to be left, left behind, left without. Leipsis (λεῖψις) means an omission, lack, or loss.
Limo- (λῑμο-) is a prefix meaning hunger, famine. Limos (λῑμος) means hunger or famine. Limaino (λῑμαίνω) means to suffer from famine.
Liperneo (λῐπερνέω) means poor.
Lipo- (λῐπό-) is a prefix meaning without.
Litos (λῖτός) means something simple, inexpensive, or frugal.
Laganophakee (λᾰγᾰνοφᾰκῆ) is a lentil pudding or cake. Lentils are considered fasting food, food consumed during fasting periods.
“The meal, prepared the day before, is quite simple, usually consisting of lentils boiled in plain water, vinegar, and oregano, and served with olives, scallions, and halva, all considered fasting food.” http://www.greek-recipe.com
“Lentil soup is a perennial favorite as well as a Lenten dish consumed during fasting periods.” http://greekfood.about.com
“LIBERATE” GOODS
In a warrior society, a significant source of wealth is derived from “liberating” or looting treasure, etc. from defeated foes.
Laa (λάα=λέια) and laphura (λάφῦρα) mean booty, spoils taken in war.
Lambano (λαμβάνω) means to take, take hold of, grasp, seize, take by violence, carry off, apprehend.
Lao (λάω) means to seize.
Leeidios (ληϊδιος) means that which is taken as booty. Leeis (ληΐς) means booty, plunder, or spoil.
Leesteia (ληστεία) means robbery or piracy.
ONE’S LOT
Laggano (λαγχάνω) means to obtain as one’s portion.
Laksis (λάξις) means that which is assigned by lot.
Lachee (λάχη) means lot or share.
Lachesis (Λάχεσις) is one of the three Fates, the dispenser of lots, the immortal Goddess of distribution who determines a mortal’s lot in life.
"By fate are we driven; yield ye to fate. No anxious cares can change the threads of its inevitable spindle. Whate’er we mortals bear, whate’er we do, comes from on high; and Lachesis maintains the decrees of her distaff which by no hand may be reversed.”
(Seneca (circa 50 CE). “Oedipus 980 ff,” Tragedies, translated by Frank Justus Miller, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1917.) http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html
Lachos (λάχος) is an allotted portion or share.
Leeksis (λῆξις) means determination or appointment by lot. Leeksis (λῆξις) also means the cessation of a river; death, decease; end, and extremity.
Leepteos (ληπτέος) means to take, accept, choose.
VEGETABLES/GRASSLAND
Lachan- (λᾰχᾰν-) is a prefix meaning vegetables. Lachanon (λάχᾰνον) means garden herbs.
Leimaks (λεῖμαξ) means meadow, a field of grassland used for pasturing animals.
Leimon (λειμών) is any moist, grassy place such as a meadow.
THE WOLF=THAT WHICH TAKES/LIBERATES/STEALS
The prefix luk- (λύκ-), literally “loosen pure core,“ is associated with the wolf (λύκος), an animal known for attacking domestic livestock.
Besides meaning “wolf,” lukos (λύκος) also means a bird and a spider that hunt; a hook; a noose; a lozenge to treat dysentery; and a fish associated with wild rage. Lukos (λύκος) means:
- a kind of daw (black and grey Eurasian bird noted for thievery)
- a kind of spider that hunts prey
- anything shaped like a hook (jagged bit for hard-mouthed horses, knocker or hook on a door, flesh-hook)
- the flower of the iris
- a kind of noose
- a pastille used in dysentery/diarrhea
- a fish, kallionumos (καλλιωνυμος).
“The presence of a very large gall-bladder in Kallionymos was so well known that this fish was commonly referred to in passages descriptive of excessive anger.” http://www.archive.org/stream/aristotlesresear00lone/aristotlesresear00lone_djvu.txt
The prefix luk- (λύκ-) also pertains to viper’s herb, Echium italicum, lukapsos (λύκαψος). The leaves of Echium Italicum/lukapsos (λύκαψος) in wine “facilitate delivery.”
(Theophilus Redwood, Samuel Frederick Gray. “Echium,” Gray’s Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia (London: Longman and Company, 1848) 391.)
http://books.google.com/books?id=0_TI4kLEHAkC&pg=PA391&lpg=PA391&dq=viper’s+herb,+Echium+italicum&source=bl&ots=U9O-ZuwE3w&sig=O8VTYAvw8ApUPs5Mzz8i_o51d2Q&hl=en&ei=OhfBToyvJef40gGZ3onsBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=viper’s%20herb%2C%20Echium%20italicum&f=false
The prefix luk- (λύκ-) also pertains to:
- the year/month/day, lukabas (λῠκάβας)
- dyer’s buckthorn, Rhamnus petiolaris, lukion (λύκιον), a plant that yields a yellow and a green dye.
According to Gray’s Supplement (p. 243), Rhamnus/lukion (λύκιον) is a diuretic, laxative, and purgative.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0_TI4kLEHAkC&pg=PA391&lpg=PA391&dq=viper’s+herb,+Echium+italicum&source=bl&ots=U9O-ZuwE3w&sig=O8VTYAvw8ApUPs5Mzz8i_o51d2Q&hl=en&ei=OhfBToyvJef40gGZ3onsBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBw#v=snippet&q=Rhamnus&f=false
The Lukeion (Λύκειον) is the Lyceum, a gymnasium at Athens named for the nearby temple of Apollo Lukeios (Λύκειος).
Lukeios, the Lyceum, may refer to the wolf; to “loosening energy/fat;” or may refer to the region of Anatolia called Lukios (Lycian) (Λύκιος, Λῠκαῖος) on the southern coast of Anatolia/Asia Minor/Phrygia/modern Turkey. Diodorus of Sicily and Virgil associate Apollo with Lycia (Lukios):
“Apollo has been called Delian and Lycian and Pythian.” (Diodorus Siculus (of Sicily). Library of History 5.77.7)
“Apollo quits Lycia, his winter home, and the streams of Xanthus, to visit his mother’s Delos, and renews the dance.” (Virgil, Aeneid 4. 145, translation H.R. Fairclough.)
Lycia is located on the southern coast of Anatolia/Asia Minor/Phrygia (Turkey). It was a highly desirable region that was invaded/ attacked by the Athenians and others, a source of “loot.”
http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/east_med.htm
“The history of Lycia is a story of fierce struggles against those who sought to invade and dominate it, as it was a very desirable region. It appears that Greek efforts to colonize Lycia during the first millennium BCE were largely unsuccessful even though there were several Athenian expeditions.” http://www.lycianturkey.com/lycian_history.htm
Luko (λῠκω) is an epithet of the moon. Lukee (λύκη) is morning twilight. Lukophos (λῠκοφως) is both morning and evening twilight. These types of lights are grey, like the wolf, and transitional: “liberating” night and day.
The diversity of meaning surrounding the prefix luk- (λύκ-) suggests that it should not necessarily be narrowly interpreted as “wolf,” and perhaps refers more broadly to “that which liberates (steals).”
LION/LEOPARD/LYNX
Ancient Goddesses are frequently depicted as lion tamers. While the bull and the lion are both associated with the immortal Goddesses Isis and Hathor in Egypt, the lion is particularly associated with Goddesses in ancient regions east of Egypt (the Sinai peninsula, Jordan), as well as Sumer (Iraq), and Phrygia (Turkey). Ancient artworks throughout the Mediterranean depict a lion-headed Goddess (Bastet), a Goddess standing on lions, a Goddess seated on a thrown flanked by lions, and the Magna Mater (Great Mother) driving a chariot pulled by lions.
Lis (λίς) or leon (λέων) mean lion, literally “loosen divine-power” or “loosen essence brings-forth prevailing.” Leaina (λέαινα) means a lioness, which is also the term for women dedicated to the immortal God Mithras, the bull-slayer. Leonto- (λεοντο-) is a prefix meaning lion. Female lions are the primary hunters.
Lions are frequently referred to as “bull-slaying.”
Female deities tame the “bull-slaying lion” in ancient Phrygian (Turkey), Sumerian (Iraq), Syrian, Phoenician, and Egyptian art dated as early as 5900 BCE.
Seated Goddess on a Throne Flanked by Female Lions, Catal Huyuk, circa 5900 BCE. http://www.westcler.org/gh/curlessmatt/arthistory/2a/seatgoddesscatalhuyuk.jpg
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ features hymns addressed to the immortal Goddess Ninegala (Inana), referred to in one hymn as the “lioness of heaven:”
A hymn to Inana as Ninegala (Inana D): c.4.07.4
“Great light, heavenly lioness, always speaking words of assent!
Inana, great light, lioness of heaven, who always speaks words of assent!
Ninegala! As you rise in the morning sky like a flame visible from afar, and at your bright appearance in the evening sky, the shepherd entrusts (?) the flocks of Sumer to you. Celestial sign, …… glory of heaven! All the countries are building a house for you as for the risen sun; a shining (?) torch is assigned to you, the light of the Land.”
Temple hymn sources identify Ninhursag (NIN.URSAG) (“Lady of the Mountain”) as the “true and great lady of heaven” and kings of Sumer were “nourished by Ninhursag's milk.” Inana/Ninhursag is typically depicted with wings, wearing a tiered dress, often with bow cases at her shoulders, and not infrequently carries a mace or baton, sometimes standing on or seated above a lion. The depiction, below, dates to circa 2200 BCE.
Black-stone cylinder seal. Akkadian, circa 2334-2154 BCE.
S. Beaulieu, after Wolkstein & Kramer 1983:92.
Inana on Her Throne, circa 2000-1600 BCE. Akkad period. Nephrite. Cylinder seal. Mesopotamia. She is seated above a lion.
The Goddess Astarte is depicted standing on a lion, circa 1500 BCE:
Gold pendant depicting the immortal Goddess Astarte standing on a lion. Ugarit, (the modern Ras Shamra on the coast of Syria.) circa 1500 BCE. Museum: Musée du Louvre
The immortal Goddess Qudshu is also depicted standing on a lion, circa 1250 BCE:
The Egyptian immortal Goddess Qudshu, standing on a lion. From Deir el-Medina, Thebes, Egypt, circa 1250 BCE. British Museum. Height: 75 cm
http://www.britishmuseum.org/images/k89014_m.jpg
A winged Babylonian Goddess is depicted standing on a lion, circa 1800 BCE:
Old Babylonian, A Goddess standing on a lion, from southern Iraq, British Museum. Height: 49.5 cm 1800-1750 BCE.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/t/queen_of_the_night_relief.aspx
Ancient coins of Orthosia, Phoenicia (West Bank) feature the head of Tyche (Fortune) and, on the obverse side, Tyche (Fortune) driving a chariot drawn by winged lions.
Phoenicia, Orthosia. 24/23 BCE). Turreted head of Tyche right / Tyche in a chariot pulled by winged lions. http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/phoenicia/orthosia/t.html
A fragment of pottery features the immortal Goddess Rhea-Kybele riding on the back of a lion, circa 450 BCE:
The Goddess Rhea-Kybele rides side-saddle on the back of a lion.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Boston 10.187, Attic Red Figure Kylix fragment, circa 450 BCE. http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T7.1.html
A Thracian coin depicts Kybele riding on a lion, circa 245 CE:
Thracian Coin depicting Kybele riding a lion, circa 245 CE.
T0231: THRACE. Bizya. Philip I, A.D. 244-249. AE 33 (21.13 g).
THRACE. Bizya. Philip I, A.D. 244-249. AE 33 (21.13 g) ( mm, gm). Diademed and radiate bust right. Rev: Kybele riding lion right. Jurukova 122 (1 example recorded). VF/F
http://www.ancient-coins.com/itemdetail.asp?&item=7519
In Ovid’s Fasti: April 4 Megalensia Ludi Comitialis, Ovid describes a conversation regarding the Spring festival in celebration of the Mother of the Gods and Goddesses:
“And the Idaean Mother’s feast begins . . .
‘Why do fierce lions strangely
Submit their manes to her arcing yoke?’
. . . ‘It’s thought she tamed their wildness.
Her own chariot testifies to this.’”
Ovid. Fasti (4. 183, 215-221), translated by Anthony J. Boyle (London and New York, et. al.: Penguin Books, 2000.)
The immortal Goddess Kybele is depicted in a chariot drawn by lions at the Palacio de Communicaciones in Madrid, Spain.
The Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid, Spain, the Cibeles Fountain. http://www.bestourism.com/img/items/big/933/Plaza-de-Cibeles_Plaza-de-Cibeles-view-by-night_3534.jpg
Orphic Hymn 26. To The Mother of the Gods [and Goddesses] (1-10) describes her as enthroned on a car drawn by bull-destroying lions:
“Mother of Gods [and Goddesses], great nurse of all, draw near,
Divinely honor'd, and regard my pray'r:
Thron'd on a car, by lions drawn along,
By bull-destroying lions, swift and strong,
Thou sway'st the sceptre of the pole divine,
And the world's middle seat, much-fam'd, is thine.
Hence earth is thine, and needy mortals share
Their constant food, from thy protecting care:
From thee at first both Gods [and Goddesses] and men (sic) arose;
From thee, the sea and ev'ry river flows . . . ”
The appearance of the constellation Leo (July-August) immediately precedes the constellation Virgo (August-September) in the summer sky, which may explain the many images of a female deity depicted as standing on a lion, riding a lion, or in a chariot drawn by lions.
Card 20. Leo Major and Leo Minor, from Urania’s Mirror or a View of the Heavens. http://www.ianridpath.com/atlases/urania.htm
Card 21. Virgo, From Urania’s Mirror or a View of the Heavens. http://www.ianridpath.com/atlases/urania.htm
Leopardos (λεόπαρδος) means leopard.
A lugks (λύγξ), lynx, is a wild cat and the name of a Northern springtime constellation.
Card 8. Lynx Constellation. From Urania’s Mirror or a View of the Heavens. http://www.ianridpath.com/atlases/urania.htm
LEFTOVER
Leimma (λεῖμμα) means remnant, residue, or what is leftover. Leipsanon (λείψᾰνον) means a remnant or a piece left.
Loipos (λοιπός) means something remaining over, left over; for the future, for the rest; further, then.
Loistheeios (λοισθήϊος) means for the last, the prize for the last race, last prize, last (but not least?).
LIPID/OIL/FAT
Larinos (λᾱρῑνος) means fat.
Lipaino (λῐπαίνω) means to oil, anoint.
Lipao (λῐπάω) means to be sleek, the basis for the word lipid, an organic compound that is greasy/fatty.
BENT
Loksias (Λοξίας) means oblique and refers to the ecliptic orbit of the sun, the path that the sun appears to follow through the sky during the year.
Loksikos (λοξικός) means oblique or ecliptic. Loksos (λοξός) means something slanting, crosswise, ecliptic, or ambiguous.
Lopdaina (λορδαίνω) means to be bent backward so as to be convex in front. Lopdo (λορδόω) means to bend oneself supinely so as to throw back the head.
Lugizo (λύγίζω) means to bend or twist as one does with a withe (a flexible tough supple twig such as a willow used to bind things together).
Lugos (λύγος) means withy and also refers to the Vitex agnus castus or chaste-tree, so named because it is believed to play a role in helping to dampen libido.
LINEN
Linon (λίνον) means linen or anything made of flax.
Lin- (λῐν-) is a prefix meaning linen or flax. Lino (λῐνό-) is a prefix meaning linseed, linen. Linarion (λῐνάριον) means thread. The flax fiber is obtained from the stalk of the plant.
The flax or linen flower. http://www.swicofil.com/products/003flax.html
Lita (λῖτα) means linen cloth. Lention (λέντιον) means cloth, napkin, or towel.
TEXTURE
Lasion (λάσιον) means to be rough or shaggy. Lasios (λάσῐος) means something shaggy, woolly, hairy, or bushy.
Leio- (λειό-) is a prefix meaning smooth. Leios (λεῖος) means smooth to the touch. Leuros (λευρός) means smooth, level, even, or polished.
Lis, lissos, or leazo (λίς, λισσός, λεάζω) mean smooth. Lispos (λίσπος) means to be smooth or polished.
COMMON PEOPLE
Lao- (λαο-) is a prefix meaning of the people. Laos (λᾱός) means people or multitude, the basis for the word laity.
Laikos (λἃϊκός) means someone of or from the people, unofficial, common, a layperson.
Leeiton (λήϊτον) means town-hall, council-chamber; public priestess.
Laodees (λᾱωδης) and leodees (λεώδης) mean popular or common. Lagetos (λᾱγέτος) means leader of the people.
Laggon (λαγγών) means trader or merchant.
PLACES
Many Mediterannean locales begin with the letter Λ λ.
Lakon (Λάκων) means Laconian. Lakedaimoniazo (Λᾰκεδαιμονιάζω) means Lacedaemon, the capital of Laconia in the southern Peloponnese.
Lakkos (λάκκος) means a pond, cistern, or pit for storing wine or oil.
Larisa (Λάρῖσα) is the name of many old Greek cities. Laros (λᾱρος) means pleasant: pleasant to the taste, to the smell, to the eye. Liaros (λῐᾰρός) means warm, gentle, balmy, or a warm, soft wind.
Latinee (Λᾰτίνη) refers to anything from Latium/Ausoniee (Αύσονίη), central Italy.
Latreia (λατρεία) means hired labor, service, duties.
Lebua (Λεβύα= Λῐβύη) means both the city of Libya and Africa in general; it generally refers to the west bank of the Nile. Libikos (λῐβικός) means western.
Lesbos (Λεσβος) is an island renowned for its poets and musicians.
“They [Lesbians] have the reputation of being exceedingly skilled in the art of music.” Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 7
Leschee (λέσχη) means a resting place, couch, lounging, funeral bier or tomb, public building or hall, lounge, or meeting-place, and the gossip that occurred there.
Leemnos (Λῆμνος) is an island sacred to Hephaistos, the immortal God of volcanoes and metalworking. Leemnos (Λῆμνος) translates literally “loose center,” a fitting description for a volcano.
Leemao (λημάω) means bleary, misty, literally “loose central middle/meta arising.” To be full of rheum, a secretion of rheum in the eyes is leemodees (λημώδης).
Libanos (Λίβᾰνος) is Lebanon, the home of the frankincense tree, Boswellia Carterii, Libanos (λίβᾰνος) means frankincense.
Liguria (Λίγυς) is a coastal mountainous area now part of northwest Italy. According to Herodotus (7.165) and Diodorus of Sicily (11.1, 21.3), the Ligurians served as mercenaries in the Carthaginian and Sicilian armies. According to William Smith (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography), the Greeks never established their power far inland in this region and “the mountain tribes of the Ligurians were left in the enjoyment of undisturbed independence.”
Ligus (λῐγύς) means a clear, sweet, shrill sound. Liga (λίγᾰ) means in a loud, clear tone. A thick smoke mixed with flame, a murky fire is a lignus (λιγνύς).
Liguria is the northern coast of the Ligurian sea.
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/Ligurian%20Sea?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=Ligurian%20Sea&sa=Search#922
Locrian/Lokros (Λοκρός) is a region north of the Peloponnese.
The region of Locris is shown in yellow north of the Pelopponese. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Map_athenian_empire_431_BC-en.svg
Lydia/Ludia (Λῦδία) is a region of Phrygia (modern Turkey) that includes the city of Ephesus, home to the Temple of Artemis.
Image at: www.godsgeography.com/ asia/turkey/turkey1.htm
OTHER
Laburinthos (λᾰβύρινθος) means labyrinth, a large building consisting of numerous halls connected by intricate and tortuous passages. Such buildings are noted in antiquity in Egypt, Crete, Rome, and Miletus. Labyrinth also means tortuous questions or arguments.
Lagkee (λάγκη) means lanx, a plate or platter, dish. According to Webster’s, lanx is the substantive syllable in the word balance=bi-lanx/two-dish.
Lanx, circa 350 CE. The scene shows the God Apollo at the entrance to a shrine, holding a bow, his lyre at his feet. Artemis enters from the left, holding a bow. Athena stands with her hand raised to indicate conversation. Two other female figures complete the scene, one holding a staff and the other seated.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/t/the_corbridge_lanx.aspx
Lagunos (λάγῦνος) is a container for transporting liquids, a flask, flagon, or pitcher.
Laipseeros (λαιψηρός) means to be light, nimble, or swift.
Lekanee (λεκάνη) or lekos (λέκος) is a dish, pot, or pan.
Lopas (λοπάς) is a flat dish or plate. Lopad- (λοπᾰδ-) is prefix meaning dish.
Lekithos (λέκῐθος) means the yoke of an egg, literally “loosen essence core.”
Lemphos (λέμφος) means putrescent (rotting) carcasses.
Leos (λέως) means entirely or wholly.
Leet- (λητ) is a prefix meaning to serve the public.
Lian (λίαν) means very or exceedingly.
Limn- (λιμν-) is a prefix meaning pool, lake, marsh, or irrigation. Limeen (λῐμήν) is a harbor, haven, retreat, or refuge.
Litra (λίτρα) means a silver coin of Sicily: 12 ounces; 1 measure of capacity, the basis for the word liter.
Lips (λίψ) means the SW wind, the South; also, the position of a star on the Western horizon at sunrise or sunset.
Lopee (λῶπη) is a covering, robe, or mantle.