A NOTE ON GAUL. DUTI, CHARTRES A7, B9
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Luka REPANŠEK
In a lengthy discussion of the newly published Chartres tablet1 several suggestions have been put forward as to the function and meaning of the enigmatic Gaulish duti,
which appears in the recurring formula duti so ad-o-/-canti-garie (A7/ B9). 2 The parallelism between the two structures could perhaps be extended to ẹṭọ3 cantipisontas (…) duti so ad( ) ogar e(t) (A5‑7): eto cantipisontas (…) duti so cantigar e(t) (B5‑9), with the verb’s subject inserted in A6 and a list of additional names in B6‑8. However, the internal structure of each portion of the otherwise clearly two-part structure of the text is not entirely unambiguous, especially in the light of adgar ontas eti so adgar e(t)
(A9), which could either conclude the first unit (“… and he calls forward4 the accusers (?).”), or provide the opening sentence to the second: “ and he calls forward the accusers (?) thus: (follows a list of names) and (their) witnesses” uel sim. Among several intriguing suggestions as to its background, the attractive solutions were to take
duti either as a conjunction ‘ furthermore, then, also’ (< * dū + eti), 5 as the subject or,
1. * Part of the research towards the preparation of this article and my work on the Chartres tablet published in Études celtiques, 39, was conducted during my stay at Aberystwyth University/ Prifysgol Aberystwyth, Wales, which was made possible by the kind financial support of the Slovene Human Resources Development and Scholarship Fund (Scholarship for postgraduate studies of citizens of the Republic of Slovenia abroad, Call Nr. 105). See Études celtiques, 39, p. 123‑192. 2. This difficult sentence seems to be the central point around which the rest of the text is structured, so much of the actual meaning of the text itself will necessarily depend on its interpretation. In Chartres 2013, p. 190, I suggested a very tentative translation, which I repeat here in a somewhat reconsidered form : » the/ this adgar os (= invoker, accuser) in/ via/ with (this) * dutis
pr claims them witnesses/ calls them (if so(s) < * sons ?) forward… «(A1-A7) or » … and (their) witnesses
i the adgar os j in/ via/ with (this) * dutis he j (if so(s)) calls forward t i … «/ » … and their witnesses …, (he ?, v. s.) accuses (them ?, v. s.) with them/ these in/ via/ with (this) * dutis «(B9-B10). 3. Possibly cueto < * kum + e-tod (in combination of my own and Professor Stifter’s suggestions, see Chartres 2013). 4. This rather neutral meaning of the compound verb finds support in OIr. ad-gair, the wide semantic range of which (‘ pray’, ‘ complain’, ‘ seduce/ bewitch’, ‘ forbid’, ‘ accuse’ etc., see DIL s. v.) can easily be reduced to the much more basic ‘ proclaim’, ‘ invoke’, ‘ announce’ < *‘ call to’ (cp. Lat.
ad-uocare), as in ad-gaur ł duttluchur, gl. conuenio Thes. ii 228.30 (cp. Gaul. uediíumí, RIG II. 2, L-100 : 1), atgairith (sc. a n-ancride), gl. iniuriam facitis Wb. 9c22, a-dob-ragart, gl. quis uos fascinauit Wb. 19b5, hore ad-rograd, gl. nisi lex diceret non (concupisces) Wb. 3c22. 5. So Stifter in Chartres 2013, p. 178, whose suggestion finds some support in the likely enclitic nature of the plain connective eti in the immediately comparable constructions in A9 (adgar ontas= eti) and perhaps B5‑6 (… eto cantipisontas= eti). Cp. also op. cit., p. 173‑174, where it is tentatively suggested to see in duti so adogarie (A7) and, on analogy, duti so cantigarie (B9) a knot of preverbs and enclitics * dū=(e) ti= so(s ?)-ad-( ) o-gar e/ i-t(i), * dū=(e) ti= so(s ?)-kanti-gar e/ i-t(i) (my slight revision) with infixed pronoun of the TośoKoTe (RIG II. 1, E-2) type.
