HOST AND GUEST.
[To THE EDITOR 01 THE "SPECTATOR:]
Sin,—Host in all its meanings, guest, spital (It. spedale, Ger. Spital) have only two letters, s and t, common, and do not seem much allied in sense. But they undoubtedly come from one root. Consider the Latin word hospes (hos-pit-s). The p is still preserved in the English words hospital, hospitable, and in corresponding French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese; and German words. In old English it is also retained in the word host : "Salute Prisilla and Aquila myne hospte and myne hospetes" (Coy., 1549). Cf. the Rumanian hospodar or Russian gospodari, a lord, and Polish gospodarz, a host or hotel-keeper.
And what does hospes mean? It means (1) a guest, or a stranger treated as a guest, and (2) a host. So also do the corresponding words h&c (Fr.), huespes (Sp.), hospede (Port.), ospite (It.). In old English (from 14th to 16th cent.) host might mean guest. The " Hoastmen " of Newcastle-upon- Tyne are the members of a merchant-guild of that city whose seal shows a member in his robes receiving a stranger with the words "Welcome my oste." In German Gast = guest and Gasth,err = host. Cf. Gastfreiheit = hospitality.
But how can the word hospes stand for the co-related but contrasted meanings of guest and host ? There is a Sanskrit word ghas which means to strike, to slay, to tear to pieces for the purpose of eating, to eat, and, causatively, to give to eat ; and like confusion exists in Shakespeare's use of such verbs as fear, fall, and Byron's classic instance in the phrase, "There let him lay," and in the present not uncommon use of the verb stand. Thus the Sanskrit ghas in composition with pall, a lord, gives us ghaspati (Latin hospit), which may mean the master who gives to eat, that is, the host; or the man who partakes of food, that is, the guest. The vocables pit, pot, pat, are found in several Latin words from the Sanskrit pati indicating authority and power—e.g., potis, pos(t)-sum, potentia, Sospita, hospit-s, or from the root pitar, a father (PA to pro- tect)—e.g., pater, Jupiter. [I should value a hint on caespes (caespitis)].
But we have other English words like hostile from the Latin hostis, an enemy. These words, we shall see, come from the same root.
Originally hostis (hos(p)itis) was the stranger from a foreign and allied country to whom one was bound to grant hospitality. He was received as a hospes, a friend, a guest. He partook of one's bread and salt. Indeed the word hospes itself also, originally, was rather a stranger, a guest, and not a host. But a stranger is an unknown being. He must be treated with caution, almost with suspicion. He may have the evil eye. This must be disarmed, however suspicious he is, by securing his goodwill if possible. And how often does the stranger, treated as a friend, turn out to be a spy, at first a secret and afterwards an open enemy I Hence the word developed from meaning a stranger, almost a friend, a guest, into an enemy, private (inimicus) or public. It is like our word silly, which originally meant blessed, e.g., "the silly child Jesus."
In the United States and in the remote parts of Ireland a foreigner is often addressed as "Stranger." The word implies respect with a certain dash of diffidence. The Spanish huesped is also styled forastero. So in Greek 'xi fire, in accosting a man one does not know.
The English word host, like corresponding words in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, also means a multitude, but from the very first an armed multitude, and implies hostility. The Lord of Hosts means sometimes the Lord of Battles, and sometimes the Lord of the Hosts of Heaven, that is, either of angels, or of sun, moon, and stars. But this use of the word host, which can be traced back to Wyclif, is, so far as I know, solely an English use.
There is another meaning of the word host with the allied words in German and all the Latin tongues, namely (1) a sacrificial victim, and (2) the holy wafer of the Eucharist. This comes from the Latin word hostia, which itself comes from host ire ( fostire) to strike ;. and this can be referred back to the Sanskrit ghas as above. Littre, " apses Corssen, rattache ce mot [hostie] s hostia, victime, et hostire, frappes; faisant venir tons lea trois du Sanscr. ghas, devorer, manger, et aussi, blamer, frappes."
This brief account would not be complete without tracing the very curious parallel development of the word foss (tapes) in Greek. The history of the words tEvie, tertCw, tErstds, tipcos, OVOS in Liddell and $cott is an instruction and an enter- tainment. I quote freely. Hives (1) means a guest, friend, anyone in a foreign city with whom one has a treaty of hospitality, confirmed by mutual presents and an appeal to Zeta tisnos. The two were mutually fires, but the word rather implies a guest than a host. (2) Because it was a sacred duty in the olden times to receive, lodge, and pro- tect the helpless stranger, fives means any stranger, not unfriendly, who was to be treated as a guest. Hence the word is frequently allied with the words iaisas, Isskos. (3) The word came to mean one who is not a Greek—a foreigner, a "barbarian." But it does not take the final form of hostis and mean an enemy. (4) It did, however, come to mean a man. who left his home to enter foreign military service—in other words, a mercenary.
It would be very enticing to derive fives from is, it, and compare it with the Latin ex(tera)neus, grange, strange. Liddell and Scott refer to Pott for this derivation without expressing adhesion. Brugmann derives the first letter (t) from ghas, as hos in hostis, and makes -eves the Greek
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