Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Footnote 20 is referenced twice several pages apart in the text.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
The cover was prepared by the transcriber and is placed in the public
domain.
NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE MONOGRAPH
SERIES, NO. 18
The Myth of the Birth of the Hero
A Psychological Interpretation of Mythology
BY
DR. OTTO RANK
of Vienna
Authorized Translation by
DRS. F. ROBBINS and SMITH ELY JELLIFFE
NEW YORK
THE JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE
PUBLISHING COMPANY
1914
NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE MONOGRAPH SERIES
Edited by
Drs. SMITH ELY JELLIFFE and WM. A. WHITE
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Copyright, 1914, by
THE JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE
PUBLISHING COMPANY, NEW YORK
PRESS OF
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TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Introduction 1
Sargon 12
Moses 13
Karna 15
Œdipus 18
Paris 20
Telephos 21
Perseus 22
Gilgamos 23
Kyros 24
Tristan 38
Romulus 40
Hercules 44
Jesus 47
Siegfried 53
Lohengrin 55
Index 95
THE MYTH OF THE BIRTH OF THE HERO
[A PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF MYTHOLOGY]
INTRODUCTION
The prominent civilized nations, such as the Babylonians, Egyptians,
Hebrews, and Hindoos, the inhabitants of Iran and of Persia, the
Greeks and the Romans as well as the Teutons and others, all began at
an early stage to glorify their heroes, mythical princes and kings,
founders of religions, dynasties, empires or cities, in brief their
national heroes, in a number of poetic tales and legends. The history
of the birth and of the early life of these personalities came to
be especially invested with fantastic features, which in different
nations even though widely separated by space and entirely independent
of each other present a baffling similarity, or in part a literal
correspondence. Many investigators have long been impressed with this
fact, and one of the chief problems of mythical research still consists
in the elucidation of the reason for the extensive analogies in the
fundamental outlines of mythical tales, which are rendered still more
enigmatical by the unanimity in certain details, and their reappearance
in most of the mythical groupings.[1]
The mythological theories, aiming at the explanation of these
remarkable phenomena, are, in a general way, as follows:
(1) The “Idea of the People,” propounded by Adolf Bastian[2] [1868].
This theory assumes the existence of _elementary thoughts_, so that
the unanimity of the myths is a necessary sequence of the uniform
disposition of the human mind, and the manner of its manifestation,
which within certain limits is identical at all times and in all
places. This interpretation was urgently advocated by Adolf Bauer[3]
[1882], as accounting for the wide distribution of the hero myths.
(2) The explanation by original community, first applied by Th. Benfey
[Pantschatantra, 1859] to the widely distributed parallel forms of
folklore and fairy tales. Originating in a favorable locality [India]
these tales were first accepted by the primarily related [namely the
Indo-Germanic] peoples, then continued to grow while retaining the
common primary traits, and ultimately radiated over the entire earth.
This mode of explanation was first adapted to the wide distribution of
the hero myths by Rudolf Schubert[4] [1890].
(3) The modern theory of migration, or borrowing, according to which
the individual myths originate from definite peoples [especially the
Babylonians], and are accepted by other peoples through oral tradition
[commerce and traffic], or through literary influences.[5]
The modern theory of migration and borrowing can be readily shown to
be merely a modification of Benfey’s theory, necessitated by newly
discovered and irreconcilable material. The profound and extensive
research of modern investigations has shown that not India, but rather
Babylonia, may be regarded as the first home of the myths. Moreover
the mythic tales presumably did not radiate from a single point, but
travelled over and across the entire inhabited globe. This brings into
prominence the idea of the interdependence of mythical structures, an
idea which was generalized by Braun[6] [1864], as the basic law of
the nature of the human mind: Nothing new is ever discovered as long
as it is possible to copy. The theory of the elementary thoughts, so
strenuously advocated by Bauer over a quarter of a century ago, is
unconditionally declined by the most recent investigators [Winckler,[7]
Stucken], who maintain the migration and purloining theory.
There is really no such sharp contrast between the various theories,
and their advocates, for the theory of the elementary thoughts does
not interfere with the claims of the primary common possessions and
the migration. Furthermore, the ultimate problem is not whence and
how the material reached a certain people; but the question is,
_where did it come from to begin with?_ All these theories would only
explain the variability and distribution, but not the origin of the
myths. Even Schubert, the most inveterate opponent of Bauer’s view,
acknowledges this truth, by stating that all these manifold sagas date
back to a single very ancient prototype. But he is unable to tell us
anything of the origin of this prototype. Bauer likewise inclines to
this mediating[8] view and points out repeatedly that in spite of
the multiple origin of independent tales, it is necessary to concede
a most extensive and ramified purloining, as well as an original
community of the concepts, in related peoples. The same conciliatory
attitude is maintained by Lessmann, in a recent publication[9] [1908],
in which he rejects the assumption of the elementary thoughts, but
admits that primary relationship and purloining do not exclude one
another. As pointed out by Wundt, it must be kept in mind, however,
that the appropriation of mythical contents always represents at the
same time an independent mythical construction; because only that can
be permanently retained which corresponds to the purloiner’s stage of
mythological ideation. The faint recollections of preceding narratives
would hardly suffice for the re-figuration of the same material,
without the persistent presence of the underlying motives; but
precisely for this reason, such motives may produce new contents, which
agree in their fundamental motives, also in the absence of similar
associations. (Völker-Psychologie, II Vol., 3 Part, 1909).
Leaving aside for the present the enquiry as to the mode of
distribution of these myths, the origin of the hero myth in general
is now to be investigated, fully anticipating that migration,
or borrowing, will prove to be directly and fairly positively
demonstrable, in a number of the cases. When this is not feasible,
other view points will have to be conceded, at least for the present,
rather than barricade the way to further progress by the somewhat
unscientific attitude of Winckler,[10] who says: When human beings and
products, exactly corresponding to each other, are found at remote
parts of the earth, we must conclude that they have wandered thither;
whether we have knowledge of the how or when makes no difference in
the assumption of the fact itself. Even granting the migration of
all myths, the provenance of the first myth would still have to be
explained.[11]
Investigations along these lines will necessarily help to provide a
deeper insight into the contents of the myths. Nearly all authors who
have hitherto been engaged upon the interpretation of the myths of
the birth of heroes find therein a personification of the processes
of nature, following the dominant mode of natural mythological
interpretation. The new born hero is the young sun rising from the
waters, first confronted by lowering clouds, but finally triumphing
over all obstacles [Brodbeck, Zoroaster, Leipzig, 1893, p. 138].
The taking of all natural, chiefly the atmospheric phenomena into
consideration, as was done by the first representatives of this method
of myth interpretation;[12] or the regarding of the myths in a more
restricted sense, as astral myths [Stucken, Winckler and others]—is
not so essentially distinct, as the followers of each individual
direction believe to be the case. Nor does it seem to be an essential
progress when the purely solar interpretation as advocated especially
by Frobenius[13] was no longer accepted and the view was held that
all myths were originally lunar myths, as done by G. Hüsing, in his
“Contributions to the Kyros Myth” [Berlin, 1906], following out the
suggestion of Siecke, who [1908][14] claims this view as the only
legitimate obvious interpretation also for the birth myths of the
heroes, and it is beginning to gain popularity.[15]
The interpretation of the myths themselves will be taken up in
detail later on, and all detailed critical comments on the above
mode of explanation are here refrained from. Although significant,
and undoubtedly in part correct, the astral theory is not altogether
satisfactory and fails to afford an insight into the motives of myth
formation. The objection may be raised that the tracing to astronomical
processes does not fully represent the content of these myths, and that
much clearer and simpler relations might be established through another
mode of interpretation. The much abused theory of elementary thoughts
indicates a practically neglected aspect of mythological research. At
the beginning as well as at the end of his contribution, Bauer points
out how much more natural and probable it would be to seek the reason
for the general unanimity of these myths in very general traits of
the human psyche, than in a primary community or in migration. This
assumption appears to be more justifiable as such general movements of
the human mind are also expressed in still other forms, and in other
domains, where they can be demonstrated as unanimous.
Concerning the character of these general movements of the human mind,
the psychological study of the essential contents of these myths might
help to reveal the source from which has uniformly flowed at all times,
and in all places, an identical content of the myths. Such a derivation
of an essential constituent, from a common human source, has already
been successfully attempted with one of these legendary motives. Freud,
in his “Dream Interpretation,”[16] reveals the connection of the Œdipus
fable [where Œdipus is told by the oracle that he will kill his father
and marry his mother, as he unwittingly does later on] with the two
typical dreams of the father’s death, and of sexual intercourse with
the mother, dreams which are dreamed by many now living. Of King Œdipus
he says that “his fate stirs us only because it might have been our
own fate; because the oracle has cursed us prior to our birth, as it
did him. All of us, perhaps, were doomed to direct the first sexual
emotion towards the mother, the first hatred and aggressive desire
against the father; our dreams convince us of this truth. King Œdipus,
who has murdered his father Laios, and married his mother Iokaste, is
merely the wish fulfilment of our childhood.”[17] The manifestation
of the intimate relation between dream and myth,—not only in regard
to the contents, but also as to the form and motor forces of this and
many other, more particularly pathological psyche structures,—entirely
justifies the interpretation of the myth as a dream of the masses of
the people, which I have recently shown elsewhere (“Der Künstler,”
1907). At the same time, the transference of the method, and in part
also of the results, of Freud’s technique of dream interpretation
to the myths would seem to be justifiable, as was defended and
illustrated in an example, by Abraham, in his paper on “Dreams and
Myths” [1909].[18] The intimate relations between dream and myth find
further confirmation in the following circle of myths, with frequent
opportunity for reasoning from analogy.
The hostile attitude of the most modern mythological tendency [chiefly
represented by the Society for Comparative Mythological Research]
against all attempts at establishing a relation between dream and
myth[19] is for the most part the outcome of the restriction of the
parallelization to the so-called nightmares [Alpträume], as attempted
in Laistner’s notable book, “The Riddle of the Sphinx,” 1889, and
also of ignorance of the relevant teachings of Freud. The latter
help us not only to understand the dreams themselves, but also show
their symbolism and close relationship with all psychic phenomena in
general, especially with the day dreams or phantasies, with artistic
creativeness, and with certain disturbances of the normal psychic
function. A common share in all these productions belongs to a single
psychic function, the human imagination. It is to this imaginative
faculty—of humanity at large rather than individual—that the modern
myth theory is obliged to concede a high rank, perhaps the first, for
the ultimate origin of all myths. The interpretation of the myths in
the astral sense, or more accurately speaking as “almanac tales,”
gives rise to the query, according to Lessmann,—in view of a creative
imagination of humanity,—if the first germ for the origin of such
tales is to be sought precisely in the processes in the heavens;[20]
or if, on the contrary, readymade tales of an entirely different
[but presumably psychic] origin were only subsequently transferred
to the heavenly bodies. Ehrenreich (General Mythology, 1910, p. 104)
makes a more positive admission: The mythologic evolution certainly
begins on a terrestrian soil, in so far as experiences must first be
gathered in the immediate surroundings before they can be projected
into the heavenly universe. And Wundt tells us (loc. cit., p. 282)
that the theory of the evolution of mythology according to which it
first originates in the heavens whence at a later period it descends
to earth, is not only contradictory to the history of the myth,
which is unaware of such a migration, but is likewise contradictory
to the psychology of myth-formation which must repudiate this
translocation as internally impossible. We are also convinced that the
myths,[21] originally at least, are structures of the human faculty
of imagination, which at some time were projected for certain reasons
upon the heavens,[22] and may be secondarily transferred to the
heavenly bodies, with their enigmatical phenomena. The significance of
the unmistakeable traces which this transference has imprinted upon
the myths, as the fixed figures, and so forth, must by no means be
underrated, although the origin of these figures was possibly psychic
in character, and they were subsequently made the basis of the almanac
and firmament calculations, precisely on account of this significance.
In a general way it would seem as if those investigators who make use
of an exclusively natural mythological mode of interpretation, in any
sense, were unable, in their endeavor to discover the original sense
of the mythical tales, to get entirely away from a psychological
process, such as must be assumed likewise for the creators of the
myths.[23] The motive is identical, and led to the same course in the
myth creators as well as in the myth interpretorsIt is most naïvely
uttered by one of the founders and champions of comparative myth
investigation, and of the natural mythological mode of interpretation,
for Max Müller points out in his “Essays” [1869][20] that this
procedure not only invests meaningless legends with a significance and
beauty of their own, but it helps to remove some of the most revolting
features of classical mythology, and to elucidate their true meaning.
This revolt, the reason for which is readily understood, naturally
prevents the mythologist from assuming that such motives as incest
with the mother, sister or daughter; murder of father, grandfather
or brother could be based upon universal phantasies, which according
to Freud’s teachings have their source in the infantile psyche, with
its peculiar interpretation of the external world and its denizens.
This revolt is therefore only the reaction of the dimly sensed painful
recognition of the actuality of these relations; and this reaction
impels the interpreters of the myths, for their own subconscious
rehabilitation, and that of all mankind, to credit these motives
with an entirely different meaning from their original significance.
The same internal repudiation prevents the myth-creating people from
believing in the possibility of such revolting thoughts, and this
defence probably was the first reason for the projecting of these
relations to the firmament. The psychological pacifying through such
a rehabilitation, by projection upon external and remote objects, can
still be realized, up to a certain degree, by a glance at one of these
interpretations, for instance that of the objectionable Œdipus fable,
as given by a representative of the natural mythological mode of
interpretation. Œdipus, who kills his father, marries his mother, and
dies old and blind, is the solar hero who murders his procreator, the
darkness; shares his couch with the mother, the gloaming, from whose
lap, the dawn, he has been born, and dies blinded, as the setting sun
[Goldziher, 1876].[24]
It is intelligible that a similar interpretation is more soothing
to the mind than the revelation of the fact that incest and murder
impulses against the nearest relatives are found in the phantasies of
most people, as remnants of the infantile ideation. But this is not
a scientific argument, and revolt of this kind, although it may not
always be equally conscious, is altogether out of place, in view of
existing facts. One must either become reconciled to these indecencies,
provided they are felt to be such, or one must abandon the study of
psychological phenomena. It is evident that human beings, even in the
earliest times, and with a most naïve imagination, never saw incest and
parricide in the firmament on high,[25] but it is far more probable
that these ideas are derived from another source, presumably human.
In what way they came to reach the sky, and what modifications or
additions they received in the process, are questions of a secondary
character, which cannot be settled until the psychic origin of the
myths in general has been established.
At any rate, besides the astral conception, the claims of the part
played by the psychic life must be credited with the same rights for
myth formation, and this plea will be amply vindicated by the results
of our method of interpretation. With this object we shall first take
up the legendary material on which such a psychological interpretation
is to be attempted for the first time on a large scale; selecting from
the mass[26] of these chiefly biographical hero myths those which are
the best known, and some which are especially characteristic. These
myths will be given in abbreviated form as far as relevant for this
investigation, with statements concerning the provenance. Attention
will be called to the most important, constantly recurrent motives by a
difference in print.
SARGON
Probably the oldest transmitted hero myth in our possession is derived
from the period of the foundation of Babylon (about 2800 B.C.),
and concerns the birth history of its founder, Sargon the First.
The literal translation of the report—which according to the mode
of rendering appears to be an original inscription by King Sargon
himself—is as follows:[27]
“Sargon, the mighty king, King of Agade, am I. _My mother was a
vestal, my father I knew not_, while my father’s brother dwelt in the
mountains. In my city Azupirani, which is situated on the bank of the
Euphrates, my mother, the vestal, bore me. _In a hidden place she
brought me forth. She laid me in a vessel made of reeds_, closed my
door with pitch, and _dropped me down into the river_, which did not
drown me. The river carried me to Akki, the water carrier. Akki the
water carrier lifted me up in the kindness of his heart, Akki the water
carrier raised me as his own son, Akki the water carrier made of me his
gardener. In my work as a gardener I was beloved by Istar, I became the
king, and for 45 years I held kingly sway.”
MOSES
The biblical birth history of Moses, which is told in Exodus, chapter
2, presents the greatest similarity to the Sargon legend, even an
almost literal correspondence of individual traits.[28] Already the
first chapter (22) relates that Pharaoh commanded his people to throw
into the water all sons which were born to Hebrews, while the daughters
were permitted to live; the reason for this order being referred to
the overfertility of the Israelites. The second chapter continues as
follows:
“And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter
of Levi[29]. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw
him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she
could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and
daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she
laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. And his sister stood afar
off to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came
down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the
river’s side and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her
maid to fetch it. And when she opened it, she saw the child, and behold
the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, this is one
of the Hebrews’ children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter,
Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may
nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And
the maid went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter
said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will
give thee wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the
child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became
her son. And she called his name Moses:[30] and she said, Because I
drew him out of the water.”
This account is ornamented by Rabbi mythology through an account of
the events preceding Moses’ birth. In the sixtieth year after Joseph’s
death, the reigning Pharaoh saw in his dream an old man, who held a
pair of scales, all the inhabitants of Egypt lay on one side, with
only a sucking lamb on the other, but nevertheless this outweighed all
the Egyptians. The startled king at once consulted the wise men and
astrologers, who declared the dream to mean that a son would be born to
the Israelites, who would destroy all Egypt. The king was frightened,
and at once ordered the death of all newborn children of the Israelites
in the entire country. On account of this tyrannical order, the Levite
Amram, who lived in Goshen, meant to separate from his wife Jocabed, so
as not to foredoom to certain death the children conceived from him.
But this resolution was opposed later on by his daughter Miriam, who
foretold with prophetic assurance that precisely the child suggested
in the king’s dream would come forth from her mother’s womb, and would
become the liberator of his people.[31]
Amram therefore rejoined his wife, from whom he had been separated for
three years. At the end of three months, she conceived, and later
on bore a boy at whose birth the entire house was illuminated by an
extraordinary luminous radiance, suggesting the truth of the prophecy.
(After Bergel, “Mythology of the Hebrews,” Leipzig, 1882.)
Similar accounts are given of the birth of the ancestor of the Hebrew
nation, Abraham. He was a son of Therach—Nimrod’s captain—and Amtelai.
Prior to his birth, it was revealed to King Nimrod, from the stars,
that the coming child would overthrow the thrones of powerful princes,
and take possession of their lands. King Nimrod means to have the child
killed immediately after its birth. But when the boy is requested from
Therach, he says: Truly a son was born to me, but he has died. He then
delivers a strange child, concealing his own son in a cave underneath
the ground, where God permits him to suck milk from a finger of the
right hand. In this cave, Abraham is said to have remained until the
third (according to others the tenth) year of his life. (Compare Beer,
“The Life of Abraham,” according to the interpretation of Jewish
traditions, Leipzig, 1859, and Aug. Wünsche, “From Israel’s Temples of
Learning,” Leipzig, 1907.) Also in the next generation, in the story
of _Isaac_, appear the same mythical motives. Prior to his birth King
Abimelech is warned by a _dream_ not to touch Sarah, as this would
cause woe to betide him. After a long period of barrenness, she finally
bears her son, who (in later life, in this report) after having been
destined to be _sacrificed by his own father_ (foster-father) Abraham,
is ultimately _rescued_ by God. But Abraham casts out his own son
Ishmael, with Hagar, the boy’s mother (Genesis 20, 6. See also Bergel,
loc. cit.).
KARNA
A close relationship with the Sargon legend is also shown in certain
features of the ancient Hindu epic[32] Mahâbháràta, of the birth of the
hero Karna. The contents of the legend are briefly rendered by Lassen
(“Indische Altertumskunde,” I, p. 63).[33]
The princess Pritha, also known as Kunti, bore as a virgin the boy
Karna, whose father was the sun god Surya. The young Karna was born
with the golden ear ornaments of his father and with an unbreakable
coat of mail. The mother in her distress concealed and exposed the
boy. In the adaptation of the myth by A. Holtzmann,[34] verse 1458
reads: “Then my nurse and I made a large basket of rushes, placed a lid
thereon, and lined it with wax; into this basket I laid the boy and
carried him down to the river Acva.” Floating on the waves, the basket
reaches the river Ganga and travels as far as the city of Campa. “There
was passing along the bank of the river, the charioteer, the noble
friend of Dhrtarastra, and with him was Radha, his beautiful and pious
spouse. She was wrapt in deep sorrow, because no son had been given to
her. On the river she saw the basket, which the waves carried close to
her on the shore; she showed it to Azirath, who went and drew it forth
from the waves.” The two take care of the boy and raise him as their
own child.
Kunti later on marries King Pandu, who is forced to refrain from
conjugal intercourse by the curse that he is to die in the arms of his
spouse. But Kunti bears three sons, again through divine conception,
one of the children being born in the cave of a wolf. One day Pandu
dies in the embrace of his second wife. The sons grow up, and at a
tournament which they arrange, Karna appears to measure his strength
against the best fighter, Arjuna, the son of Kunti. Arjuna scoffingly
refuses to fight the charioteer’s son. In order to make him a worthy
opponent, one of those present anoints him as king. Meanwhile Kunti
has recognized Karna as her son, by the divine mark, and prays him to
desist from the contest with his brother, revealing to him the secret
of his birth. But he considers her revelation as a fantastic tale, and
insists implacably upon satisfaction. He falls in the combat, struck by
Arjuna’s arrow. (Compare the detailed account in Lefmann’s “History of
Ancient India,” Berlin, 1890, p. 181, et seq.)
A striking resemblance of the entire structure with the Karna legend is
presented by the birth history of Ion, the ancestor of the Ionians, of
whom a relatively late tradition states the following:[35]
Apollo, in the grotto of the rock of the Athenian Acropolis, procreated
a son with Kreusa, the daughter of Erechtheus. In this grotto the
boy was also born, and exposed; the mother leaves the child behind
in a woven basket, in the hope that Apollo will not leave his son to
perish. On Apollo’s request, Hermes carries the child the same night to
Delphi, where the priestess finds him on the threshold of the temple
in the morning. She brings the boy up, and when he has grown into a
youth makes him a servant of the temple. Erechtheus later on gave his
daughter Kreusa in marriage to the immigrated Xuthos. As the marriage
long remained childless, they addressed the Delphian oracle, praying to
be blessed with progeny. The god reveals to Xuthos that the first to
meet him on leaving the sanctuary is his son. He hastens outside and
meets the youth, whom he joyfully greets as his own son, giving him
the name Ion, which means “Walker.” Kreusa refuses to accept the youth
as her son; her attempt to poison him fails, and the infuriated people
turn against her. Ion is about to attack her, but Apollo, who did
not wish the son to kill his own mother, enlightened the mind of the
priestess so that she understood the connection. By means of the basket
in which the newborn child had lain, Kreusa recognizes him as her son,
and reveals to him the secret of his birth.
ŒDIPUS
The parents of Œdipus, King Laios and his queen, Jocaste, lived for a
long time in childless wedlock. Laios, who is longing for an heir, asks
the Delphic Apollo for advice. The oracle answers that he may have a
son if he so desires; but fate has ordained that his own son will kill
him. Fearing the fulfilment of the oracle, Laios refrains from conjugal
relations, but being intoxicated one day, he nevertheless procreates a
son, whom he causes to be exposed in the river Kithairon, barely three
days after his birth. In order to be quite sure that the child will
perish, Laios orders his ankles to be pierced. According to the account
of Sophocles, which is not the oldest, however, the shepherd who has
been intrusted with the exposure, surrenders the boy to a shepherd of
King Polybos, of Corinth, at whose court he is brought up, according
to the universal statement. Others say that the boy was exposed in a
box on the sea, and was taken from the water by Periböa, the wife of
King Polybos, as she was rinsing her clothes by the shore.[36] Polybos
brought him up as his own son.
Œdipus, on hearing accidentally that he is a foundling, asks the
Delphian oracle for his own parents, but receives the prophecy that
he will kill his father and marry his mother. In the belief that this
prophecy refers to his foster parents, he flees from Corinth to Thebes,
but on the way unwittingly kills his father Laios. By solving a riddle,
he frees the City from the plague of the Sphinx, a man-devouring
monster, and in reward is given the hand of Jocaste, his mother, as
well as the throne of his father. The revelation of these horrors,
and the subsequent misfortune of Œdipus, were a favorite subject for
spectacular display among the Greek tragedians.
An entire series of Christian legends have been elaborated on the
pattern of the Œdipus myth,[37] and the summarized contents of the
Judas legend may serve as a paradigm of this group. Before his birth,
his mother Cyboread, is warned by a dream that she will bear a wicked
son, to the ruin of all his people. The parents expose the boy in a box
on the sea. The waves cast the child ashore on the Isle of Scariot,
where the childless queen finds him, and brings him up as her son.
Later on, the royal couple have a son of their own, and the foundling,
who feels himself slighted, kills his foster brother. As a fugitive
from the country, he takes service at the court of Pilate, who made
a confidant of him and placed him above his entire household. In a
fight, Judas kills a neighbor, without knowing that he is his father.
The widow of the murdered man, namely his own mother, then becomes his
wife. After the revelation of these horrors, he repents and seeks the
Saviour, who receives him among his apostles. His betrayal of Jesus is
known from the Gospel.
The legend of St. Gregory on the Stone—the subject of the narrative of
Hartmann von Aue—represents a more complicated type of this mythical
cycle. Gregory, the child of the incestuous union of royal lovers,
is exposed by his mother in a box on the sea, saved and raised by
fishermen, and is then educated in a convent for the church. But he
prefers the life of a knight, is victorious in combats, and in reward
is given the hand of the princess, his mother. After the discovery of
the incest, Gregory does penance for seventeen years, on a rock in the
midst of the sea, and he is finally made the Pope, at the command of
God. (Compare Cholevicas, “History of German Poetry, According to the
Antique Elements.”)
A very similar legend is the Iranese legend of King Dârâb, told by
King Firdusi in the Book of Kings, and rendered by Spiegel (Eranische
Altertumskunde, II, 584). The last Kirânian Behmen nominated as his
successor his daughter and simultaneous wife Humâi; so that his son
Sâsân was grieved and withdrew into solitude. A short time after the
death of her husband, Humâi gave birth to a son, whom she resolved to
expose. He was placed in a box, which was put into the Euphrates, and
drifted down stream, until it was held up by a stone, which had been
placed in the water by a tanner. The box with the child was found by
him, and he carried the boy to his wife, who had recently lost her own
child. The couple agreed to raise the foundling, and as the boy grew
up, he soon became so strong that the other children were unable to
resist him. He did not care for the work of his father, but learned to
be a warrior. His foster mother was forced by him to reveal the secret
of his origin, and he joined the army which Humâi was then sending out
to fight the king of Rûm. Her attention being called to him by his
bravery, Humâi readily recognized him as her son, and named him her
successor.
PARIS
Apollodorus relates of the birth of Paris: King Priamos had with
his wife Hekabe a son, named Hektor. When Hekabe was about to bear
another child, _she dreamed_ that she brought forth a burning log of
wood, which set fire to the entire city. Priamos asked the advice of
Aisakos, who was his son with his first wife Arisbe, and an expert in
the interpretation of dreams. Aisakos declared that the child would
bring trouble upon the city, and advised that it be exposed. Priamos
gave the little boy to a slave, who carried him to the top of Mount
Ida; this man’s name was Agelaos. _The child was nursed during five
days by a she-bear._ When Agelaos found that he was still alive, he
picked him up, and carried him home to raise him. He named the boy
Paris; but after the child had grown into a strong and handsome youth,
he was called Alexandros, because he fought the robbers and protected
the flocks. Before long he discovered his parents. How this came about
is told by Hyginus, according to whose report the infant is _found by
shepherds_. One day messengers, sent by Priamos, come to these herders
to fetch a bull which is to serve as the prize for the victor in the
combats arranged in commemoration of Paris. They selected a bull which
Paris valued so highly that he followed the men who led the beast away,
assisted in the combats, and won the prize. This aroused the anger
of his brother Deiphobos, who threatened him with his sword, but his
sister Kassandra recognized him as her brother, and Priamos joyfully
received him as his son. The misfortune which Paris later on brought
to his family and his native city, through the abduction of Helena,
is well known from Homer’s poems, as well as their predecessors and
successors, their _prologue_ and _epilogue_.
A certain resemblance with the story of the birth of Paris is presented
by the poem of Zal, in Firdusi’s Persian hero-myths (translated by
Schack). The first son is born to Sam, king of Sistan, by one of
his consorts. Because he had white hair, _his mother concealed the
birth_. But the nurse reveals the birth of his son to the king. Sam
is disappointed, and commands that the child be exposed. The servants
carry it on the top of Mount Alburs, where it is raised by the Somurgh,
a powerful bird. The full grown youth is seen by a travelling caravan,
whose members speak of him “as whose nurse a bird is sufficient.” King
Sam once _sees his son in a dream_, and sallies forth to seek the
exposed child. He is unable to reach the summit of the elevated rock
where he finally espies the youth. But the Somurgh bears his son down
to him, he receives him joyfully and nominates him as his successor.
TELEPHOS
Aleos, King of Tegea, was informed by the _oracle_ that his sons would
perish through a descendant of his daughter. He therefore made his
daughter Auge a priestess of the goddess Athene, and threatened her
with death should she mate with a man. But when Herakles dwelt as a
guest in the sanctuary of Athene, on his expedition against Augias, he
saw the maiden, and when intoxicated he raped her. When Aleos became
aware of her pregnancy, he delivered her to Nauplios, a rough sailor,
with the command to throw her into the sea. But on the way she gave
birth to Telephos, on Mount Parthenios, and Nauplios, unmindful of the
orders he had received, carried both her and the child to Mysia, where
he delivered them to King Teuthras.
According to another version, Auge secretly brought forth as a
priestess, but kept the child hidden in the temple. When Aleos
discovered the sacrilege, he caused the child to be exposed in the
Parthenian mountains,[38] Nauplios was instructed to sell the mother in
foreign lands, or to kill her. She was delivered by him into the hands
of Teuthras.
According to the current tradition, _Auge exposes the newborn child_
and escapes to Mysia, where the childless King Teuthras adopts her as
his daughter. The boy, however, is nursed by a doe, and is found by
shepherds who take him to King Korythos. The king brings him up as his
son. When Telephos has grown into a youth he betakes himself to Mysia,
on the advice of the oracle, to seek his mother. He frees Teuthras,
who is in danger from his enemies, and in reward receives the hand of
the supposed daughter of the king, namely his own mother Auge. But
she refuses to submit to Telephos, and when he in his ire is about
to pierce the disobedient one with his sword, she calls on her lover
Herakles in her distress, and Telephos thus recognizes his mother.
After the death of Teuthras he becomes king of Mysia.
PERSEUS
Akrisios, the king of Argos, had already reached an advanced age
without having male progeny. As he desired a son, he consulted the
Delphian oracle, but this warned him against male descendants, and
informed him that his daughter Danae would bear a son through whose
hand he would perish. In order to prevent this, his daughter was locked
up by him in an iron chamber, which he caused to be carefully guarded.
But Zeus penetrated through the roof, in the guise of a golden rain,
and Danae became the mother of a boy.[39] One day Akrisios heard the
voice of young Perseus in his daughter’s room, and in this way learned
that she had given birth to a child. _He killed the nurse_, but carried
his daughter with her son to the domestic altar of Zeus, to have an
oath taken on the true father’s name. But he refuses to believe his
daughter’s statement that Zeus is the father, and _he encloses her with
the child in a box,[40] which is cast into the sea_. The box is carried
by the waves to the coast of Seriphos, where _Diktys, a fisherman_,
usually called a brother of King Polydektes, _saves mother and child
by drawing them out of the sea with his nets_. Diktys leads the two
into his house and keeps them as his relations. Polydektes, however,
becomes enamoured of the beautiful mother, and _as Perseus was in his
way, he tried to remove him_ by sending him forth to fetch the head
of the Gorgon Medusa. But against the king’s anticipations Perseus
accomplishes this difficult task, and a number of heroic deeds besides.
In throwing the discos, at play, he accidentally kills his grandfather,
as foretold by the oracle. He becomes the king of Argos, then of
Tiryath, and the builder of Mykene.[41]
GILGAMOS
Aelian, who lived about 200 A.D, relates in his “Animal Stories” the
history of _a boy who was saved by an eagle_.[42]
“Animals have a characteristic fondness for man. An eagle is known to
have nourished a child. I shall tell the entire story, in proof of my
assertion. When Senechoros reigned over the Babylonians, the Chaldean
fortune-tellers foretold that the son of the king’s daughter would
take the kingdom from his grandfather; this verdict was a prophecy of
the Chaldeans. The king was afraid of this prophecy, and humorously
speaking, he became a second Akrisius for his daughter, over whom
he watched with the greatest severity. But his daughter, fate being
wiser than the Babylonian, conceived secretly from an inconspicuous
man. For fear of the king, the guardians threw the child down from the
Akropolis, where the royal daughter was imprisoned. The eagle, with his
keen eyes, saw the boy’s fall, and before the child struck the earth,
he caught it on his back, bore it into a garden, and set it down with
great care. When the overseer of the place saw the beautiful boy he was
pleased with him and raised him. The boy received the name Gilgamos,
and became the king of Babylonia. If anyone regards this as a fable,
I have nothing to say, although I have investigated the matter to the
best of my ability. Also from Achaemenes, the Persian, from whom the
nobility of the Persians is derived, I learn that he was the pupil of
an eagle.”[43]
KYROS
The myth of Kyros, which the majority of investigators place in the
center of this entire mythical circle, without entirely sufficient
grounds, it would appear—has been transmitted to us in several
versions. According to the report of Herodotus (about 450 B.C.), who
states (I, 95) that among four renderings known to him, he selected the
least “glorifying” version, the story of the birth and youth of Kyros
is as follows, I, 107 et seq.[44].
Royal sway over the Medes was held, after Kyaxares, by his son
Astyages, who had a daughter named Mandane. Once he saw, in a dream,
so much water passing from her as to fill an entire city, and inundate
all Asia. He related his dream to the dream interpreters among the
magicians, and was in great fear after they had explained it all to
him. When Mandane had grown up, he gave her in marriage, not to a
Mede, his equal in birth, but to a Persian, by name of Kambyses. This
man came of a good family and led a quiet life. The King considered
him of lower rank than a middle class Mede. After Mandane had become
the wife of Kambyses, Astyages saw another dream vision in the first
year. He dreamed that a vine grew from his daughter’s lap, and this
vine overshadowed all Asia. After he had again related this vision to
the dream interpreters, he sent for his daughter, who was with child,
and after her arrival from Persia, he watched her, because he meant
to kill her offspring. For the dream interpreters among the magicians
had prophesied to him that his daughter’s son would become king in his
place. In order to avert this fate, he waited until Kyros was born, and
then sent for Harpagos, who was his relative and his greatest confidant
among the Medes, and whom he had placed over all his affairs. Him he
addressed as follows: “My dear Harpagos, I shall charge thee with an
errand which thou must conscientiously perform. But do not deceive me,
and let no other man attend to it, for all might not go well with thee.
Take this boy, whom Mandane has brought forth, carry him home, and
kill him. Afterwards thou canst bury him, how and in whatsoever manner
thou desirest.” But Harpagos made answer: “Great King, never hast thou
found thy servant disobedient, and also in future I shall beware not to
sin before thee. If such is thy will, it behooves me to carry it out
faithfully.” When Harpagos had thus spoken, and the little boy with all
his ornaments had been delivered into his hands, for death, he went
home weeping. On his arrival he told his wife all that Astyages had
said to him. But she inquired, “What art thou about to do?” He made
reply: “I shall not obey Astyages, even if he raved and stormed ten
times worse than he is doing. I shall not do as he wills, and consent
to such a murder. I have a number of reasons: in the first place, the
boy is my blood relative; then, Astyages is old, and he has no male
heir. Should he die, and the kingdom go to his daughter, whose son he
bids me kill at present, would I not run the greatest danger? But the
boy must die, for the sake of my safety. However, one of Astyages’ men
is to be his murderer, not one of mine.”
Having thus spoken, he at once despatched a messenger to one of the
king’s cattle herders, by name Mithradates, who, as he happened to
know, was keeping his herd in a very suitable mountain pasturage, full
of wild animals. The herder’s wife was also a slave of Astyages’, by
name Kyno in Greek, or Spako (a bitch) in the Medean language. When the
herder hurriedly arrived, on the command of Harpagos, the latter said
to him: “Astyages bids thee take this boy and expose him in the wildest
mountains, that he may perish as promptly as may be, and the King has
ordered me to say to thee: If thou doest not kill the boy, but let him
live, in whatever way, thou art to die a most disgraceful death. And
I am charged to see to it that the boy is really exposed.” When the
herder had listened to this, he took the boy, went home, and arrived
in his cottage. His wife was with child, and was in labor the entire
day, and it happened that she was just bringing forth, when the herder
had gone to the city. They were greatly worried about each other. But
when he had returned and the woman saw him again so unexpectedly, she
asked in the first place why Harpagos had sent for him so hurriedly.
But he said: “My dear wife, would that I had never seen what I have
seen and heard in the city, and what has happened to our masters. The
house of Harpagos was full of cries and laments. This startled me, but
I entered, and soon after I had entered, I saw a small boy lying before
me, who struggled and cried and was dressed in fine garments and gold.
When Harpagos saw me, he bid me quickly take the boy, and expose him in
the wildest spot of the mountains. He said Astyages had ordered this,
and added awful threats if I failed to do so. I took the child and went
away with it, thinking that it belonged to one of the servants, for it
did not occur to me whence it had come. But on the way, I learned the
entire story from the servant who led me from the city, and placed the
boy in my hands. He is the son of Mandane, daughter of Astyages, and
Kambyses the son of Kyros; and Astyages has ordered his death. Behold,
here is the boy.”