The Myth of the Birth of the Hero: A psychological interpretation of mythology by Otto Rank - HTML preview

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A short and fairly complete review of the general theories of mythology and its principal advocates is to be found in Wundt’s “Völkerpsychologie,” Vol. II, Myths and Religion. Part I [Leipzig, 1905], p. 527.

[2] “Das Beständige in den Menschenrassen und die Spielweise ihrer Veränderlichkeit.” Berlin, 1868.

[3] “Die Kyros Sage und Verwandtes,” Sitzb. Wien. Akad., 100, 1882, p. 495.

[4] Schubert. Herodots Darstellung der Cyrussage, Breslau, 1890.

[5] Compare E. Stucken, “Astral mythen,” Leipzig, 1896-1907, especially Part V, “Moses.” H. Lessmann, “Die Kyrossage in Europe,” Wiss. beit. z. Jahresbericht d. städt. Realschule zu Charlottenburg, 1906.

[6] “Naturgeschichte d. Sage.” Tracing all religious ideals, legends, and systems back to their common family tree, and their primary root, 2 volumes, Munich 1864-65.

[7] Some of the important writings of Winckler will be mentioned in the course of this article.

[8] Zeitschrift f. d. Oesterr. Gym., 1891, p. 161, etc. Schubert’s reply is also found here, p. 594, etc.

[9] Lessmann, “Object and Aim of Mythological Research,” Mythol. Bibliot., 1, Heft 4, Leipzig.

[10] Winckler, “Die babylonische Geisteskultur in ihren Beziehungen zur Kulturentwicklung der Menschheit,” Wissenschaft u. Bildung, Vol. 15, 1907, p. 47.

[11] Of course no time will be wasted on the futile question as to what this first legend may have been; for in all probability this never had existence, any more than a “first human couple.”

[12] As an especially discouraging example of this mode of procedure may be mentioned a contribution by the well-known natural mythologist Schwartz, which touches upon this circle of myths, and is entitled: “Der Ursprung der Stamm und Gründungssage Roms unter dem Reflex indogermanischer Mythen” [Jena, 1898].

[13] Frobenius, Das Zeitalter des Sonnengotten, Berlin, 1904.

[14] Siecke, “Hermes als Mondgott,” Myth. Bibl., Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 48.

[15] Compare for example, Paul Koch, “Sagen der Bibel und ihre Ubereinstimmung mit der Mythologie der Indogermanen,” Berlin, 1907. Compare also the partly lunar, partly solar, but at any rate entirely one sided conception of the hero myth, in Gustav Friedrich’s “Grundlage, Entstehung und genaue Einzeldeutung der bekanntesten germanischen Märchen, Mythen und Sagen” [Leipzig, 1909], p. 118.

[16] Translated by Dr. A. A. Brill. Macmillan Co.

[17] The fable of Shakespeare’s Hamlet also permits of a similar interpretation, according to Freud. It will be seen later on how mythological investigators bring the Hamlet legend from entirely different view points into the correlation of the mythical circle.

[18] In JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE, 1912. Also collected in this Monograph Series, No. 15.

[19] Compare Lessmann (Mythol. Bibl., I, 4). Ehrenreich alone (loc. cit., p. 149) admits the extraordinary significance of dream-life for the myth-fiction of all times. Wundt does so likewise, for individual mythical motives.

[20] Stucken [Mose, p. 432] says in this sense. The myth transmitted by the ancestors was transferred to natural processes and interpreted in a naturalistic way, not vice versa. “Interpretation of nature is a motive in itself” [p. 633, annotation]. In a very similar way, we read in Meyer’s History of Antiquity, Vol. V, p. 48: In many cases, the natural symbolism, sought in the myths, is only apparently present or has been secondarily introduced, as often in the Vedda and in the Egyptian myths; it is a primary attempt at interpretation, like the myth-interpretations which arose among the Greeks since the fifth century.

[21] For fairy tales, in this as well as in other essential features, Thimme advocates the same point of view as is here claimed for the myths. Compare Adolf Thimme, “Das Märchen,” 2d volume of the Handbücher zur Volkskunde, Leipzig, 1909.

[22] Volume II of the German translation, Leipzig, 1869, p. 143.

[23] Of this myth-interpretation, Wundt has well said that it really should have accompanied the original myth-formation. (Loc. cit., p. 352.)

[24] See Ignaz Goldziher, “Der Mythus bei den Hebräern und seine geschichtliche Entwickelung” [Leipzig, 1876], p. 125. According to the writings of Siecke [“Hermes als Mondgott,” Leipzig, 1908, p. 39], the incest myths lose all unusual features through being referred to the moon, and its relation to the sun. The explanation being quite simple: the daughter, the new moon, is the repetition of the mother [the old moon], with her the father [the sun] [also the brother, the son] becomes reunited.

[25] Is it to be believed? In an article entitled “Urreligion der Indogermanen” [Berlin, 1897], where Siecke points out that the incest myths are descriptive narrations of the seen but inconceivable process of nature, he objects to a statement of Oldenburg [“Religion der Veda,” p. 5] who assumes a primeval tendency of myths to the incest motive, with the remark that in the days of yore the motive was thrust upon the narrator, without an inclination of his own, through the forcefulness of the witnessed facts.

[26] The great variability and wide distribution of the birth myths of the hero results from the above quoted writings of Bauer, Schubert and others, while their comprehensive contents and fine ramifications were especially discussed by Husing, Lessmann, and the other representatives of the modern direction.

Innumerable fairy tales, stories, and poems of all times, up to the most recent dramatic and novelistic literature, show very distinct individual main motives of this myth. The exposure-romance is known to appear in the following literary productions: The late Greek pastorals, as told in Heliodor’s “Aethiopika,” in Eustathius’ “Ismenias and Ismene,” and in the Story of the two exposed children, Daphnis and Chloe. The more recent Italian pastorals are likewise very frequently based upon the exposure of children, who are raised as shepherds by their foster-parents, but are later recognized by the true parents, through identifying marks which they received at the time of their exposure. To the same set belong the family history in Grimmelshausen’s “Limplizissimus” (1665), in Jean Paul’s “Titan” (1800), as well as certain forms of the Robinson stories and Cavalier romances (compare Würzbach’s Introduction to the Edition of “Don Quichote” in Hesse’s edition).

[27] The various translations of the partly mutilated text differ only in unessential details. Compare Hommel’s “History of Babylonia and Assyria” (Berlin, 1885), p. 302, where the sources of the tradition are likewise found, and A. Jeremias, “The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient Orient,” II edition, Leipzig, 1906, p. 410.

[28] On account of these resemblances, a dependence of the Exodus tale from the Sargon legend has often been assumed, but apparently not enough attention has been paid to certain fundamental distinctions, which will be taken up in detail in the interpretation.

[29] The parents of Moses were originally nameless, as were all persons in this, the oldest account. Their names were only conferred upon them by the priesthood. Chapter 6, 20, says: “And Amram took him Jocabed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses” [and their sister Miriam, IV, 26, 59]. Also compare Winckler, “History of Israel,” II, and Jeremias, l. c., p. 408.

[30] The name, according to Winckler (“Babylonian Mental Culture,” p. 119), means “The Water-Drawer” (see also Winckler, “Ancient Oriental Studies,” III, 468, etc.), which would still further approach the Moses legend to the Sargon legend, for the name Akki signifies I have drawn water.

[31] Schemot Rabba, fol. 2, 4. Concerning 2, Moses 1, 22, says that Pharaoh was told by the astrologers of a woman who was pregnant with the Redeemer of Israel.

[32] The Hindu birth legend of the mythical king Vikramâdita must also be mentioned in this connection. Here again occur the barren marriage of the parents, the miraculous conception, ill-omened warnings, the exposure of the boy in the forest, his nourishment with honey, finally the acknowledgment by the father. (See Jülg, “Mongolian Fairy Tales,” Innsbruck, 1868, p. 73, et seq.)

[33] “Hindu Legends,” Karlsruhe, 1846, Part II, pp. 117 to 127.

[34] “Hindu Legends,” l. c.

[35] See Röscher, concerning the Ion of Euripides. Where no other source is stated, all Greek and Roman myths are taken from the Extensive Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology, edited by Röscher, which also contains a list of all sources.

[36] According to Bethe, “Thebanische Heldenlieder,” the exposure on the waters was the original rendering. According to other versions, the boy is found and raised by horse herds; according to a later myth, by a countryman, Melibios.

[37] The entire material has been discussed by Rank in Das Inzest-Motiv in Dichtung und Sage, 1912, Chapter X.

[38] I. In the version of Euripides, whose tragedies “Auge” and “Telephos” are extant, Aleos caused the mother and the child to be thrown into the sea in a box, but through the protection of Athene this box was carried to the end of the Mysian River, Kaikos. There it was found by Teuthras. who made Auge his wife and took her child into his house as his foster son.

[39] Later authors, including Pindar, state that Danae was impregnated, not by Zeus, but by the brother of her father.

[40] Simonides of Keos (fr. 37, ed. Bergk), speaks of a casement strong as ore, in which Danae is said to have been exposed. (Geibel, Klassisches Liederbuch, page 52.)

[41] According to Hüsing, the Perseus myth in several versions is also demonstrable in Japan. Compare also, Sydney Hartland, Legend of Perseus, 1894-96; 3 volumes. London.

[42] Claudius Aelianus, “Historia animalium,” XII, 21, translated by Fr. Jacobs (Stuttgart, 1841).

[43] It was also told of Ptolemaös, the son of Lagos and Arsinoë, that an eagle protected the exposed boy with his wings against the sunshine, the rain and birds of prey (loc. cit.).

[44] F. E. Lange, “Herodot’s Geschichten” (Reclam). Compare also Duncker’s “History of Antiquity” (Leipsig, 1880), N. 5, page 256 et sequitur.

[45] The same “playing king” is found in the Hindoo myth of Candragupta, the founder of the Maurja dynasty, whom his mother exposed after his birth, in a vessel at the gate of a cowshed, where a herder found him and raised him. Later on he came to a hunter, where he as cow-herder played “king” with the other boys, and as king ordered that the hands and feet of the great criminals be chopped off. [The mutilation motive occurs also in the Kyros saga, and is generally widely distributed.] At his command, the separated limbs returned to their proper position. Kanakja, who once looked on as they were at play, admired the boy, and bought him from the hunter for one thousand Kârshâpana; at home he discovered that the boy was a Maurja. (After Lassen’s Indische Altertumskunde, II, 196, Annotation 1.)

[46] Justinus, “Extract from Pompeius Trogus’ Philippian History,” I, 4-7. As far as results from Justinus’ extract, Deinon’s Persian tales (written in the first half of the fourth century before Christ) are presumably the sources of Trogus’ narrative.

[47] The words in parenthesis are said to be lacking in certain manuscripts.

[48] Nicol. Damasc. Frag. 66, Ctes.; Frag. Pers., 2, 5.

[49] This daughter’s name is Amytis (not Mandane) in the version of Ktesias.

[50] On the basis of this motive of simulated dementia and certain other corresponding features Jiriczek (“Hamlet in Iran,” in the Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, Vol. X, 1900, p. 353) has represented the Hamlet Saga as a variation of the Iranese myth of Kaikhosrav. This idea was followed up by H. Lessmann (“Die Kyrossage in Europa”), who shows that the Hamlet saga strikingly agrees in certain items, for example, in the simulated folly, with the sagas of Brutus and of Tell. (Compare also the protestations of Moses.) In another connection, the deeper roots of these relations have been more extensively discussed, especially with reference to the Tell saga. (See: Das Inzest-Motiv in Dichtung und Sage, Chapter VIII.) Attention is also directed to the story of David, as it is told in the books of Samuel. Here again, the royal scion, David, is made a shepherd, who gradually rises in the social scale up to the royal throne. He likewise is given the king’s (Saul’s) daughter in marriage, and the king seeks his life, but David is always saved by miraculous means from the greatest perils. He also evades persecution by simulating dementia and playing the fool. The relationship between the Hamlet saga and the David saga has already been pointed out by Jiriczek and Lessmann. The biblical character of this entire mythical cycle is also emphasized by Jiriczek, who finds in the tale of Siâvaksh’s death certain features from the Passion of the Savior.

[51] The name Zohâk is a mutilation of the original Zend expression Ashi-dahaka [Azis-dahaka], meaning pernicious serpent. (See “The Myth of Feridun in India and Iran,” by Dr. R. Roth, in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, II, p. 216.) To the Iranese Feridum corresponds the Hindoo Trita, whose Avestian double is Thraetaona. The last named form is the most predominantly authenticated; from it was formed, by transition of the aspirated sounds, first Phreduna, then Frêdûn or Afrêdun; Feridun is a more recent corruption. Compare F. Spiegel’s “Eranische Altertumskunde,” I, p. 537 et seq.

[52] Compare Immermann, “Tristan und Isolde, Ein Gedicht in Romanzen,” Düsseldorf, 1841. Like the epic of Gottfried of Strassburg, his poem begins with the preliminary history of the loves of Tristan’s parents, King Riwalin Kannlengres of Parmenia and Marke’s beautiful sister Blancheflur. The maiden never reveals her love, which is not sanctioned by her brother, but she visits the king, who is wounded unto death, in his chamber, and dying he procreates Tristan, “the son of the most daring and doleful love.” Grown up as a foundling in the care of Rual and his wife, Florete, the winsome youth Tristan introduces himself to Marke in a stag hunt, as an expert huntsman, is recognized as his nephew by a ring, the king’s gift to his beloved sister, and becomes his favorite.

[53] See translation by W. A. White, M.D.., Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. I, No. 1, et seq.

[54] Compare the substitution of the bride, through Brangäne.

[55] Mommsen, Th., “Die echte und die falsche Acca Larentia”; in Festgaben für G. Homeyer (Berlin, 1891), p. 93, et seq.; and Römische Forschungen (Berlin, 1879), II, p. 1, et seq. Mommsen reconstructs the lost narrative of Fabius from the preserved reports of Dionysius (I, 79-831, and of Plutarch (Romulus)).

[56] The Capitoline She Wolf is considered as the work of very ancient Etruscan artists, which was erected at the Lupercal, in the year 296 B.C., according to Livy (X, 231). Compare picture on title page.

[57] All these renderings were compiled by Schwegler, in his Roman History, I, p. 384, et seq.

[58] Some Greek twin sagas are quoted by Schubert (loc. cit., p. 13, et seq.) in their essential content. Concerning the extensive distribution of this legendary form, compare the somewhat confused book of J. H. Becker, “The Twin Saga as the Key to the Interpretation of Ancient Tradition. With a Table of the Twin Saga.” Leipsic, 1891. German text.

[59] Mommsen, “Die Remus Legende,” Hermes, 1881.

[60] After Preller, Greek Mythology (Leipzig, 1854, II, pp. 120 et seq.).

[61] The same transformation of the divine procreator into the form of the human father is found in the birth history of the Egyptian queen, Hatshepset (about 1500 before Christ), who believes that the god Amen cohabited with her mother, Aahames, in the form of her father, Thothmes the First (see Budge: A History of Egypt, V; Books on Egypt and Chaldea, Vol. XII, p. 21, etc.). Later on she married her brother, Thothmes II, presumably the Pharaoh of Exodus, after whose dishonorable death she endeavored to eradicate his memory, and herself assumed the rulership, in masculine fashion (cp. the Deuteronium, edited by Schrader, II ed., 1902).

[62] A similar mingling of the divine and human posterity is related in the myth of Theseus, whose mother Aithra, the beloved of Poseidon, was visited in one night by this god, and by the childless King Aigeus of Athens, who had been brought under the influence of wine. The boy was raised in secret, and in ignorance of his father (v. Roscher’s dictionary, article Aigeus).

[63] Alkmene bore Herakles as the son of Zeus, and Iphikles as the offspring of Amphitryon. According to Apollodorus, 2, 4, 8, they were twin children, born at the same time; according to others Iphikles was conceived and born one night later than Herakles (see Roscher’s Lexicon, Amphitryon and Alkmene). The shadowy character of the twin brother, and his loose connection with the entire myth, is again evident. In a similar way, Telephos, the son of Auge, was exposed together with Parthenopaüs, the son of Atalantis, nursed by a doe, and taken by herders to King Korythos. The external subsequent insertion of the partner is here again quite obvious.

[64] For the formal demonstration of the entire identity of the birth and early history of Jesus with the other hero-myths, the author has presumed to re-arrange the corresponding paragraphs from the different versions, in the Gospels, irrespective of the traditional sequence and the originality of the individual parts. The age, origin and genuineness of these parts are briefly summarized and discussed in W. Soltan’s Birth History of Jesus Christ (German text), Leipsic, 1902. The transmitted versions of the several Gospels,—which according to Usener (Birth and Childhood of Christ, 1903, in Lectures and Essays (German text), Leipsic, 1907), contradict and even exclude each other,—have been placed, or left, in juxtaposition, precisely for the reason that the apparently contradictory elements in these birth myths are to be elucidated in the present research, no matter if these contradictions be encountered within a single uniform saga, or in its different versions (as, for example, in the Kyros myth).

[65] Concerning the birth of Jesus in a cave, and the furnishing of the birth place with the typical animals (ox and ass) compare Jeremias, Babylonisches im Neuen Testament (Leipzig, 1905), p. 56, and Preuschen, Jesu Geburt in einer Höhle, Zeitschrift für die Neutest. Wissenschaften, 1902, P. 359.

[66] According to recent investigations, the birth history of Christ is said to have the greatest resemblance with the royal Egyptian myth, over five thousand years old, which relates the birth of Amenophis III. Here again recurs the divine prophecy of the birth of a son, to the waiting queen; her fertilization by the breath of heavenly fire; the divine cows, which nurse the new born child; the homage of the kings, and so forth. In this connection, compare A. Malvert, Wissenschaft und Religion, Frankfort, 1904, pp. 49 et seq, also the suggestion of Professor Idleib in Bonn (Feuilleton of Frankfurter Zeitung, November 8, 1908).

[67] Very similar traits are found in the Keltic saga of Habis, as transmitted by Justin (44,4). Born as the illegitimate son of a king’s daughter, Habis is persecuted in all sorts of ways by his royal grandfather, Gargoris, but is always saved by divine providence, until he is finally recognized by his grandfather, and assumes royal sway. As in the Zarathustra legend, there occurs an entire series of the most varied methods of persecution. He is at first exposed, but nursed by wild animals; then he was to be trampled upon by a herd in a narrow path; then he was cast before hungry beasts, but they again nursed him, and finally he is thrown into the sea, but is gently lapped ashore and nursed by a doe, near which he grows up.

[68] Compare August Rassmann: Die deutsche Heldensage und ihre Heimat, Hanover, 1857-8, Vol. II, pp. 7 et seq; for the sources, see Jiriczek, Die deutsche Heldensage (collection Göschen) and Piper’s introduction to the volume: Die Nibelungen, in Kürschner’s German National Literature.

[69] Compare: Deutsches Heldenbuch, Part III, Vol. I (Berlin, 1871), edited by Amelung and Jaenicke, which also contains the second version (B) of the Wolfdietrich saga.

[70] The motive of calumniation of the wife by a rejected suitor, in combination with the exposure and nursing by an animal (doe), forms the nucleus of the story of Genovefa and her son Schmerzenreich, as told, for example, by the Grimm brothers, in their German Sagas, II, Berlin, 1818, pp. 280 et seq. Here, again, the faithless calumniator proposes to drown the countess with her child in the water. For literary and historical orientation, compare L. Zacher, Die Historic von der Pfalzgräfin Genovefa, Koenigsberg, 1860, and B. Seuffert, Die Legende von der Pfalzgräfin Genovefa, Würzburg, 1877. Similar sagas of wives suspected of infidelity and punished by exposure are discussed in the XI chapter of my investigation of “Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage” (The Incest Motive in Fiction and Legends).

[71] The same accentuation of the animal motive is found in the saga of Schalû, the Hindoo wolf child; compare Jülg, Mongolische Märchen (Mongolian fairy tales; Innsbruck, 1868).

[72] The Grimm Brothers, in their German Sagas (part II, p. 206, etc.), quote six further versions of the saga of the Knight with the Swan. Certain fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers, such as “The Six Swans” (No. 49), “The Twelve Brothers” (No. 9), and the “Seven Ravens” (No. 25), with their parallels and variations, mentioned in the 3d volume of the “Kinder-und Hausmärchen,” also belong to the same mythological cycle. Further material from this cycle may be found in Leo’s “Beowulf,” and in Görre’s “Introduction to Lohengrin” (Heidelberg, 1813).

[73] The ancient Longobard tale of the exposure of King Lamissio, related by Paulus Diaconus (L, 15), gives a similar incident. A public woman had thrown her seven newborn infants into a fish pond. King Agelmund passed by, and looked curiously at the children, turning them around with his spear. But when one of the children took hold of the spear, the king considered this as of good augury; he ordered this boy to be taken out of the pond, and to be given to a wet nurse. As he had taken him from the pond, which in his language is called “lama,” he named the boy Lamissio. He grew up into a stalwart champion, and after Agelmund’s death, became king of the Longobards.

[74] Scaf is the high German “Schaffing” (barrel), which leads Leo to assume, in connection with Scild’s being called Scefing, that he had no father Sceaf or Schaf at all, but was himself the boy cast ashore by the waves, who was named the “son of the barrel” (Schaffing). The name Beowulf itself, explained by Grimm as Bienen-wolf (bee-wolf), seems to mean originally (according to Wolzogen) Bärwelf, namely Jungbär (bear cub or whelp), which is suggestive of the saga of the origin of the Guelphs (Ursprung der Welfen, Grimm, II, 233), where the